Way behind on trying to post our trips. It’s February and I’ve got to go back to December to start catching up. After last years trip to James Island South Carolina for Thanksgiving and the Christmas lights there, we thought we’d try something closer to home. So we headed up to the junction of I-75 and I-10 for White Springs, Florida and the Stephen Foster Folk Culture Center State Park. Lady CurbCrusher had heard that they light up the park as a drive through Christmas light display.

Before	After

We arrived on Friday afternoon and the first thing we had to do was put a 100 miles on the car. Lady CurbCrusher has a Florida State Park Passport book, and therefore we need to visit all the state parks and get stamps. So after pitching camp, we headed over to Madison Blue Springs State Park. Where we discovered that the State of Florida has sucked all the fun out of the park. We had visited here in 2008 and had a blast jumping into the water and swimming. However, some time in the intervening three and half years, the state has removed the jumping platform. It’s ashame because Madison Blue Springs has always been fondly remembered as one of the great days of fun we had camping, and a place we’d looked forward to going again. Alas, no more. We also stopped by Suwannee River State Park and collected Lady CurbCrusher’s stamp before heading back to Stephen Foster.

Back at Stephen Foster we had a nice dinner, and the headed out to walk around the park. We walked down to the craft village where most of the activities were taking place. There was a funnel cake concession, free popcorn and hot chocolate. Santa was wondering around, and all-in-all a festive Christmas atmosphere was to be found. All the craft houses were decorated, as was most of the park. This included the bell tower and its surrounding area, where they were making it snow every hour. While it was not as large as the James Island light display, it was a large light display, and much more pedestrian friendly that the Charleston park. We spent a good bit of time on both of our nights in the park wandering around the lights.