O'Leno State Park, Florida

April 4, 2025

The day at last arrived where we set off once again to roam the country, to live anywhere, everywhere, and nowhere in particular. As we embark upon our fourth season of travel (can't believe it's been that long already!), we continue to appreciate our nomadic lifestyle.

As happens every year this time, Rick was nervous that the camper was going to self-destruct as soon as we got on the highway. As also happens every year (thus far), nothing whatsoever of note happened to the camper on the way to our first destination.

Rick checking the wheel hubs at the first rest stop. All good!

O'Leno State Park was only about a 3-ish hour drive, but when you travel anywhere near Tampa, you typically need to pad your timing a bit. Despite construction and an accident (not one we were involved in, thankfully), we still managed to get to our new digs just past lunchtime.

O'Leno State Park is one of the first state parks in Florida

Nice campsite--look at all that nature!

Friendly tree

...and friendly lizards

Our first hike (really just a walk) of the season had the Santa Fe river as its destination. We opted for an early morning stroll from our campsite, as temperatures hit the 90s each day that we were here.

Historic suspension bridge built by the CCC

Florida parks can be a bit slow to respond to hurricane damage. The bridge has been closed since 2023.

This historic pavilion has also been closed off since 2023

The Santa Fe River

Funny thing is, there is a swimming area not too far upstream from here.

This is the Santa Fe "river sink"--the place where the river goes underground for 3 miles. We kind of expected a whirlpool or something.

Cute little turtle emerging from the duckweed

It was mesmerizing watching the duckweed swirl around, making interesting shapes

Nearby sinkhole or pond or whatever

The following morning we were treated to a large campfire right across the street from our campsite...

Um, the forest seems to be on fire here

At least there were official-looking people who seemed to notice. (They were the ones who lit the fire purposefully.)

The smoke got a bit stifling that day (not the best for Rick's allergies), so we left camp and went on a biking excursion. After having seen the river sink of the Santa Fe yesterday, we decided that we ought to check out the river rise about 3 miles away. There were numerous trails leading in that direction, and Rick plotted a course.

This is not the course originally plotted

Freshly burned forest--still smoking

Soon everything was green again and we were enjoying the wide path through the forest

Then, we ran in to our first patch of muddy trail. No problem--we can walk around this.

And then the trail basically turned into a small creek that didn't seem to have an end. No problem--we back-tracked a bit, and Rick's GPS showed us an alternate route.

We soon found ourselves entirely surrounded by swamp

And there was a large patch of mosquito-infested swamp between us and where we needed to go. No problem--we'll turn around once again.

Not finding another appropriate trail, we headed to the main road to avoid the mud. There was a sort-of path alongside the road. It was hot and kind of bumpy and sandy in spots, but it was ok. And it wasn't muddy.

At least there were some flowers!

At last, we arrived at the park where the river rise was located.

Oh, the anticipation!

Not surprisingly, the place where the Santa Fe River came back out of the ground was not any more exciting than the place where it went in.

It was pretty nonetheless. We would have stayed longer if not for the mosquitos.

A few vignettes along the way back

After all was said and done, a round trip to see the river rise three miles away ended up taking twenty miles. We've all heard it said, "It's not the destination, it's the journey." That was surely true in this instance, but perhaps this trip was best summed up as "It's not the journey, but the exercise." (Ok, so we had ebikes-- but we still pedaled! 😉)

Back at camp, everything was still pretty smoky, so we were happy that we had closed up the camper and ran the air conditioning while we were out. We were kind of glad to be heading to Georgia the next day.

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