About Me

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Indialantic, Florida, United States
I enjoy photography when traveling, canoeing or hiking. Sometimes I combine a hike with geocaching.

Sunday, May 29, 2011

Camping at Alexander Springs, FL

We left to go camping on this Memorial Day weekend about 2 pm and we made it to the campground in about two and a half hours. It was not a bad drive at all. I had made a camping reservation back when it was still cool out. I should have known better. Especially when Claudia reminded me beforehand about how hot it was supposed to be. Well, it was indeed already too hot. And too many bugs. It had been very dry and ticks were crawling up our legs and the tent before we even had it up.  Brad,  Stefan and I just got the tent up in time before the storm hit.  First rain in months.  We got a bit soggy but not much since we had put up the 10x10 canopy with bug screen just in time.  We had about  4 square feet that was dry under the canopy as we cooked Macaroni and cheese. It is my specialty.

We got our showers and finally went to bed.  In the morning Stefan and I went down to the spring early.  Brad was  still sleeping.  It was completely peaceful. The lighting was difficult but I took a few pictures and we went back to the campsite to wake up Brad and to eat breakfast. We planned to go canoeing in the morning.

They rent canoes right in the park and they were not recommending paddling one way with pickup. Apparently the river is somewhat blocked by vegetation. We ended up paddling to the first bridge and  paddling back. The river was very shallow for the most part and a  good deal of some kind of vegetation.  It took about an hour and forty five minutes. It cost $16 to rent the canoe for 2 hours. Two hours was enough on a hot day.  By the time we got back to the spring it was overrun with noisy people. It is good that they do not allow alcohol except at the campsites. They seemed to check all coolers going down to  the picnic area and the spring.

We went back to the campsite for lunch and Stefan and I went for a swim in the spring to cool off.  Brad did not want to go. He was so miserably hot he could not move.  When we got back from swimming we were very hot and the deer flies would not leave us alone.  We finally had enough and packed up and went home.

Too bad.  I wanted to hike St. Francis trail and go to Mount Dora and check out a micro brew pub called Mount Dora Brewing which is located at 405 S. Highland St.. Another time.









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