2018 Great Lakes Trip – Florida
Photo link:
Sunday,
April 29th – Friday, May 25th
Alafia
River State Park, Lithia, Florida
Our first stop
was at one of our favorite State Parks with amazing mountain biking and a great
campground. This park is located near Lithia, Florida, just 10 miles southeast
of Tampa. Alafia River SP has some of the best mountain bike trails in the
state, which are built on a naturally reclaimed phosphate mine, with radical
elevation changes. After the mining was completed, the land was donated to the
state by the mining company decades ago. The trails are highly rated by the
International Mountain Biking Association (IMBA) and draws mountain bikers from
around the world. We also love the campground with natural, spacious sites. The
land within the park is dotted with small lakes and creeks, thus allowing for
all types of wildlife. We have even seen alligators on the trails! We spent six
days there, mostly riding the trails. We took the dogs on a couple of hikes,
which they just love. While there, we were visited by some longtime friends
from Kansas. Rusty and Debbie were staying in Tampa on a job and were able to
take a day off work and come over for some special time reconnecting. As
always, we truly enjoyed our time there with terrific weather.
Santos
Campground State Park, Belleview, Florida
This is another of our favorite parks in Florida, located
just south of Ocala. We love the trail system here, with mountain biking for
all skill levels. The trails are mostly in the forest, with great elevation
changes and technical challenges. This park is where we really learned to
mountain bike. These trails lie within the Marjorie Harris Carr Cross Florida
Greenway, which traverses the whole state, east-west. This land was set aside
for recreational use for the people. Recently, a paved trail was completed for
road bikers. There are 80+ miles of trails that are maintained by the Ocala
Mountain Bikers Association (OMBA), which includes trails for all skill levels.
This is a place that I particularly love, as it has allowed me to improve all
my riding skills. I’m proud to say that I have ridden all the trails, except
for the black and red trails. They are so much fun and provide such great
exercise. The Florida Trail also traverses through this park, which allows us
to hike there with our dogs. A few miles away is another mountain bike trail
system at park Balm Boyette. These trails are more technical, which Kurt loves
to ride. We stayed here for six days and again enjoyed our time on the trails.
Coe
Landing County Campground, Tallahassee Florida
As we traveled west across the state, we stopped near
Tallahassee at a county campground that is on Lake Talquin. We had never been here
before and were pleasantly surprised at the nice campground and the lake front
sites. We spent three nights there, just relaxing, driving around to check out
the area. Kurt did get his kayak in the water to fish and hang out with the
gators! It was a nice stopover along our way.
Blackwater
River State Park, Milton, Florida
Our last stop in Florida was Blackwater River SP. We have
stayed here twice before and just love the campground, the river, hiking trails
and biking nearby. We were only able to get four nights reserved, so it was a
brief stop. While there we were able to ride the mountain biking trails nearby,
Red Rock Trails. These are simply fun trail riding, nothing technical. We also
took the dogs down to the river to run and play on the sandbars. Again, we
enjoyed our time there.
On to Alabama!
