Sopchoppy Delight

Allstays, the camping app I use said their was a County Park in Sopchoppy, Florida so that's where we headed next. Some friends had stayed at a state park a couple of miles down the road and liked the area, so we decided it was a good spot to stop and explore for a few days.

Driving into the town park it was not immediately obvious where the office was to sign up for a camping site. A man in a pickup truck headed our way, so I lowered the window and ask where I could register. He said, "Hang on, I’ll go round to the office." and then he got out of the truck and walked to the rear, lowered the tailgate and announced the office was open! He wrote up a few details and I signed in. We were registered for two nights! It was that simple!

The campground was nearly empty, but that changed the following day when a few more rigs showed up for the weekend. We checked out the washrooms behind the stage, the showers were hot and the facilities clean. A trail led across a bridge to the opposite side of the river, but we didn't follow it too far. We'd had a long drive and spent the evening chilling out.

 
 The following day we backtracked a few miles to a little trail system we had seen which promised sinkholes and underground rivers. It proved to be quite interesting as we followed the several kilometres of trails through a forested area.

In places the forest sat in water, while in other spots it was high and dry and the streams disappeared underground!

One curious sign suggested not to take a trail as it was closed for some unspecified reason. We headed off in another direction, visiting a number of sinkhole features and so on, eventually coming out at the end of the closed trail. Deciding we didn't have time to continue the loop we were on, we headed down the closed trail to see what the problem was. It turned out to be a bridge spanning a drowned cypress forest. The bridge must have required repairs so was closed. However another trail paralleled the bridge along the shore so we took it as the gps suggested it led back to the park entrance. In fact it led to the original trail closed sign we had seen at the outset!

 

Another kilometre or so and we were back at the park entrance having followed several rivers as they appeared and disappeared on their way through the forest. 

It was time to head back to the campground and forage for food!

Lithia County Park, Florida

With no room at the inn, that is Hillsborough State Park, I motored down the road to the county park at Lithia Spring a few miles south of the Interstate east of Tampa. It proved to be a nice, quiet camping spot with a huge spring, some hiking trails and a few interesting characters as well. It proved as well to be a perfect spot to welcome aboard a traveling companion who would be with me until Louisiana, a few weeks away. She was Big Trill's first guest traveller and I was anxious to see how it would work out as the accommodations were on the smallish side!

The first character we met at the check-in. She wasn't afraid to tell you whatever she thought, but did it all with a twinkle in her eye. We certainly enjoyed her dry wit! Another character was living in an old school bus with his band name written all over it. He was camping and writing new songs for the band using the quiet campground for inspiration. He was full of interesting info and recommended another similar County Park north of Tampa which we were never able to find in any map or app we had. Oh well...

We checked out the hiking trails which followed the river out of the springs. Yes, there were several Springs and the flow of water was substantial.

 

Washrooms were nearly new, clean and had lots of hot water, always appreciated, but not always found!

We spent a couple of nights here sorting out the camper and making it more comfortable as we switched over from one person to two. Needless to say, it was a welcome change and the beginning of our second adventure together, the first having been last fall in California. As the photo above shows, we set the 'hut' up for the first time here. It provided a bit of privacy when using the toilet and taking showers when none was available. We learned a few other tricks on using it over the days ahead, but basically it worked very well and was set up almost everywhere we camped.

We then made plans and set out southward...