Hillsborough River SP FL

I will try an catch up the last few days.
Sunday the 16th we spent time riding around Stephen Foster and into the town of White Springs. It is a quite interesting town. The town library is in an old gas station. The style that had a portico.

On Monday the 17th we left Stephen Foster to travel to Hillsborough River State Park. We arrived a little after 1 PM and were checked in. There were about 5 other campers waiting to checkin after us.

We drove to our assigned site, 57, and as we stopped to assess how best to get backed in the lady in the car following us demanded that we move over on the one way narrow road so they could pass us. I just couldn't find the thruster switch that would allow us to move the truck and camper sideways just for them. They were not happy. To bad for them. Take a pill.

After we got mostly backed in we found that we could not position the camper so we could use it. If we were far enough away from the services that we could open the slide the steps were over the fire pit. That wouldn't work. So we pulled out and went back to the ranger station to see if we could get another site. That only took about an hour because they had to verify the vacant site with Reserve America, the computer locked up, and they are on a dial up connection. What fun.

Now we are pointed out of the park with no place to turn around. So we head South on US301 and follow the trusty GPS to lead us on an around the block trip. Well arn't GPS's great? It sent us down a paved road for 1.5 miles then right on an ever narrowing dirt/sand/gravel road for about another 1.5 miles. Then right on another dirt/sand/gravel road for another 1.5 or so miles. I could just see us getting to the end and not having a clear path to US301. But we made it ok. I figure that was just to get us in the mood for a western trip and blm lands. Sure glad we have the fox with 16" wheels and under slung axles.

Back at the ranger station the ranger said "... you sure took the long way..." anyway we got to our new site, 71, which is paved, wide and deep. Nice site.

We called our friends in Zypherhills and were invited for dinner. That was really welcome after taking over 2 hours to just get parked and set up. On our way to our friends house we stopped at Wal-Mart Murphy for some of their $3.85 diesel.

We had a good dinner of corned beef and cabbage and a very nice visit.

Tuesday we did some biking and paddled on the Hillsborough river. Very nice and the weather was fantastic. We spent some time talking with some Vermonters, Ray and Patty, from Bolton. They are also good friends of some folks that were neighbors of ours when we lived in Vermont. We had a nice visit with them.

We returned to Zypherhills to do a little shopping and have dinner with our friends again. Another good meal. We had a good visit and helped them determine added memory needs so they could move one of their computers to Vista. They also wanted to get away from AOL so I helped get them set up with Thunderbird and Firefox and their Verizon DSL.

Home late.

Wednesday 19'th.
We had a lite breakfast today and went back to town to get meat and a couple of items we forgot on the trip yesterday. We also took some pictures of the park which I will post later, most likely on Picasa web.

A snack lunch an off for a 1.5 or so mile paddle down stream. We saw about 5 alligators and quite a number of turtles. We reached the park boundary and made our turn to head back to our launching point. We had a good paddle.
Now off to the pool for a little swim and relax in the sun. The pool is large but only 2-5' deep so you can't really swim much. After relaxing in the sun we headed back to camp to just chill out for a while.

Dinner and then a 2.5 or so mile bike ride around the park. Then set out and relax some more.