Sunday December 31st 2023

Happy New Year

It was a Florida chilly morning. The overnight temperature was in the low forties. The bright sun brought the temperature up slowly. By afternoon it was in the mid sixties.

I spent the morning slowly preparing for travel. I prepared the bedroom as soon as I got out of bed then had breakfast before working on other parts of the RV. Around noon I moved my car over to the day use area. It provides space for connecting it up for towing without blocking traffic. Once I walked back to my campsite I brought in the slides, lifted the leveling jacks and drove the motorhome to the dump station. After that I met up with my car and mated it with the coach. I pulled out of Lake Manatee State Park a few minutes after 1PM.

I chose to avoid Interstate 75 and drive north on US 301 since my destination is on 301 just south of Zepherhills Florida. It may or may not have been the right choice. The road was a lot more developed than I remember. Along with the development came traffic lights. The traffic lights support all the traffic I encountered. Interstate 75 would have allowed me to avoid most of the traffic lights, but it often turns into a parking lot near the intersection with Interstate 4.

It didn’t matter in the long run. I arrived at Hillsborough River State Park at two thirty. This is an older state park that I have stated at twice before. The campsites have been updated with 50amp electric and good water pressure, but the roads are still gravel and the sites are far from uniform. Some sites are big rig friendly and others are a challenge. My actual site is ok. It is close to a neighbor on one side and backing in from the narrow road was a little challenging. Once I was situated and setup it turned into a fine site.

The nice thing about this park are the trails. There are hiking trails on both sides of the Hillsborough River. There aren’t as many alligators as other rivers like the Myakka River, but I recall seeing a few on past visits. Over the next two weeks I will check out a few of them.