Florida Caverns State Park – Fifth Location
Thursday, March 21
We arrived at the park in the early afternoon, the two hour drive was easy and mostly on I-10. The park is near the small town of Marianna. We were following the GPS directions and it did not give a certain voice command to merge onto a major highway, thus sending us right through the town of Marianna and what I would say was not the best area of town. We were going through a residential area and most of the folks were staring at our rig, probably wondering what the hell these people were doing in their neighborhood. It was a little unsettling. Anyway, using my Google GPS, we were able to maneuver our way back to the proper main road, whew! The State Park is in a beautiful location north of town and is huge! We checked in with the ranger and headed for the campground. After getting our rig parked and setup, we spoke with the camp host, whose motorhome is directly across from us. We noticed the abundance of mosquitoes, fortunately we had bug spray. The host explained the bugs were worse than normal due to the fact that two weeks ago, this whole campground had been evacuated and was flooded with 4 feet of water! Wow, it would have been nice to know that ahead of time, what if we were to arrive on one of the flood days? Well, that makes us realize that we should check the park’s web page or call the ranger prior to arrival to see if there are any alerts. I have already done that for our next location at Suwannee River S.P. It looks like they also had some of the bad weather, but maybe not so much flooding. Note to RV’rs: check out your next location before going there!
Anyway, we setup everything as usual, while continuing to apply bug spray. Kurt setup the charcoal grill (by the way, thanks so much to Tom & Diana for the little Weber grill, we love it). We grilled awesome burgers and had a nice dinner. After dinner, we just stayed inside for the evening since the bugs were so bad.
Friday, March 22
After breakfast, Kurt called the local canoe outfitter to find out about shuttle services. The local river, the Chipola, was okay for kayaking and they could run a shuttle for us. At this point, the weather was not good, still cloudy and chilly. I decided that I didn’t want to kayak this time, I would rather stay back at the RV and get some housekeeping done. We drove down to the put in location and also the take out, so we would be familiar with the sites. We went back to the campground and got all his gear for the paddle. I then shuttled Kurt to the put in boat ramp and he headed down the river. The dogs and I went back to the RV. I took the boys outside and put them on their wire leads so they could relax while I cleaned the RV. I was able to do some laundry, as the park has a washer and dryer, and also got some general cleaning done. After about three hours, Kurt called to let me know he was almost at the take out. I then completed my chores and loaded up the dogs to go get Dad. We met him at the take out and he had a nice paddle down the river.
We stopped to get diesel fuel at a local market in Marianna, “McCoys”. We were surprised when we found the store as what we would call a “get it all here” store. They sold gas, diesel, kerosene, beer, snacks, guns, ammo, hunting and fishing supplies, horse feed, dog food, hay and God knows what else. It was Friday evening and the place was packed. The beer was cheap and the line was long. We headed back to the campground to start our own Happy Hour.
After dinner, Kurt started a big campfire, as he had found wood around the park that was not too wet. We sat by the fire with the dogs, until they wanted to go to bed. We let them in and we stayed by the fire until it was almost out. We were tired and decided to get our showers and head to bed. After Kurt got his shower, I then took my shower. A few minutes later, we were watching TV when we heard a loud noise from our bathroom that sounded like ice falling. I opened the bath door and found a pile of glass on the shower and bath floor. The shower door has shattered into a million pieces! We were both shocked and couldn’t figure out what the hell happened! It took us quite awhile to clean up the glass and make sure there was no more on the floors. We used our shop vac, broom and dust pan to clean it all up. We were almost speechless, what happened? There must have been some flaw or crack for the glass to shatter like that. Another fix for Camping World to take care of! After that we headed to bed for some rest.
Saturday, March 23
Since the weather today was really sucking, some rain during the day and thunderstorms for the evening, we decided this was the day to take the Caverns Tour here in the park. Kurt went to the ranger station in the morning and purchased the tickets. The tour was guided and lasted about 45 minutes. We went on the noon tour, with about 15 other people. The ranger lead the tour and we went through the seven “rooms” of the cave, each one having different formations of stalactites and stalagmites. It was amazing and we truly enjoyed the tour. We took some awesome pictures and learned the history of the caverns, how they were discovered and excavated by the Civilian Conservation Corps, part of the Roosevelt “New Deal”. There was also a golf course built on the property by the CCC. The park is nice, but not one of our favorites. The last two parks we stayed at would be what we call Premier state parks. Part of the issue here is that the recent flooding left so many mosquitoes and the ground was muddy.
After the cave tour, we started to hike some trails around the cave area, but the mosquitoes were so bad and unbearable, we headed back to the RV and had some lunch. Late in the afternoon, Kurt built a campfire and we stayed by the fire until it began to rain. The light rains started and we decided just to hole up in the trailer and relax. We had recorded some movies on our DVR, so we watched the movie, Hoffa, starring Jack Nicholson. It was an excellent movie which we enjoyed. We fixed a simple dinner and hung out for the rest of the evening. Later in the evening, the storms got worse, with lightning and thunder and the thunderstorms continued most of the night.
Sunday, March 24
We slept in a little later, as it was still raining lightly. By mid-morning, the sun was coming out and getting warmer. We decided to take the dogs for a hike on part of the Florida Trail, which runs along the Chipola River. We drove down to a preserve area where the trail passed through. We hiked for about 2.5 miles, but had to turn back as parts of the flooded river had backed up into low areas. The boys were getting hot and tired, as the temps had got into the mid 80’s. We decided to go back to the State Park and hike some trails around there. The trails around the cave area were really beautiful, except the mosquitoes were still present. We persisted and covered a couple of miles. The dogs were really worn out by then, so we went back to the trailer for some lunch and relaxation.
Kurt decided to go for a bike ride around the park and I needed to take care of some housekeeping. The mosquitoes were still really bad, so I was glad to stay in the trailer. The dogs took naps while I cleaned. Kurt returned from biking with some more firewood. I decided to take my shower at the camp bath house, since it was very clean and our shower door was broken. I just wanted to have the comfort of larger shower and no stray glass. We had some leftovers dinner and then sat around the campfire for awhile. We also began stowing away some things for our departure the next day. We are heading next to Suwannee River State Park, near Live Oak Florida.
