Camping in the backyard

Remember when you were a kid. You got your tent and camped out in the backyard. That was essentially what we did this weekend. Silver River State Park is about 1/2 mile as the crow flies from my house. I have been there countless times on my bike to ride the trails or paddle up the Silver River to Silver Springs.   Here's the link to the park ; it's quite a place.



Over the last four years I've been riding through the campground of the park. Occasionally I'd find an Airstream, most of the time not. I always said to myself that one day I'd bring my Airstream here and camp for the night. At $24.00 a night we decided to forego a meal out and use the money for a night's rent. We cooked up some sausage, peppers and onions and just had a quiet afternoon and evening.

The whole country is experiencing snow or cold weather except for here where it's 72 degrees in the afternoon and in the 50s at night. I follow a blog called "chasing 72 degrees" and we've made that our plan for the future. This time we didn't have to chase at all. It found us.

Rodman Dam

We took our first trip this weekend for one night to Rodman Dam Campground.  It's part of the Florida Greenway and Cross Florida Barge Canal project the was on again and off again since the 1930's.  The original plan was to dig a canal through Florida from east to west to save transit time.  The project was only partially done then stopped.  The canal portion still exist today but only a small part.  For the entire story, and it's an interesting one, go here.   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross_Florida_Barge_Canal

The campground is extremely nice, laid back and clean.  We wanted no excitment, just a day to relax and also to get LuLu out and about to learn the ropes.  Baby steps.  If we don't break anything the trip is a success.  By road trip standards it was a small trip, 40 miles up and 40 miles back but huge for our confidence.  We still have a long way to go and aren't getting cocky but we feel much more comfortable after this trip.

We met a nice retired couple, Lance and Maria, very experienced RV'ers from whom we learned so much as well as getting to know them a little bit.  They left to go back to Cocoa Beach and we soon headed back to Ocala.  It was everything we wanted, peace and quiet.  Actually not much more to report than that but that was the plan.