Turkey Lake Park 2008

Posted on by May 4, 2008
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Well, our first repeat since I started the blog. Back in May of last year we went to Turkey Lake Park. We returned here primarily because it was the monthly trip for the Florida Pop-Up Campers, but it was nice that after making the longer trip to Savannah last month, and having a planned trip to Topsail Hill State Park in May to have a short 16 mile drive to Turkey Lake.

Not a lot new to report about Turkey Lake that was not covered in the original blog entry. There was a regatta going on this trip. A number of the local high school rowing teams, and a couple of clubs were competing for the city championship. This meant that Saturday morning the lake shore was lined with people. We wandered down and watched a couple of races.

Other than watching the regatta, there was not a lot going on. The pool is closed until Memorial Day, and we did wander a couple of the trails. But all in all it was just a relaxing weekend.

Escape from Ft. Desoto

Posted on by April 15, 2008
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Up to now, this blog has pretty much been about RV trips and travel. That will continue to be the main focus, but I’m going to start adding post of a triathlon nature, or at least a post when I run a race. This is the sport where you your swim, then get on a bike and ride for a while, and finally run a bit to round out the day. Just to be up front, I do not run Ironman length or even International distance races, I stick to what is known as sprints, anywhere from a quarter mile to three-quarter mile swim, a ten to twenty mile bike ride and a three to four mile run. The CurbCrusher’s first triathlon was back in 1990 in Tavares, FL. From then until about 1998 I ran about three or four races a year. Following the birth of Little CurbCrusher in 1998, there were a couple of years of one race a year. Basically, after 2000 I retired. Starting in 2006, Lady CurbCrusher noted that CurbCrusher appeared to be a little over his GVWR. So in October of 2006, Team CurbCrusher made an appearance as I struggled through a sprint at Moss Park . I did two more Moss Park tris in 2007, and I finally decided that 2008 would be a full triathlon season. So here we are at the first race of the Team CurbCrusher season, Escape From Ft. Desoto.

Ft. Desoto, located in St. Petersburg, Florida is a great place to camp, and consistently voted one of the best beaches in the nation. Having camped there twice in the last couple of years, it seemed like it would be a great place to run a triathlon, and the Escape From Ft. Desoto race has been around for more than 20 years, so it just seemed like I needed to seek out an entry form. Unfortunately, by the time I signed up for the race, the campground was already full, so it wasn’t possible to combine a motorhome trip with the triathlon. But that didn’t matter, I still got to race.

    Pre-Race

Well, since the CurbCrusher’s didn’t camp the night before the race, it meant an early morning. Until the Saturday before the race, Lady and Little CurbCrusher had planned on sleeping late. Then they thought about how they could turn the post race time into a beach day at North Beach, and plans changed. So the plan was for a 4:00AM wake up and a 4:30AM departure from Orlando, hopefully putting us at the North Beach parking lot by 6:15AM or so. Well, all good plans go awry, so at 4:22AM with neither alarm having sounded, I woke up and looked at the clock. With a loud sounding of reveille, and much rushing about, we departed the CurbCrusher home at 4:42AM, twelve minutes behind schedule. The drive from Orlando to St. Pete was uneventful, and we arrived at the race site around 6:30AM.

Check in was very efficient. Show your USAT card, pick up a green waiver that you have to sign. Get your envelope, go around the corner, get a shirt, swim cap and your on your way. It doesn’t get much better than that.

Transition was more of a zoo. But a well organized one. Get your body marking, walk and find your bike rack. The racks were a little jammed. It would have been nice to have had a bit more room. However as I was leaving there was an official in my bike rack area discussing at least one, maybe two bikes being mis-racked. So maybe there was more room than I thought, just some thoughtless person had their bike racked in my section.

Of course one of the preparations during this point was to put my number on my shirt. Over time Lady CurbCusher has always complained that she can’t find me at races. So I have a new shirt, bright yellow. This is the first shirt I’ve raced in that has no horizontal line across the front. As I will learn later, I am apparently very challenged when it comes to lining up the race number on the shirt without such a line. I pin the number on the shirt with the four pins provided. Grab the goggles and head down to the beach.

    The Swim – 17 Minutes

Well, you walk a half mile down the beach to the swim start. The race is supposed to start at 7:30AM, but it takes a few extra minutes get everyone corralled together. A tribute to Veterans, a moment of silence, and then we all sing the National Anthem. The first wave lines up and the horn blows. It’s about 7:36AM, but that’s good, we’ve started. Inside the ropes, since I’m in the second wave, and wait for three minutes.

The swim is fairly straight forward. You go out from the beach a few yards, turn left at the orange buoy, then swim parallel to the beach past three green buoys, and turn left again at the next orange one and at the end you’ve covered a half a mile in the water. Well it is simple until you are out there with a couple of hundred other guys. You pretty much walk to the first buoy, it would have been nice to have swam starting about half way, because the water was up to your waist at that point, but there were so many people still walking that you couldn’t navigate. Then everyone starts swimming. This means you get to slap some people on the head, and grab some legs, and you get slapped on the head and feel hands climbing up your leg. This goes on for about five minutes. This is usually the part of the race that really freaks out first timers, I know it did me the first time I raced. But usually if you just plug on you get to free space in the ocean and can concentrate on swimming. Not on Saturday. It was fairly crowded the whole half-mile. It wasn’t until after the green buoy three quarters of the way through that there was some swimming room.

    T1 – 6.5 minutes

Out of the water. On the left is Lady CurbCrusher trying to take a picture. The problem is that everyone is wearing black swim suits and has on the same color swim cap. So you have to yell out. I think she got a picture. Now its about a quarter mile run or so to the transition area. Up the beach, through the park and down the long row of bikes to my rack. I reach for my shirt and pull it over my head. I hear a ripping sound. It seems that I’ve put the number on so that it is at about a 45 degree angle from horizontal, and it’s half way under my left arm, instead of in the middle of my chest. Oh well, too late to worry about that. Fortunately the ripping was the number, and not the shirt. Now grab the towel, sit on the ground and put on socks and shoes. Get back up, put on the sunglasses, and then the bike helmet. Grab the bike and run to the bike start and mount.

    Bike – 33 minutes

The bike course is nice. We go all the way to the other side of the island where the road turns around and back. Its about 10 miles round trip. The race organizers have done a great job, they put big, bold markers at every mile. The first two and half miles are into the wind, then you turn so that the wind was mostly at your side, maybe a little in the front quarter. This is good, this means when you turn around and come back there’ll be a tail wind. I split my Gatorade drinking up to about a third after the first two miles, a third halfway through, and then I emptied the bottle at the 8 mile marker. Coming into the T2 I see Little and Lady CurbCrusher again. I holler and she gets a couple of pictures of me getting off the bike.

    T2 – 1.5 minutes

This one is basic. Run through the transition are, put the bike back on the rack, put the helmet on the bike, put the shades in the helmet and run out the back. Slow down (Ok, I’m not really moving fast at this point, but I like to think that I slow down) and get some water from one of the fantastic volunteers and have a drink.

    Run – 40 minutes

I hate running. I really do. They have a version of this sport called Aquabike, where you swim and bike. I really should look into it. But I have a feeling if you tell people you are an aquabiker they think you have some kind of bike you ride in the water, whereas if you say you run triathlons people know what your talking about. Do I really have time to explain this? I should probably stick to tris. This is the kind of thing you have time to think about while your running, because it helps keep you from thinking about the pain. The first half of the run is on the bike path from North Beach to the fort. There is a little shade, the occasional palm tree, but we are headed into the wind, so it doesn’t feel too hot. There are a lot of people passing me (like I said I run slow). I am following a couple of thirty something women (in triathlons you get your age written on your calf as part of body marking) and they are carrying on a conversation about a variety of things. They stop to stretch a bit and I get to pass someone. I’m starting to feel good. I pass the mile mark in about 10:55. This is good, a sub 11 minute mile after swimming and biking is certainly not a bad thing for me. In a 5K road race I can do about a 9:50, so this is only a one minute penatly, I’m starting to feel good.

The two thirty somethings come around me. I tell them how they are damaging my self esteem by going around me after I passed them. They tell me not to worry, they’ll be stopping again soon. We chat a bit about how much we all hate running, and then the fort looms ahead. We run down the side of the fort, then turn and run up 40 stairs. Ok, I walked up the stairs. There is a water station at the top, so I grab a cup of water, and then head down the stairs. The route now turns to the beach, and there is no shade. Even the palm trees (as pitiful shade as they offered) are not present, and now the wind is at your back. So for me that means I all of a sudden realize that I’m sweating since its now in my eyes. Gee, that makes it feel a lot more like work. I pass the thirtysomethings again when they stop to stretch, so I get a little self esteem back. This last until about 2.5 miles when I hear behind be “Hey its the yellow shirt guy, we’re going to pass him again.” Ok, so now my self esteem is gone again, but, hey, I’m headed for the finish line. I pass the three mile marker and realize that I’m at close to 36 minutes for the run. That’s not bad, I’m under 12 minute miles.

Finally in about four minutes the finish line comes into view. There are people watching so I run faster and try not to look tired. One day I’m going to get a good picture out of this. Lady and Little CurbCrusher are there and holler and I look over, another picture.

    Post-Race

So I’m fairly happy, I was shooting for and 1:40 or less and got a 1:37 and change. Ended up 58 out of 61 in my age group and 682 out of 1000 entries. I’m happy. I’m not going to the Olympics anytime soon, but its good enough to get my psyched to go to Ormond Beach the end of May for another sprint.

Like the entire race, the post race food was fantastic. There was all the usual stuff like fruit and Gatorade and water. But there were also hamburgers, hot dogs, chicken, pasta and my favorite, chocolate layer cake. I’d have run another mile for the cake. Any event that servers chocolate cake can’t be bad.

The organizers and volunteers put on a great race. I don’t know if they can be complimented enough. The event was well organized, and it was well run. I don’t think there is much of anything they could have done to make it a better race.

The Lady and Sons (Savannah, GA)

Posted on by April 14, 2008
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Dinner at Paula's Ok. I did promise to talk about the Lady and Sons Restaurant. Perhaps one of the reasons (among others) I will never be elected President, is that I would not have a White House Chef, I’d have a White House Cook. My first choice would probably be Paula Deen, or at least someone from her restaurant in Savannah.
For those who have not seen Paula on the Food Network or elsewhere, her cooking style is what is commonly referred to as “Home Cooking.” And it is done very well. The restaurant is located on Congress Street in Savannah, and there are two ways to get in. If you have more than 10 people (which we did with the Girl Scout Troop and parents), you can call and make a reservation. If you have less than 10 people, you need to line up and get a reservation in person at the restaurant. Lady CurbCrusher and I had done this on a previous trip, lining up around 7:30AM to get seats later in the afternoon for a late lunch, early dinner.
Once you show up at your appointed time, you’ll be shown to a seat one of the three floors in the restaurant. Your choices at this point are to either order from the menu, or go to the buffet. I’ve been twice and not even looked at the menu, I’ve headed for the buffet. Regardless of your choice, you’ll find hoecakes and cornbread delivered to your table, and a drink choice. But is there really any choice other than sweet tea in this environment?
The plate above is the result of the first visit to the buffet. Clockwise from the top, lima beans, black-eyed peas, fried chicken, pot roast, and collard greens. Let me say that it was all good. Especially the pot roast. It pretty much melted in your mouth. I didn’t take a picture of the second buffet trip, but I added some mashed potatoes, more pot roast and more collards to the plate.
The basic fact is that you can’t get a better meal anywhere. The food all taste great and you get to eat your fill (actually more than your fill). While I’m sure the Michelin Guide and the Zagat Survey either ignore or mark down Paula’s place because of it’s lack of “sophistication,” the truth is that you don’t fancy “plating” of food and black tie waiters and wine to have a five star food experience. You just need some friendly waitstaff and really good home cooking.

Skidaway Island State Park (Savannah, GA)

Posted on by April 6, 2008
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Well spring is in the air, and that means it’s time to hit the road for a couple of days. Little CurbCrusher is a Girl Scout, and Lady CurbCrusher is the Girl Scout leader, so that means that at some time we have to make a pilgrimage to Savannah, Georgia, the birthplace of Girl Scouts in the United States. This started out as a troop trip that would have involved the seven girls of Troop 74 and two of their leaders. As plans were made and changed over the past two years, it pretty much turned into a trip that every family ended up coming along on, and the girls just got together a few times for the Girl Scout activities in Savannah. As such, the CurbCrusher clan loaded up the motorhome and headed to Skidaway Island State Park just outside of Savannah to camp.

Skidaway is not only the closest state park with camping to Savannah, it is also a great place to camp. All of the over 80 campsites are pull-thrus. That makes parking easy, and most are big enough that you can maneuver around in your site and place your rig in just the right spot. We ended up with the front window about a foot and a half from a pine tree, but positioned perfectly to use the tent pad as our patio. All the sites have 30 Amp server and water. There are two of the loops that have 50 Amp hook ups also. The only real negative about the campground is that the roads through the loops are single lanes, but they are not one-way. This means that it is possible for two people to come face to face and not be able to pass. Someone will do some backing up unless there are empty campsites to pull off into. There is a single dump station on the larger two lane road that runs between some of the loops. The bath houses are old, but are kept clean, and we noticed during our stay that they seemed to keep the heat on too, even though it was quite comfortable outside.

There is a small museum in the park, along with three hiking trails: Avian Loop, Big Ferry Trail and a third that I can not recall right now. The trails take you out along the marshy/river area that borders the park on the north side. The Big Ferry Trail leads to a location where some liquor stills were located, and a civil war era earthworks, and an observation tower. The other trails simply take you through some marsh and pine woodlands.

It had a been a two years since we’d been to Savannah, and about four since we’d camped at Skidaway. Previously the drive into town from Skidaway had been about a 40 minute trip. Now there is the Truman Expressway that currently ends at GA-204 Spur, which is the road that runs right in front of Skidaway. The other end of the Truman Expressway is an exit to Presidents Street, which pretty much puts you right smack in the middle of downtown Savannah in 20 minutes.

Our trip was driven by the Girl Scouts and Lady CurbCrusher and Little CurbCrusher spent most of one day doing troop oriented things at the birthplace of Juliette Gordon Lowe, the founder of Girl Scouts in the USA. Savannah is a great place to walk around, and there is a lot of history in the city. I’ll write some other post about the stuff we did like the visit to Fort McAllister, eating at the Lady and Sons, and the Pirate House.

One of the places we visited was the Wormsloe Historic Site right near Skidaway. Wormsloe has a one and half mile drive way lined with live oaks. It is pretty impressive, and according to the folks there was the setting for the running scene in Forrest Gump. There is also the remains of an old plantation house made of tabby that goes back to the early days of the Georgia colony. A small museum shows off artifacts and documents related to the life of the family that lived on all the land associated with Wormsloe until the early part of the last century. Some descendants still live on land adjacent to the historic site.

It was a great way to spend four nights. The Savannah area has a lot of things to do, most of them right in downtown Savannah. The great thing is that you can drive to downtown, park, and then walk everywhere. The city is very walkable, with a number of squares that offer great shade, and benches to rest on. If you like shopping, River Street running right along the river has a little bit of everything. My favorite shops being the ones that sell candies and nuts that offer free samples.

Kona Kai Resort (San Diego)

Posted on by June 30, 2016
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So, as I said I like Shelter Island in San Diego. My trip this week was a circle around the US. I started in Orlando, went to Chicago for a meeting on Monday afternoon. This was followed by a flight to San Francisco Monday evening. Meeting Tuesday morning in San Francisco, the on to San Diego. A meeting Wednesday morning in San Diego, then home to Orlando by midnight on Wednesday. I was dreading this trip. I figured something would go wrong. Of course I figured something would go wrong in Chicago. O’Hare has a reputation of flights never being on time, it snows there, it get cold there, and I was going to be there on a Monday. So I figured this trip would go bad on Monday, in the cold, snowy place.

Well, the trip went perfectly until Wednesday morning. When I tried to check in for my flight back to Orlando, there was a “The kiosk can not check you in, see and agent.” message. The agent explained that the flight from San Diego to Atlanta was delayed by over three hours, and that I would miss the connection to Orlando. My options were: 1) Go to Atlanta on the delayed flight and get stuck there until the next morning or 2) Stay in San Diego and fly home first thing Thursday morning. I choose option 2.

Which brings us to the Kona Kai Resort on Shelter Island. This is the hotel that the airline put me up at for the night. It is located on Shelter Island, about three quarters of a mile down from Humphrey’s. This is now my new favorite hotel in San Diego.

The rooms appear to have been updated in the last five years. Mine was large and fresh, decorated in a tropical island kind of theme. This is hotel is built in a arc type shape facing the marina. So rooms on the inside have a view of the marina. There is a big pool on the inside of the arc. It has a round swimming/relaxing area, and two 30 yard lap lanes. So this is a pool that you can really work out in. There is a small beach at one end of the hotel facing the marina that is kept groomed and has chairs. In addition there is a nice looking work out room facing the marina also.

All in all it was a very pleasant way to spend a flight delayed evening, it sure beat a hard chair at Hartsfield.

Red Sails Inn Restaurant (San Diego)

Posted on by March 22, 2008
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Ok, CurbCursher said he’d mention food when is made sense. And it makes sense here. As noted above, I was in San Diego, CA for a night and a day (oops, then it turned into another night). Just as you get onto Shelter Island is a restaurant, the Red Sails Inn Restaurant. I like this place, and list it as one of my favorite places to eat. I’m sure the food critics probably describe this place as a local “Red Lobster,” but it has character, nice folks working there, and it serves good food for fair prices.

The menu is a typical sea food place. There is shrimp, scallops and fish. Since I ended up there two nights in a row I had a broiled Mahi Mahi the first night, and fried shrimp the second night. Both dishes were well prepared, and tasted good. The only complaint I had was the garlic mashed potatoes I had as a side dish on the first night. There weren’t very garlicy. I avoided this mistake on the second night and had the baked potato instead.

As with pretty much anything on Shelter Island, the location is great. If the weather is nice, you can sit outside and enjoy a great view of the marina. If not, you can stay inside and enjoy a great view of the marina. The place has been around since 1957, and seems to have a following with some of the sailors from the marinas nearby. On every trip I think I’ve overheard at least one conversation going on in the bar about sailing techniques and methods. Some of these get quite animated, with the participants trying to show boat, sail, wind, and landmarks with their hands and arms.

All in all a great place to relax, have some seafood and enjoy the view.

Humphrey’s Half Moon Inn and Suites (San Diego)

Posted on by June 30, 2016
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Ok, its not a campground, but this has been one of my favorite places to stay over the past five to eight years. Humphrey’s Half Moon Inn and Suites is located in San Diego on Shelter Island. As I looked around my room I was wondering why. But I think it is one of those location, location, location things.

Shelter Island is a great place. It is located on the north side of San Diego’s bay, and has a public park that runs most of the length of the island. You can walk along the sidewalk the length of the island, look at the moored boats, see the Navy base across the bay, and watch all kinds of shipping pass by going in and out of the bay. It is a very peaceful and relaxing place to be. As a matter of fact, I took an afternoon run before going out to eat. There’s enough stuff to watch that you don’t even realized that your exercising. On the other side of the island there are a number of marinas that hold just about every kind of boat imaginable. Mostly sail boats. I love sitting in my room, or at the restaurant at breakfast and looking out at all the masts and boats. In addition, a short walk back to the mainland gives you a wide variety of eating options.

Humphrey’s itself is located right as you drive onto the island. The rooms decor is a little dated, as a matter of fact, full disclosure probably would require me to say that it is a lot dated. But, as I said the location is excellent. The hotel is built with a courtyard in the middle, and there is a large pool, a hot tub and a putting green located in this space. The area is well landscaped, and gives the feel of a tropical garden. All in all, it makes for a relaxing place to stay.

Silver River State Park

Posted on by March 21, 2008
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Time to go camping! The CurbCrusher’s spent the weekend before St. Patty’s day at Silver River State Park. The park is located just east of Ocala, Florida, a short trip up the Turnpike and I-75 from our home base in Orlando. The state park is very near the “Old Florida” Silver Springs attraction on State Road 35 just south of State Road 40. The worst part about going to this park is driving on SR40 through Ocala from I-75 over to SR 35. There’s a bunch of lights, and a bunch of traffic, so it seems to take as long to get to the east side of Ocala as it does to get from Orlando to the SR 40 exit on I-75. We avoided this on the return trip by taking SR35 South to County Road 464. Then west on CR464 to I-75. It may not have shortened the length of the trip, but it certainly improved the mood of the driver.

This is a great state park campground. It has about 60 sites that are all gravel, with paved roads throughout the park. A good number of the sites are pull-thru, and they are big pull-thru sites (both wide and long). Even the back-in sites are good sized, and the roads are wide enough that you shouldn’t have a problem backing into any of the back-in sites. All the sites have 20 & 30 Amp service and water. The bath houses are fairly new, and in good shape, but are located at the back of the loops as opposed to in the center of each loop. There are fire rings located at the campsites also. One nice feature of the park is that it has two dump stations located on the way out, and they are located so that a line can form and not completely block the exit.

The park is a good sized piece of land, located along what else, the Silver River. There is a canoe launch, but be warned that it is a pretty good distance from the parking lot to the canoe launch point, if you have wheels for your canoe bring them. There are a number of trails in the park that allow walking or biking. CurbCrusher and Lady CurbCrusher got out and biked most of the trails on Saturday. There is also a small museum that covers the archaeological, palentological, and recent history of the area. There is a $2.00 per person admission fee for the museum.

All in all a good weekend. Pictures of the trip are here.

E-One

Posted on by February 28, 2008
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For years the CurbCrusher family has been traveling through Ocala on I-75 and off on the east side of the interstate around Exit 354 there are always a bunch of fire trucks sitting there. The reason is that E-One, a fire truck manufacturer is based on Ocala. So on the way to Paynes Prairie we decided to stop and take the factory tour. E-One offers factory tours Monday – Friday at 0900 and 1100. The tour cost $8.00 per adult and $6.00 for kids, last about an hour and a half, and involves walking around the factory campus located right off I-75. One thing to note is that there is really not any RV parking at the place. We ended up parking the Itasca in the parking lot of a Florida Department of Revenue building (it appeared to be converted from a grocery store, so it had a big empty parking lot) and unhooking the Saturn and driving the mile or two to E-One. There are no pictures, as the E-One web site says “No cameras or cell phones.” As we started the tour, our guide told us that we were welcome to take pictures of anything outside the buildings, but could not use our cameras inside the buildings. Wish I’d known that.

CurbCrusher enjoyed the tour. Lady CurbCrusher and Little CurbCrusher both said it was “OK.” I was amazed that very little of the manufacturing process was automated. There is a lot of manual processes and labor that goes into building the fire engines. E-One produces about 400 engines a year at the Ocala location, and they build them from the ground up. I had figured that fire engines were probably like RVs to some extent, that a chassis was acquired from a manufacturer and then the fire engine built around it. Nope. They bring in the steel beams, a guy with a template and a drill puts some holes in them, then they start welding and building the frame. After they get it together, the move it along and take either a Cummins or Detroit Diesel engine out of a crate, put it together and add it to the frame. Another shop builds cabs and after a while they bring the things together. Another line puts together custom bodies built to the fire department’s specifications. At various points the fire trucks are inspected by representatives from the ordering department.

One of the nice things about the tour is that you are walking on the manufacturing floor. You’re not behind a glass wall, or walking over everything on a catwalk. At one or two points, you need to watch your step to make sure that you don’t trip over some poor guy up under a chassis bolting on parts. In my experience this is unusual, as most manufacturers seem to put some kind of barriers between the tours and the work going on. In addition there are a couple of chances for you to sit in a fire truck if you wish, and of course you get a chance to climb on one too. Overall, there is not a lot to not like about this tour.

Payne’s Prairie Preserve State Park

Posted on by February 28, 2008
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The CurbCrusher gang hit the road this past weekend for a couple of nights in our second home. We headed north out of Orlando, up Florida’s Turnpike and I-75 to Payne’s Prairie State Preserve, located just south of Gainesville near Micanopy. We first visited this park in 2004 in the 5th wheel over Thanksgiving. Little CurbCrusher had a bike accident, and we ended up at the Shands Emergency Room ruining some poor resident’s Thanksgiving dinner. For that reason, Little CurbCrusher has been against visiting this park again, but we finally talked her into it.

This campground has about 50 sites, of which about 15 are tent only. The road through the campground is paved, but the sites are dirt (or in the case of this last Saturday, mud). If you go during a time that is very rainy, you probably should try and stay in the sites on the outside of the loop. It seemed that the sites on the inside of the loop were big puddles after it rained. I think it was site number 1 that had a small 15 – 20 ft trailer on it, and the trailer was in the middle of a lake. I don’t know what time the folks woke up, but if they tried to leave their rig before about 11 AM this last Saturday, they had a short swim. The sites and campground road are wide enough that it’s fairly easy to back into your campsite. 30 amp service and water account for your hookups. There is a single dump station as you exit the camping loop. We didn’t experience any problems, but I imagine if more than one rig is waiting to use the dump station, the campground road will be impassable. The bathhouses were clean and functional, nothing great, but nothing bad either.

The park itself is fairly large. There are a number of trails for walking and they allow bikes also. It is about a mile and a half from the campground to the Visitor’s Center. The Visitor’s Center is located right on the prairie, and has all the anticipated features; bathrooms, some exhibits and a short film. The film gives the history of the prairie from the time it was “discovered” by Colonial Americans in 1774. At one time the prairie’s drainage was clogged and for a number of years it was a big lake, with steamboats crossing it. Then the drainage was restored and it reverted to prairie status, and took on the appearance of today. The animals found on the prairie included buffalo, wild horses and scrub cattle. Today there is a small herd of each that is maintained in the free-range area.

A short walk from the Visitor’s Center is an observation tower that puts you about 40 feet above the prairie. According to the brochure, from the tower you can see bison, wild horses and scrub cattle, along with a large variety of birds. We didn’t see the bison from the tower, although that was Lady CurbCrusher’s goal in making the trip to Payne’s Prairie. We had not seen any bison on our last trip, and she really wanted to see some on this trip. From the tower you can see part of the Cones Dike trail which runs for about four miles into the free-range area. A couple was up on the tower at the same time as the CurbCrusher family. Lady CurbCrusher and the other lady had their binoculars out looking for wildlife. The other lady calls out that she sees something moving out in the prairie and suggests that it is a horse or a buffalo. Lady CurbCrusher looks over and tries to find it, finally seeing it and saying, “That looks like a bicyclist.” The guy, with the lady looks through his binoculars and finally finds the moving object, and agrees, it is a bicyclist by saying “By golly Angie, I think what you’ve found you a man.”

We took a couple of hours and left the park to wander to Micanopy (pronounced mika-noo-pee). This is a small town with a “business” district that is probably about a quarter of a mile long. There are a couple of nice older homes in the town, one appears to be a bed and breakfast, and most of the stores are “antique” stores. These are actually the kind of antique stores that I like, not a lot of polished fancy stuff, but mostly old stuff that sometimes hasn’t been dusted or cleaned. This is mixed in with some shops that are more polished, or have “art,” but there are not enough of those to ruin the atmosphere. The stores do not open until 10 or 11, and sometimes not even then. There were a couple of stores that had “We’re Open” signs out, but when we tried the enter some one would holler from the back “We’re not open yet.” It would appear that operating hours are more of ‘From when we get here ‘till when we leave.”

Later Saturday afternoon, Little CurbCrusher was busy at the playground, and Lady CurbCrusher was sitting out having a read. CurbCrusher decided he needed a bike trip, so it was back up to the Visitor’s Center and out onto Cones Dike trail. Because of the rain, there was a lot of standing water on the trail, some of the biking was through the mud. If you plan on using a bike on this trail, you need to be able to lift your bike over the gate that blocks the path, as the chute you walk through to access the trail by foot is narrow and has two ninety degree turns in it. Once on the trail, the ride was nice. After about a mile and half a couple of people were standing with their bikes in the middle of the trail so I slowed down and approached them. About 50 yards ahead, a group of five or six buffalo where gathered on the dike. Pretty cool. The other folks left, and I stood and watched the bison for a while, then got on the bike and rode back to the campsite, having accomplished the goal of seeing the buffalo.

Pictures of the campsite and park are here.