Two Weeks at O’Leno State Park

March 13-27, 2023                                                       Most Recent Posts:
O’Leno State Park                                    Mornings on the Rainbow River
Site 19                                     Before and During My Visit to Rainbow Springs
High Springs, FL

The drive to site 19 in the Magnolia Campground Loop  at O’Leno State Park seemed long. From Rainbow Springs it was only 90 minutes, all on two lane roads.

The ranger at the entry station came down with me and guided me into the site so again, no mishaps.  It was roomy enough that I could have done it myself but when I asked I hadn’t seen it and better safe than sorry. 

No problems until I hooked up to their electric.  My surge protector said nothing doing so I called and they sent someone out to replace the plug.  You can tell from the boxes that the electric here is elderly. 

Everything worked for a day and then kept cutting off again.  This time the same guy came out but brought someone else with more knowledge who took everything apart and cleaned it, put it back together and for the rest of my stay everything was fine.  

Thank goodness for my surge protector guarding my elderly appliances. (I’m whispering so they won’t hear that the refrigerator and microwave and everything are 19 years old.  Don’t want to JINX anything.

A few days later I walked around the campground loop and looked to see which sites had newer electric boxes.  There were 5 out of 31.  Those also have 50 and 30 amp service.  I don’t need 50 and am very glad I don’t but a newer box would be better.  Note to self for next time.

It certainly was not March in Florida warm here as the morning temperature on March 16 shows.  I might as well have been in Virginia.  But it did make me more willing to stay indoors, make soup and watch the NCAA Basketball Tournament.

I watched while I made a pot of chili in the instapot Carrie and Matthew gave me for Christmas.  Then on another day I was able to watch two games at once, one on the TV and one streaming on my laptop.  I was just amazed that the signal was good enough here for that.   I was in BBall heaven!

Back at Rainbow Springs during some of the many rains over that two weeks, I noticed again a leak around my skylight.  I have had my roof and the skylight specifically looked at twice in the last year and it was “recaulked” back in January.  The quality of RV work on the road is often very disappointing.  It is clearly still leaking.  Now what?

I got up and the roof, took a look and called my friend Paul Dahl for advice.  He is a former full time RVer and has helped me more times than I can count since David’s death.  I am so very grateful to him.  I sent him pictures.  He said if caulk isn’t working use eternabond.  It won’t leak then.

Here’s the skylight.  I could  see that apparently the last tech didn’t recaulk it all as probably he should have.  He patched it.  Why not run the caulk all they way around rather than skipping the corners?

I looked through all the bins where I have kept the supplies and tools David always carried despite the fact  I don’t have a clue about or how to use most of them.  I could not find any eternabond and it was raining again that night.  SO, I called around to try to find it at local hardware, Lowe’s, Walmart etc.   No luck.  I ordered it on line but it won’t be here for 3 days.  It’s raining tonight.  SO I taped heavy duty black plastic over the end that was leaking.

  

That didn’t work… I’m waiting in the continuing cold  for eternabond.  Anything in the 30’s is cold in my book even if it does warm up into the sixties.  That doesn’t usually come about until late afternoon

This is Florida??  I came here to be warm, not lows in the 30’s.   The weather fluctuated amazingly during my two weeks here.
The high was 72 when I arrived which I consider PERFECT.  But it  jumped back and forth.  Mostly day time highs were in the low 60’s if I could just wait for it to warm up.

They also got up to the upper 80’s the last days before I left.  You can see I’m only complaining about how cold it was when I got up in the morning.

Eventually it always warmed up enough to hike and the park has a number of trails as you can see from this list.  I hiked 6 of the 8.   I absolutely love when I can hike right from Winnona and not have to drive anywhere to get to the trail head.  In addition to these I was also able to link the Dogwood,  Limestone and another one not listed here to create a hike from the Campground to the Ranger Station without having to walk on the road.  5 miles round trip.

Here is part of the map of the park which is officially known as O’Leno State Park and River Rise.  More on that later.   I have not included the very southern section of River Rise Preserve and as you can see from only a partial map, River Rise is a great deal larger than O’Leno .  In total they are 6000 acres.   You can find the Magnolia Campground on the left part way down and see some of the trails but this is not a great trail map unless all you want to do is the river sink trail.  There are too many not labeled interior roads and paths. 

One of the trails I did was the Paraner’s Branch Trail.  It’s a 4.5 mile loop which is “relatively” well marked.  Meaning there are times when you are not sure where you are and others where the signs are BIG.

The trail sometimes uses some of the interior roads so it is wide and easy to hike.

I guess it is named for Paraner’s Branch which I assume is a tributary of the Santa Fe River which flows into O’Leno and out at River Rise.

This tortoise was my wildlife sighting for the day.  She was a big black spot in the sandy trail when I first saw her.  I zoomed in and took the picture on the right before moving on down the trail toward her.  She wasn’t interested in coming out to have her picture taken.

This is one of the many many sink holes in this park. 

I’m thinking that based on its clear water, it is connected to the river.

Typical habitat at O’Leno

Once back at the river front of the park where the sadly closed swinging bridge is (more on that next time), I stopped in to see some of the buildings created by the CCC who first built this park in the 30’s before WW II.

I am always amazed at the quality of their work both wood working and stone work.

And whenever I enter this building and see the totem poles on either side of the doorways, I wonder whose idea that was and why, as well as who did the carving work.   I’m sorry my pictures aren’t as good as they might be had I not been using my phone camera.  I’ve been tiring of carrying my canon on longer hikes.

The park has numerous very large trees.  You can’t really see how large they actually are until you see me hugging the one on the left.  They make the large pavilion look like a miniature.

David and I have always loved big trees and often took each others pictures with them as those of you who have followed since then know.  I asked someone to take this one of me in honor of him.  What a great tree!

Each of the 9 Florida State Parks built by the CCC has a museum and a statue of the CCC Boy.

I visit them both each time I come to one of the parks they built.  I think the CCC was one of the best ideas along with the NPS that this country has ever had and I’ve said many times before, we need it again.  There are so many jobs that could be done in our state and national parks by such an organization.  Such great training to be had by the men and women who could work.

The statistics on this plaque are inspiring.  2 million youth, 4500 camps, billions of trees, 800 parks, 3980 historical parks and millions of days fighting fires.  All in less than 10 years.

Why do we not bring this organization back?  I’m happy for my tax dollars to fund it as opposed to corporate welfare.  How about you?

Inside this small building is  the Civilian Conservation Corps Historical  Center which houses wonderful pictures, exhibits, statistics and other information.

Included in the many exhibits was this list of the other CCC built parks in Florida for those who might like to visit them all.

Also displayed was information on the  building of the park and maps of what it looked like in the past.  I found the pictures and statistics on the 2012 flood which brought 12,000 cubic feet per second of water flowing at one point down the Old Bellamy Road most interesting as I intended to hike it the next day..

And of course more tournament basketball to enjoy.  I watched a LOT of basketball between March 16th and April 3rd.

The day I wanted to hike to River Rise down the Old Bellamy Road was another cold one. As you can see it is only slightly warmer inside than outside.  I am disgruntled but head out around 9am.

These signs are positioned at intervals along the road and tell its very interesting history.  This was the eastern section of the first federally funded road in Florida.  It was constructed between 1824 and 1826 to link Saint Augustine with and Pensacola with the new state capital in Tallahassee. 

Florida was not admitted to the union until 1845.  This was wild country and the road opened Indian land up to settlement about which they were not very happy.  Their attempt at protesting the taking of their land was known as the Seminole Wars and carried on from 1816 to 1858.

  The road crossed the natural land bridge created by the disappearance underground of the Santa Fe River in what is now O’Leno State Park and its “rise” some 3 miles further along.  That’s my next post.

The Long Leaf Pine has strewn its cones along the road.  They are big cones, appropriate for a pine tree with big needles.

They will trip you up if you are not watching.

I was lucky enough to spot this Common Buckeye butterfly.  I love the eyes on his wings.  All the better to scare off predators.

The purpose of my hike down Bellamy Road was to get to River Rise but the map above doesn’t make it clear and the trail map at the head of the Bellamy Road had the horse trail numbers at their intersections with The Bellamy Road but didn’t have River Rise on it.    I had hiked this trail with David once before and thought I knew what I was doing.  But as you will guess, I made a wrong turn and wandered around.

Still, it’s a nice place to wander.

Eventually I came back around to an intersection with the Bellamy road and knew where I was and how to get back.   I’ll try again tomorrow with better information.  Nice that the Bellamy road is no wider than the paths going off of it.

On my way back, I stopped at the Ranger Station and  picked up the Eternabond tape I’d sent for.

After the failure of my previous idea for keeping the water out until I could find someone who really would fix it, with much fear and trepidation, I decided to go for it even though I have no clue what I’m doing.  This stuff is PERMANENT as in eterna.

But there are rains predicted for the next couple of days and I’ve got to stop this leak.  Nothing can bring the death of an RV faster than water damage.  I hope I’m not too late.  It’s certainly not for lack of trying to get someone I thought knew better than I how to fix it.

Unfortunately for me it was windy and tree debris kept falling on the area I was trying to keep clean so I could tape it.  

Hope this works!  I sent this photo to Paul and he said I’d done a good job but then he’s so nice, he might say that no matter what.   It does look good,  Fingers crossed it works.

Then I discovered another thing the two different techs who have been up on this roof over the course of 5 months also didn’t fix ……I know it is possible all 3 of these ties were working when each of them was there but I don’t really believe that.   These are the cords connecting my solar panels.   You can see the dirt marks for where they had slid to before I saw this and moved them back toward the clips I will tie them to.  I can’t imagine what might have happened on the interstate at 55 mph on my way north.   I sure hope they weren’t this way on my way down.

I still travel with all of David’s tools and parts and gadgets and everything he had when he did all of the work on Winnona.  Although I was not able to find any eternabond tape, I still believe there is some here.  I was able to find the ties to resecure the solar wires.

Between basketball, repairs and hiking, it’s been a busy time at O’Leno despite the unacceptable cold over night.  

Next up is the story of the Santa Fe River Sink and Rise.  Mother Nature as her amazing self.