Jonathan Dickinson day 2

 I think I mentioned yesterday that this place is huge. This morning I rode to the mountain biking trailhead and that was a 4 mile ride. I did some of the trails and was completely lost in the first 10 minutes. After I returned from that adventure Jenny and I put the Origami kayak together and took it out on its maiden voyage. I'll include a couple of pics of the process. When we first got this "boat" it took me over an hour to fold it into a boat. The YouTube video of the process was extremely misleading. Jenny and I folded it a few times in the garage and got the time down to under 15 minutes. It performed pretty well on the water. We were out for 2 hours and saw a few gators. We were happy they seemed uninterested in us because the boat is pretty flimsy. More tomorrow.

Jonathan Dickinson State Park

 We are near Jupiter Florida on the Atlantic side  We discovered this place when we came down here to have the Maverick rigged for towing and the MP suspension beefed up. At the time, we drove around the campground, as we are prone to do, and decided that we liked it. We immediately went on the Florida State Park website and saw that there was only 1 site available for any length of time in January. Damn snowbirds. Anyway we booked the only site available for 6 days. For us that is a long stay. This place is huge. There are biking, hiking, and kayaking possibilities. I should also mention that drinking is a possibility......well a probability. Today was a long drive so I only took one pic during our bike ride to try to find a place to launch the yak. More tomorrow.

Rodman day 3

 Another day of biking and hiking. The trail that wanders through the park is The Florida National Scenic Trail. It starts down south near the swamp and ends up in the Panhandle someplace. It's 1500 miles long if you do all the side trails. Some parts of the trail are for hiking only. Some sections allow bikes and there is an occasional section that allows horses. I rode my bike on a hikers only section. I felt really bad about it. The section that I rode went over a dam. There was a Comorant convention going on below the dams outflow. We move further south tomorrow.

Rodman day 2

 It was 82° today for crying out loud. January 8th and shorts and T-shirts. This won't last but we'll take it while we can. I rode along the barge canal this morning. My ride ended at a Lock on the canal. I'm somewhat confused about the lock. I get that they built it thinking the canal would be finished but it wasn't so why not just keep it open all the time. Life is full of mysteries. Jenny and I did a walk after my ride so that she could close her Apple Watch rings. So I got a lot of exercise. We drove into Palatka for lunch and to find a liquor store. That bird is a Sandhill Crane. They are always paired up but I couldn't get the damn birds close enough together to get them both in a picture. They might have been having a spat and were keeping their space. That one weird picture is a panorama I took of the canal.We are here tomorrow.

Rodman Campground

 This place is near Palatka Florida. It is right in the middle of the Cross Florida Barge Canal right of way. If you're scratching your head about that don't be ashamed because there is no Cross Florida Barge Canal. It was a dream for centuries and construction started and stopped several times but alas it was a pipe dream. The state owns this very long chunk of land that is now reserved mostly for recreation. We had a long drive today so nothing of blogworthy significance occurred. We have been here once before but our recollection of the place is cloudy. We are here for 2 or 3 nights. The pic is our campsite.

Day 2 at Barnwell

 Not too much going on here. There are only 25 campsites and just 4 of them are occupied. We hiked literally, all of the trails, in the park. It was a little over 4 miles. After lunch we drove 10 miles to visit God's Acre Healing Spring. There were 4 of those paved areas with Artesian Spring water flowing out. There were 3 people there collecting the water in jugs. I took a sip and I think I was healed. We move further South tomorrow.

Barnwell State Park SC

 We left The KOA at something like 10:30. Our drive here was only 140 miles so an early departure was not required. This park is one of 16 built by the CCC in South Carolina during the great depression. It's only 300 or so acres so seeing the whole thing should be doable. I rode every trail in the park this afternoon. Jenny and I will do some hiking tomorrow.