Great Florida Birding Trail

02/05/2017

Sneads, Florida, Three Rivers SP (Winter 2017 Pt 4)


Bill has driven our motor home just over 1,300 miles since we left Fredericksburg on January 4, 2017. In just one month, we’ve now stayed in six different RV parks in Florida: start) Sunny Pines, Jacksonville; B) Ross Prairie State Park, Dunnellon; C) Country Oaks RV Park, Zephyrhills; D) Payne’s Prairie Preserve State Park, Micanopy (just south of Gainesville); E) Three Rivers State Park, Sneads; Current) Emerald Beach RV Park, Navarre.

We’re here from January 26-31, 2017 and continuing our journey to stay warm this winter and to discover new places! It’s easy sometimes just to return to the same old place, but we are trying to resist.  Since we are returning to familiar areas to see friends and family, it’s been a bit of a challenge. We’ve really enjoyed our travels so far. But we feel we scored a touchdown at our next stop, Three Rivers State Park, Sneads, Florida. Everything went about as perfect as could be. We had a perfect travel day from Paynes Prairie Preserve State Park, but one of our longer trips so far, at just over 200 miles and taking us 3 1/2 hours. Continue Reading

02/25/2015

Crystal River (Part 3 and final)


We’re becoming fonder of our time in Crystal River as we move forward in to our latest adventure, our first, and most excellent, Florida State Park camping experience. A blog is forthcoming on it.
On Sunday after church, we did manage a short hike on the Great Florida Birding Trail. It was close to the Crystal Isle RV Resort, so that was a bonus. We thought it would be packed with birders as the trail head parking lot was full! We only saw two birds, but about 15 people fishing. As it turned out, it was more of a fishing hole. Nothing was biting, but the children brought along were having a blast. The trail wasn’t very long, but we managed to stretch it out to a 1.42 walk. Here are a few pictures of the trail:

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Bill noticed a sign to a beach of some sort, so we found it after the walk. It’s called Fort Island Gulf Beach. And that’s where we found all the birds! It was an interesting little beach, possibly man-made according to Trip Advisor. We ran out of data, for the first time, so we didn’t research it before going. We got some nice pictures:

Sign as we entered the “Island”
Lots of seagulls and pigeons
And some serenity

And finally, will close with a video of friends, the Snowmads. This is a young couple we finally were able to meet in person at the Florida Super RV Show.  The are also “full-timers” but was still working.  From their blog site: “We’re Jason and Kristin Snow, an adventure-addicted couple in our early thirties who walked away from cubicles and conventional lives to travel a new road – one paved with less routine, many new friends, and crazy experiences at every turn!”  And they recently got to kayak with the manatees!  We had hoped to do this as well, but with the freeze, the manatees left the area.  Enjoy!