Back in Atlanta - Our 2009 Trip is nearly completed

Bobbie & Peggy in 2008

We stayed at EG Simmons Park on Tampa Bay for 7 days and left early Sunday morning for Ocean Pond Campground in Osceola National Forest in Northern FL near I-10, 45 mi West of Jacksonville. The drive was just over 200 miles, so that even with some shopping stops we made it in 3 1/2 hours.

They have three different types of campsites and the electrical hookup campground was almost full. However, we got our little corner campsite where we have camped in previous years. We stayed for two nights so that we could take the 13 mi bike ride around the pond. We found that the free Hog Pen campground was really cleaned up and for people who like to dry camp, it would now be a pleasant place to camp on the lake.



Bobbie & Peggy in 2009

We left early Tuesday morning to drive back to Peggy's sister in Atlanta. Bobbie is recovering slowly and now has to go through a series of Chemo treatments. She has decided that she should go with her daughter, to their home outside Chicago.

They will fly out on Saturday 3/14 and we will then head back home to Cleveland if the driving weather permits us. I don't like to drive in snow or heavy rain and we are not in any time constraints.

So this will be my last 2008-9 Mexico trip blog. Hopefully we can try the trip again next Fall so we can visit the sites we missed by leaving this year.

E.G. Simmons County Park on Tampa Bay

We left Lithia at 8 AM on Sunday morning for a short drive to another Hillsborough county park, E.G. Simmons Regional Park on Tampa Bay. We stayed here last year and enjoyed our stay and since they didn't take any reservations we figured that it wouldn't be hard to get a site on a drizzly cool Sunday morning. We got here after grocery shopping at 9:00 AM. We were 14th on the waiting list to get in but he said that he expected at least 20 persons to check out. You can't check-in until after 11:30 AM but at least we got a nice site that was close enough to the office to have Wi-Fi internet access.

We signed up for three days but expect to stay until the following Sunday. A cool front had come in but it was supposed to start warming and be dry though the weekend. We biked into the town of Ruskin for shopping a few times and the temperature finally got back over 80o by Thursday.