After much debate on the availability of a spot at the next first-come-first-served campground, we skipped a much-needed stop for propane in order to arrive at Ocala National Forest’s Salt Springs campground early in the morning and grabbed one of the few campsites left. The competition for sites had become so fierce, people actually offered to pay us to leave our site at Ocean Pond. Or maybe they just wanted us to leave….hmm.
We’d only been trying to get a propane refill for 2 months and our gauge has been reading empty for a week so this decision was not an easy one to make. It’s amazing how much each National Forest campground differs. The sites at Ocean Pond were huge and at Salt Springs they are packed together tightly, private RV park-style. Which wouldn’t be an issue for just a week if our next door neighbors hadn’t run their TV outside day and night with the volume on high. Sigh.
The campground at Salt Springs was packed due to the Thanksgiving holiday and perfect weather. We were in the heart of Central Florida’s many amazing crystal-clear springs and spent a few days touring Juniper Springs, Alexander Springs, and Silver Springs State Park. So many Springs we started referring to Salt Springs as “our springs”.
The water from these springs remains a constant 72 degrees, a little on the cool side, so when the air temperature hit 80 on Thanksgiving, we decided to go for a swim in “our” spring, just because we could. Nice, but the manatees which we had seen before did not oblige us with an appearance during our dip.
At each of the parks the swimming area was cordoned off with floating balls and a sign was posted on the far side of the cordoned-off area stating no swimming was allowed due to alligators. What keeps the alligators from entering the section where swimming IS allowed?
The area around Juniper Springs, above, was closed by warning signs due to bear activity. Again we wondered what keeps the bears in their designated area.
Kayakers weaved around the tour boats at Silver Springs State Park. This is a park that had its hey-day as a tourist mecca in the the early 1900’s. We preferred the springs at Juniper and Alexander Springs to this one but the grounds were pretty.
Greg discovered these large bugs in our site at Salt Springs. Does anyone know what they are?? I put up a sign inside the RV warning No Insects Allowed.
Where Are GnG? 