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Last year, we had booked multiple state campgrounds south of Titusville all the way into the Florida Keys. We had ended up needing the cancel all those plans because of health issues. We had been able to string the 5 different spots in a row because as Florida residents, we can reserve spots 11 months in advance while non-residents only get a 10 month window. We hadn’t dared to try that again this year, but I was hoping we could at least get out once before we leave our lot at TGO at the end of April. Doing so would at least allow us to check out the motorhome since it hadn’t been driven since early November. For the past couple of months, I had been logging into the state park reservation website periodically and seeing if there were any cancellations that would permit us to get in a short trip. Jonathan Dickinson State Park is near Jupiter Florida and roughly a 130 mile drive south. That was a comfortable driving distance and would get us to the first stop we had planned for last season. It was also a part of Florida we have not visited before so there were four nearby counties where I was hoping to find a geocache in.
Since we could be very flexible with our dates. I frequently found a site that was open for 1 or 2 nights, but it didn’t seem worth the effort to pack up and move unless we could get a minimum of 3 nights in the same campsite. Occasionally I would find an opening, but by the time I got Chris involved to see if she wanted to book the site, it would often be taken by someone else. About two and a half weeks ago, I found a site that was available for 5 nights in a row! We promptly reserved it and put the plans in place to ready the rig for travel. The nice thing is that we have a shed on our lot, so aren’t forced to bring all our possessions that would normally come along on our travels so we don’t have to pack up everything into the rig. A few days before we are to depart, we pull in the slides to make sure that all works and start it up to check the engine still functions. Our reservation is for a Monday night through the following Saturday morning. It’s a very straightforward drive down I-95 and then a 10 mile drive to the park entrance off of Highway US-1 just north of Jupiter proper.
The land Jonathan Dickinson SP sits on used to be a top secret World War II radar training facility called Camp Murphy. When the base closed after the war, it became a state park in 1950. The 10,500 acre park has a lot of the old roads from its day as a training base. It appears to be a very popular mountain biking area. There are two different campgrounds within the park. We had picked the newer Pine Grove campground since the sites looked to larger than those in the River campground section. Based on the historical aerial photos, Pine Grove was completely reworked in the 2010 timeframe with 90 spacious sites and 4 new bathhouses. We pull in and get setup for our 5 night stay.
We had arrived shortly after check-in time so we had plenty of time to explore and since there are so many trails in the park, we are able to simply hike out of our campsite and wander some of the closer trails. There are likely well over 100 geocaches hidden in the park as well, so we walk a mile or so and find 6 of the closest hides. While searching for one of the caches, I noticed a bird perched on a small tree just a few feet away. This Florida scrub jay was completely unconcerned with our being there. It came so close at time that I nearly expected it to land on my head as it was searching for food.
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| Florida Scrub Jay |
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| Calling |
As we continued our loop, we saw many of the old roads that crisscross the park. We had opted to not bother bringing our bicycles with us but we were thinking that was a mistake because we could have spent hours riding the trails here. There were lots of prickly pear cactus and other plants in bloom including a fair number of yuccas. As we made our way back to camp, we spotted a gopher tortoise at the side of the trail. It also seemed to be unconcerned with us being so close. As I was taking pictures, a cyclist road by and commented that the tortoise has been there for hours, so we knew its burrow must be close by. It ended up being a 2 mile walk with 6 geocache finds.
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| Old Roads Through State Park |
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| Yucca in Bloom |
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| Gopher Tortoise Along Trail |
I had mentioned earlier that there are four Florida counties in the area that I hoped to find geocaches in. The state park is in one of them so three to go. Another two are to our south along the coast. While investigating what there is to do in Palm Beach and Broward counties, we discovered there is a webcam cache at a beach in Boca Raton. I’ve mentioned about these before and how rare this style of geocache is, so we had to make it be part of our plan. Boca is on the far south side of Palm Beach County so we pick out a geocache that is just a few miles south of that which will cover Broward County.
It is almost a 60 mile drive to Exchange Club Park in Pompano Beach south of Boca and even though the bulk of the drive in on Interstate 95, the traffic was horrible driving past the large beach cities like West Palm Beach. This park is a small one surrounded by homes on 3 sides and the Intercoastal Waterway on the east side. There were a few people enjoying the beach along the water but the trail back to the geocache was empty. We had also picked out a virtual cache at the Hillsboro Inlet Lighthouse Park. It sounded like a nice place until we realize that the lighthouse isn’t actually inside this park. The lighthouse can be seen from the parking area but it’s almost a quarter mile away on the other side of the inlet. Since parking wasn’t free and we had trouble getting the parking app to work, Chris simply walked over to discover the answer to the virtual cache’s question and came back while I waited.
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| Small Beach in Exchange Club Park |
With our mission in Broward County complete, we can head north about 6 miles to Boca Raton and the South Beach Park Pavilion where our webcam cache is located. There is a small parking lot in the park with about 20 spots. We pull in around noon but all the spots were filled and another car was already sitting there waiting for somebody else to leave. We saw there was more parking in a different section of the park a few block to the north. We pull in to the entrance gate and the attendant asks for $35 to park here! That seemed excessive for what we had in mind so we drove a bit inland and found Silver Palm Park in the heart of Boca Raton. It’s about a half mile from the beach but the parking is free and there were plenty of spots. It’s a cute little park also on the Intercoastal Waterway. Several boats were going past and there is a lift bridge to cross to head back to the beach.
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| Fountain in Silver Palm Park |
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| Boat on Intercoastal Waterway |
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| View from Liftbridge |
It was a quick walk to the beach and it was a busy place for lunchtime on a Thursday. I had checked out the webcam online in advance to determine where it is pointed so we could make sure to stand in the proper location on the large pavilion to get our picture. Many of these cameras are setup to be live but usually with some sort of delay from real time. Best I could tell, this one only took a single frame roughly every 12 minutes but it does save all the photos for several years. This meant we didn’t need to grab a screenshot while we were standing there but I still wanted to make sure we were in one of the photos. When we got to the corner of the pavilion, I checked for the latest photo online. We weren’t in the photo yet and I guessed we had another 8 minutes before the next frame was to be taken. This was fine since we had our sandwiches along and it was a beautiful day so we could eat and people watch while we waited.
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| Looking to the South |
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| Looking to the North |
We could see where the camera was mounted a couple hundred feet away but there was no way to know when the frame was updated other than to look down at my phone and refresh the website. Once I saw we were on the frame time stamped at 12:32, I knew I could retrieve the photo later to log the webcam cache. I’m glad I checked because when I went to get the image when we got back to camp, I discovered that the camera took one more picture where we were still on the pavilion deck but then didn’t take any more pictures for the rest of the day. The camera does seem to take very high resolution images and I was able to zoom in on us to get better proof we were there.
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| Photo from Webcam |
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| Photo Zoomed In |
We didn’t spend much more than half an hour at the beach before heading back to the car. We arrived just as the lift bridge was being raised to let taller boats pass by. We ended up walking into downtown Boca Raton for a little bit just to see what a ritzy city is like.
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| Lift Bridge Raised |
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| Beautiful Tropical Flowers |
Since we were right along Route A1A, we decide to head back north at least for part of the drive to see the fancy homes along the ocean. It’s a pretty drive but rather slow going. There are lots of beach access points along the way and it was pretty crowded from the looks of things. We had planned to keep driving north on A1A but about 20 miles north of Boca, there was a detour and all traffic was forced inland. At first we weren’t sure what was going on since it didn’t appear to be construction or an accident. But there was intense law enforcement activity and concrete barriers. Then we saw a sign for Mar-a-Lago and it all made sense.
Our next destination was about 15 miles further north, so we had to take other roads to get around the closed portion of A1A. The Loggerhead Marinelife Center is in Juno Beach and not too far from our campground. Forty years ago, a local resident began studying the local sea turtles that nest on the nearby beaches. Over time, her efforts grew and the facility moved a couple times until it the current building was opened in 2007.
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| Loggerhead Marinelife Center |
There are displays inside the building that explain the history of the place and what its mission is, but the real entertainment is located out back in a large open area with a dozen or so large tanks where the sea turtle patients are being cared for.
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| Looking Over Some of the Turtle Tanks |
They presently have a little over 50 turtles in their care. There are numerous volunteers wandering around to answer questions visitors may have. About two thirds of them are green sea turtles and the other third being being the smaller Kemp’s Ridley turtle. The majority of the patients came in from the local region, but there are several that came in from Cape Cod back in December when the facility up there didn’t have the space to care for all the cold stunned turtles in need of care.
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| Green Sea Turtle Swims By |
Some tanks had a few turtles while others had just one. They each have their name painted on the top of the shell so visitors and staff can identify each one. There was this unusual PVC pipe structure in the tanks and one of the turtles was “playing” with it. We asked a volunteer what was going on and were told that it was basically something the turtle can interact with since the tanks are rather boring. Eloise - a 22 pound green sea turtle was definitely having fun moving hers all around her tank.
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| "Fin" Blows Bubbles |
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| "True" Glides Past Window in Tank |
After spending time seeing all the patients that are in the public viewing area, we headed to another section of the facility that has a couple large aquariums and a few interactive displays that help teach visitors about marine life. I was mesmerized by the jellyfish in one of the tanks. Being able to watch them move around and just seeing how delicate they look was rather fascinating. Unfortunately getting a decent photo of any of them was a challenge given the lighting. When we finished inside, we head out to a nature trail just off the parking lot. We only went as far as needed to find the geocache hidden here that of course has a turtle theme.
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| Learning Center |
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| Queen Triggerfish Looks Mean |
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| Red Lionfish |
I mentioned earlier that this state park has miles of multi-use trails and quite a few geocaches. The weather forecast for Wednesday was looking good with temperatures in the mid seventies and mostly sunny skies. Since we don’t have our bikes along, it makes more sense to pick a trail that doesn’t permit cycling so we reduce our chances of seeing many other people on the trail. The Kitching Creek Trail is listed as 6.6 miles with only 9 feet of elevation gain! I’m not sure we have ever hiked a trail that long that was so flat. It is shaped like a lollipop. It starts with a 2 mile section before reaching a split which goes around a 2.6 mile loop and in theory back the way you came in. The trailhead is in another part of the park near the visitor center and the other campground area. Since it is reasonably close, we are on the trail by 9:30 AM.
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| Along Kitching Creek Trail |
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| Kitching Creek |
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| Whitemouth Dayflower |
The trails were quite nice and the geocaches were fairly decent and well maintained. There were almost too many caches especially when we got to an intersecting trail and there was one “not that far” down the trail we didn’t plan on hiking. On occasion, we would do a short detour before coming back to our intended trail.
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| Yellow Star Grass |
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| Bridge Over Creek |
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| Sparse Forest |
After we made it around the loop, we started back down the original trail but realized that we could go across an intersecting trail for about a 1/3 of a mile and then pick up a different trail back to the parking lot that more or less ran parallel to the trail we started on. It did add a bit of distance but permitted us to several more geocaches. After four hours of hiking and caching, we made it back to the car with 7.8 miles total and an impressive 32 finds. It was a fun time. Given the number of trails and caches, we would likely need to stay a week longer and repeat this type of hike to hope to find them all.
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| Partridge Pea in Bloom |
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| Wide Section of Trail |
That evening was the Artemis II launch. It’s funny that we live very close to Cape Canaveral and see rocket launches all the time. Often we aren’t even aware of a launch until we hear the rumble. We had driven over to see Artemis II on its launchpad back in mid February when it was originally supposed to launch and we were really looking forward to being able to see this journey to the moon take place. Of course when an issue was found and it was pushed back in for repairs the launch was rescheduled and just happened to be while we are away from Titusville. But it was a clear evening and even though we are 110 miles from the launchpad instead of 17 miles, we head outside to watch the launch. We noticed a couple of campers across from us were outside their rig but were completely oblivious to what was taking place. As we described what Artemis II is as we pointed it out streaking across the sky, they almost seemed like they had no idea what we were talking about.
We had two more full days remaining in Jupiter and we had two different things we wanted to do. One was to tour the Flagler Mansion in Palm Beach which is fairly close. The second goal was to get a geocache in the last of four counties we needed near here. The problem is that Hendy county is well inland on the southwestern shore of Lake Okeechobee - an 80 mile drive. Typically we don’t do day trips that long but there doesn’t appear to be that much to see in the county so we likely would never end up camping closer than we are now. We had almost driven there a couple years ago when we were staying in Naples but it was just as far and much less substantial roads from that direction so we hadn’t bothered. This seemed to be our best and last shot. There were intermittent heavy rain showers predicted for Thursday and Friday promised to be nice again. We opted to visit the mansion on a nice day and take our chances with rain and drive to the nearest town in Hendy county from Jupiter - Clewiston.
We picked out a few stops on the drive just to see the area as we drove through. We were heading into sugar cane country. There were huge fields of it and some of them were being harvested. There were also what looked like wildfires based on the thick smoke, but we later found out that burning sugar cane fields is one techniques used to help harvest the crop. We weren’t able to find a place to pull over and watch the equipment we saw out in the fields. It looked kind of fascinating and we figured we could stop on our way back though later in the day. Our first stop was near the southern end of Lake Okeechobee on Torry Island near Belle Glade Florida. There were some dark clouds to the west, but the radar showed the rain was still a long ways away. We got out and did a short walk around a small pond on the island in the lake.
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| Little Blue Heron |
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| Ominous Clouds to the West |
It’s a pretty setting and there is a 25 foot tall observation tower on the far side from parking. We weren’t planning on walking the full loop around the pond, but it looked like we should be able to make the full mile loop before we get wet. There is a nice campground here as well. I suspect a large number of the people here are seasonal campers based on the permanent looking additions to their campsites.
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| Chris Climbs Observation Tower on Torry Island |
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| View from Tower |
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| Approaching Campground on Torry Island |
Back to the car and still dry, we have less than 20 miles more to drive into the town of Clewiston. It was amazing how much truck traffic there is going through town. I guess that US Route 27 is a very major east-west corridor between the two coasts of Florida north of Alligator Alley that runs between Naples and Miami. We stop at a small town park on the east side of town. Our mission was to simply find a geocache before we head into the more crowded part of town. There were lots of purple martins in their traditional gourd shaped homes.
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| Purple Martins |
The rain was moving closer, but it was still dry so we went to explore another small park and boat launch on the south shore of Lake Okeechobee. There is a 15 foot tall earthen dike named the Herbert Hoover Dike. We’ve seen the Hoover Dam which is much more impressive. But I suspect this dike has prevented the town of Clewiston from being flooded on multiple occasions.
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| Pelicans Sit on Railing |
There were a series of covered picnic tables all along the canal that run past the dike. We took advantage of one to enjoy our lunch and watch a few boats go by. This lake is apparently known for its bass fishing. All along the roads near the dike are lighted signs that might normally be considered Xmas decorations but given they are of a bass going for a fly, I suspect these are permanent features of the town. There were two more caches within the park but one of them was near some sort of bee nest and we decided we didn’t need to look too closely for it.
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| Boat Passes our Picnic Spot in Clewiston |
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| Bass Light Fixture |
After lunch, we got in the car and headed into downtown Clewiston. There was an Adventure Lab that toured us around what is known as “America’s Sweetest Town” give its long history with sugar cane. There are a few large factories that we suspect are processing plants for the locally harvested sugar cane. One of the stops was a half mile from where we parked. Normally we would walk that short of distance but the rain was quickly approaching so we drove to the last stop, got our answer and it started to rain. Having completed our major mission of finding a cache in Hendy county, we decided it’s time to start the long journey home. It was made even slower on the way back because we hit some torrential downpours - almost hard enough I was going to pull over and wait it out.
It rained most of the drive back, but when we arrived at the state park, the rain had stopped. We had wanted to check out the visitor center after our hike yesterday but it is closed on Tuesday and Wednesday. There was a puzzle geocache inside the building that we wanted to check out since it has a fair number of favorite points even though it was only placed a few months ago. I don’t want to give away any hints but we managed to solve the puzzle and sign the log book. We wander around the rest of the visitor center and start talking with one of the volunteers working the desk. She wasn’t familiar with geocaching so we had to explain the basics and let her know that this park is full of them.
It wasn’t supper time yet, so we walked some of the trails that lead down to the Loxahatchee River. The park seems to have a fair number of canoes for rent and the river looked fairly tranquil. Yet one more reason to come back for a longer stay in the park.
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| Dragonfly |
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| Large Picnic Pavilion with Thatched Roof |
On the drive back to Pine Grove Campground, we stop at Hobe Mountain. Obviously this is Florida so the definition of a mountain needs to be stretched a bit. This is the highest natural point in South Florida - rising 86 feet above sea level.
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| Boardwalk with Observation Tower in Distance |
There is an observation tower at the peak of the mountain but it is closed. We initially thought the closure was recent but after we made it to the tower, it is clear that this thing had been closed for many years. To keep visitors from climbing it, they have actually removed two flight of stairs. I looked at the structure and realized I could make it past the missing steps to the top, but it was also very clear that what remains is in very poor condition and I would likely fall through the stairs or deck if I attempted it. We find one more geocache near the parking lot for the mountain and tower before heading back to camp for dinner.
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| Observation Tower Missing Stairs |
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| Looking from Atop Hobe Mountain |
The following morning we have very pleasant weather and head about 25 miles southwest of to visit the Henry Flagler Museum in Palm Beach. Finished in 1902, Whitehall is an impressive building as we walk in from the parking area.
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| Entering Grounds at Flagler Museum |
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| View from Outside Fence |
At the ornate wrought iron entrance gate is the admission booth. It’s $28 per person but since everything seems pricey in this part of Florida, that’s not too bad. We had timed our arrival to be able to take one of the docent led tours of the estate. Another person greets us at the front door and offers us various tour options. We get a headset that will help us hear the docent plus we get the handheld gizmo for the self guided tour which will explain different areas of the home by entering the number for the place we are standing and putting the speaker up to your ear. Since we have a half hour before the tour starts, we wander around some of the rooms by ourselves.
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| Stone Bench Along Walkway to Museum |
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| Large Ceiling Mural in Main Entrance |
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| Ornate Mantle Clock |
The place is huge - 100,000 square feet and 75 rooms! The decorating details are over the top. Every direction you look is something interesting to see. Although not much of it is something we would have chosen for our house.
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| Amazing Floor Clock |
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| Arched Hallway Ceiling |
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| Gentlemen's Room |
There are a little over a dozen people on our 11 AM tour. Over the next hour or so, the docent will explain much about Whitehall and Henry Flagler’s upbringing and life. We had heard this man’s name before when we saw one of his other buildings in St Augustine Florida - the Ponce de Leon Hotel which is now part of Flagler College. However we didn’t really know who he was or how he amassed his fortune. The short version is he invested money with John D. Rockefeller and had a large stake in Standard Oil back in the late 1800’s.
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| Nice Lampshade |
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| Interior Courtyard |
As we toured from room to room, we would stop and learn something else. Their wireless headsets worked well, so we didn’t need to be watching the docent as she spoke but could look around at all the details in each room.
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| Pipe Organ with 1249 Pipes! |
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| Ceiling Detail in Music Room |
The Flaglers used Whitehall as a winter residence until 1913 when Henry passed away. When his wife passed, it the building was sold to investors and became a hotel with an 11 story addition. By 1959, the hotel had fallen into disrepair and was about to be demolished when one of Henry’s granddaughters purchased the property and started a the long process of removing the hotel and restoring the building to its original glory.
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| Reception Room |
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| Dining Room |
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| Ladies Sitting Room |
While the tour does explain much of the history and see many of the rooms, there was still more to see on our own. There is a large central courtyard and even an auxiliary building with one of Flagler’s custom train cars on display. He was also a train magnate and had built most of the railroads on the eastern side of Florida.
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| Courtyard |
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| Train Building |
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| Well Appointed Train Car |
We hadn’t really seen the upstairs rooms so we spend some time exploring. Most of them were a bit too extreme for our liking and if we had to sleep in a few of them, we may actually have nightmares. When we saw the rooms for the waitstaff, we realized these might be the best ones in the house for us! It was approaching 1 PM and we hadn’t had lunch yet. There may have been more to see, but we were too hungry to continue our tour.
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| Bold Bedroom Design Choice |
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| Large Bathroom |
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| Servants Quarters |
We had lunch back in the car and decided our next stop. The docent had mentioned one of Flagler’s hotels was nearby and made it sound like it was worth checking out. It’s only a half mile away but there is a golf course in between and it didn’t look like we should take the path. We suspected that we couldn’t park at the hotel without being a registered guest. With rooms going for between $600 to $3000 per night, we knew that wasn’t an option! We leave the car in the spacious parking lot of the museum and walk the mile around the golf course through a residential area to arrive at The Breakers.
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| Main Driveway to The Breakers |
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| Near the Front Entrance |
The original building was built in 1896 but fires over the years forced it to change to the current building finished in 1926. We always feel a bit out of place in this type of environment. There were likely women here carrying handbags that cost more than our car. We walked past some of the high end retail stores and entered the main lobby area. It definitely had the same feel as Whitehall does with its tall ceilings and ornate details.
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| Elaborate Arched Ceiling |
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| Ceiling Above Hotel Registration Desk |
We walked past through the building to the eastern doors that lead out to the beach along the Atlantic Ocean. Apparently the guests staying here aren’t the type that utilize a sandy beach as there was only a mother with a couple kids walking along the shore.
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| Beach Area at The Breakers |
We head around the outside of the place and see a very crowded pool area and a restaurant that was also very busy. I suppose if we had “stupid money” we might come here for a week but we’re satisfied to just spend twenty minutes walking around.
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| Sand Sculpture |
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| Fountain at Front Entrance |
The gardens along the main entrance are immaculate with lots of plants that we aren’t familiar with. There was also one of the homes on the walk back that had a privacy fence covered with a wide variety of orchids.
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| Flowers Along Breakers Roadway |
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| Pretty Orchid |
We had also hoped to visit the Jupiter Inlet Lighthouse and Museum on our way back to camp. Unfortunately our stop at The Breakers set us back such that we arrived minutes before the lighthouse closed. We hate feeling rushed when we do something like this plus we were rather tired from all the other things we did down at Palm Beach. We walk up to the drawbridge that overlooks the Loxahatchee River where it exits to the ocean. We get a decent view of the nearby marina and the lighthouse.
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| Arrived a Bit Too Late |
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| Lighthouse View from Bridge |
We make it back to camp and start preparing dinner. There were storms in the area but we it didn’t rain at camp however one shower was close enough to produce a nice sunset over our neighbor’s motorhome.
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| Pretty Rainbow on Our Last Night in State Park |
Jonathan Dickinson State Park is definitely a very nice place to camp and there is so much hiking and geocaching here that we might need to plan a return visit sometime. We will head back to TGO with 3 weeks left before we pack up and leave for the year as we head west.
