Hello Florida!

We left Orange Beach for Tallahassee, Fl on February 22.  When we arrived at our RV park in Tallahassee they only had us staying one night instead of 5.  We called the RV park at our next stop in St. Augustine to see if we could arrive a few days early, but they had no vacancies.  We finally found a KOA park in the Ocala National Forest on Lake Oklawaha.  The website said there were hiking and ATV trails in the forest so we thought we'd have plenty to keep us from being bored.  When we arrived on the 23rd the KOA was pretty quiet with lots of open sites.  Turns out weekend off road ATV riding is a big pastime there.  There are many sandy, muddy trails in the forest for people to ride on.  By Friday evening the KOA was nearly full.  People transported the ATVs on trailers they towed behind their RVs.  Quiet time was from 10 pm to 8 am and at 8 am you could hear people starting and revving up their ATVs and off they went for the day!

Narrow road to KOA

Our neighbor's ATVs

On Friday we decided to check out a hiking trail.  The road to the trail cut through the forest and it started out paved but then turned into a sandy BUMPY road.  We finally turned onto a paved state road and continued to the trail.

Oh-oh! Off-roading!

John said this was a lightly used trail.  Almost to the trail we saw a sign on the highway.  BEARS next 50 miles. 

The trail looked inviting

The thought of running into a bear scared me so much that my heart was pounding and I wanted to cry.  The trailhead was very pretty but I couldn't muster the courage to walk on the trail.  When we were in Orange Beach the local news ran a story about a man in the Florida panhandle who encountered a bear in his yard.  He escaped uninjured but his dog was mauled to death.  If we are ever in bear country again I want to have some bear spray with me so I can at least feel like I have some protection. On Saturday we decided to walk around the campground and started to walk on their hiking path when we happened upon a large animal footprint with claws(?).  It was not a dog print but I was afraid it was a bear print (wouldn't bears want to hang around campgrounds for food?) so we turned around.  John later showed me a picture of a bear print and it did not look like the one we saw. What do you think made this print?

Lots of driftwood in the lake

View of Lake Oklawaha from campground

One thing I learned from our stay at Lake Oklawaha is that I prefer to be near civilization.  I want to be able to run out to the store or out to eat.  The KOA was about 40 minutes from the nearest civilization.

There was a small little populated area called Tobacco Patch but it was just a bump in the road. 

  We left for St. Augustine, Fl on Sunday, February 26 for a 6 day stay in America's oldest continuously occupied city.  We look forward to exploring this historic city.