More Biking and Hiking

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Our stay in Brooksville continues to be quite enjoyable. The weather is generally quite pleasant for mid-February. We take advantage of the nice days and usually head out for some sort of hiking, biking or other sightseeing but even if we simply stay home at Belle Parc, we find ourselves sitting out behind our rig watching all the activities of the birds. A very small gator has taken up residence just behind our rig and is out there nearly every day. Even though we are really looking forward to heading to Colorado for the upcoming spring, summer and fall, we will miss the beautiful spot we have here.

Snowy Egret Sticks Out Tongue

Osprey with a Catch

Cattle in Lake

Kingfisher

Snowy Egret Checks Out Feet

Small Gator

One of the bike rides we took was in Weekiwachee Preserve in Spring Hill. This is another of the Southwest Florida Water Management District (SWFWMD) properties we enjoy exploring in this area of Florida. We haven’t visited here since our stay in Hudson Florida back in 2019. It’s a large property (> 11,000 acres) and has a rather comprehensive trail system around the dozen or so small ponds in the preserve. The main entrance is on the southern end of the preserve and it tends to be a rather popular destination for the locals. The majority of the visitors will simply walk the 1.5 mile paved road thru the center of the preserve but a few other bicyclists show up as well. Many of the unpaved roads are hard packed limestone and are easily ridden with a bike having any off road capability. There are also a few dozen geocaches hidden throughout the preserve and even though we have come here several times in the past, we still had plenty to find.

Paved Road at Weekiwachee Preserve

For this visit, we plan to get a bit off the beaten path for some of the more remote geocaches. About a half mile up the paved road is a trail that splits off to the right. While most people won’t try biking on this trail, we did come across a guy out for a morning walk. There are stretches of the trail that are simply too sandy to actually ride the bike, but in general it was possible to bike most of our route. As we worked our way to the north end of the preserve, there is a forest road that continues on. We found this road was much easier to cycle on so we kept going. There were a couple caches just a ways of the road. It the surrounding area is rather swamp-like and it didn’t look like there was a way to get to them without getting wet so we skipped them and just enjoyed the ride. At trail marker #13, there was a split in the road but we decided it was time to turn around and head back to the car. We ended up with a 10 mile ride and enjoyed our visit even if we didn’t find all the remaining geocaches.

Heading along "Trail"

Overlooking Pond at Weekiwachee

Trail Split at Marker 13

We found another SWFWMD property that we haven’t visited before. Lake Panasoffkee Wildlife Management Area is just off of State Route 44 just west of Interstate 75. It is in the general area of Flying Eagle Preserve, Half Moon WMA and Potts WMA which we have visited a few times in our stay in Brooksville. We watched some YouTube videos of the area and decided it looked to be better explored by bicycle than hiking. While the name of the place includes Lake Panasoffkee, the actual lake isn’t part of the WMA nor is there any lake access points from within. The only trail listed in AllTrails is the 6.3 mile Jones Creek Trail but there appears to be many other trails so we plan to just wing it and see what we find. The dirt entrance road from SR 44 is about 2/3 mile before getting to the preserve. We were somewhat surprised to find there were quite a few people camping - most in an RV of some sort but a few in tents. The large herd of cattle were feeding not far from where we parked.

Entrance at Lake Panasoffkee WMA

Cattle Having Lunch

We started south down the main road - Jones Creek Trail. It’s actually a decent hard packed limestone road that is gated off past the camping area so vehicle traffic should be limited. About 2 miles in, we have a water crossing but a rather substantial bridge gets us safely across. We check for wildlife from the bridge but don’t see much going on in that regard.

Biking Down Jones Creek Trail

Crossing Jones Creek

A short distance beyond the creek crossing is a turn for Borrow Pit Loop Trail. This forest road looked less major than Jones Creek but still seemed to be acceptable for biking. We made it to the geocache hidden just off this trail and decided to continue on after making the find. Since the trail’s name has “loop” in it, we were optimistic it would make a loop. Along the way we found a turtle on the trail. It was rather shy but did stick its head out slightly before we continued on. The trail is heading generally to the east at this point and is approaching the border of the preserve and I-75. We start to run into very sandy road conditions and much of it is loose sand so we are forced to push our bikes along.

Shy Turtle

Deep Sand Portion of Borrow Pit Trail

My Garmin showed a small pond would be near the trail as we turn to the south and parallel I-75. It turned out the pond wasn’t very impressive but we pushed on (literally at times) figuring the trail would eventually connect up with Jones Creek Trail since it was a loop. We continued to run into lots of deep sand portions and this route wasn’t looking like a good decision. As the trail continued, we entered a more wooded section and the riding conditions improved dramatically. However at the 6.3 mile mark, we came upon an obstacle that wasn’t as easily overcome. A gate and a “No Trespassing” sign. From our maps, it looked like we would need to travel a quarter mile before coming back onto preserve property but we might need to do the same thing in another quarter mile.

Unimpressive Pond

Even Deeper Sand

Our Turn Around Point

There was a less traveled forest road that headed back to the north and we decided to give it a shot instead of retracing our route and all the sand we had just trudged through. It looked like a road that hadn’t been traveled in years. There were a few fallen trees we needed to lift the bikes over but in about 1.4 miles we came back out onto a portion of the Borrow Pit Loop we had been on an hour or so earlier. So maybe we did complete the loop, it just didn’t take us where we were hoping to go. From here, we did retrace our route back to the car and got in an adventurous 12 mile bike ride.

Bike Ride #1 at Lake Panasoffkee (in blue)

We didn’t let the problems from our first visit to Lake Panasoffkee WMA turn us off to the area. A few days later, we headed back with the bikes to try a different route. We knew there was a Loop Trail that would head west before turning south and intersecting with the Jones Creek Trail. We found the marked trail from the parking area but did need to cross a couple of cattle gates in the first mile. These were not simply closed with a latches but a chain and lock so we were forced to lift the bikes up and over then climb the gates ourselves.

Starting Along Loop Trail

Second Gate to Climb

The Loop Trail did eventually hit Jones Creek and we continued on it to the south of where Borrow Pit intersects. This ride was a bit easier than our first visit. There were still some sandy sections but for the most part we could bike thru them if we just picked the proper line. Sometimes it wasn’t until I was partway thru a section that I realized I had chosen poorly. If Chris was paying attention she could adjust her path accordingly.

More Sandy Trail Conditions

The road continues to the south thru the preserve. One section was thru a wetland area but fortunately the road is elevated enough to be dry. There was a lot of standing swamp land on either side of the road but at least the sandy sections don’t exist there. After 7 miles of riding, we hit the gate at the southern end of the WMA. We were hoping to find a picnic table here but had to just use a fallen tree for our lunch spot after we finished eating we turned around to head back. There are several smaller side trails along the way but we didn’t have the energy to explore and still be able to make it back to the car. At about the 10.5 mile mark we hit the Triple B Loop Trail. We knew this one would more or less parallel our route and add less than a half mile to our trip. This ride was 14 miles long and much easier than our first one.

Triple B Loop Trail

Bike Ride #2 at Lake Panasoffkee (in green)

I mentioned in the last blog post about a hike we did in the Citrus Tract of the Withlacoochee State Forest and how there is much more to explore there. After the recent bike rides, we needed to get back out for a hike so we headed to the southern end of the Citrus Tract to do a couple of shorter hikes and find a few geocaches along the way. First stop was at the small parking area next to Stage Pond Cemetery to complete the hike around the pond. As we pulled in, we saw a couple of guys with guns coming out of the woods and heading towards their pickup truck. We pulled out some of our blaze orange gear before we took the the trail just in case there were other hunters out and about. The trail around the pond is just over a mile so it isn’t very strenuous. The first geocache we got to had just been placed in the past few days. Somebody had already gotten the “first to find” honors but we figured we could be second. We looked for a few minutes with no luck and then read the cache description and ratings and realized we needed to be looking up. Sure enough we spotted the containers about 15 feet overhead in a rather small tree next to a much larger tree. I handed Chris my camera and other possessions in case I fall and started to evaluate the approach I should take to climb the tree. It was a large live oak tree with big drooping branches. One option was to get onto one of those branches and climb up. The second option was to climb the tree at the trunk. I made some halfhearted attempts at both and realized I didn’t want to spend the rest of my winter with a broken arm or worse. We moved on realizing we don’t need to get them all. Stage Pond was more lake a large marsh with all sorts of grasses growing in the shallow water. We did find the easier geocache on the other side of the pond and didn’t run into any hunters along the way.

Stage Pond

A Bit More Water from this Angle

Next we drove north into Citrus Tract along Trail 13. This is a wide and reasonably well maintained unpaved road. After 1.6 miles, there is a paved road up to Tillis Hill Campground. We initially drove up to check it out but decided to continue up Trail 13 to better access the loop we hoped to complete. We continued north another mile and stopped at a small cleared area near the corner of Trails 13 and 18. Being a Saturday, there were lots of others out enjoying the forest as well. Most of them were in tricked-out Jeeps that were likely only using the main trail to get to more obscure and challenging trails.

Trail 13 Near Parking

We headed out and found a trail that heads east/west less than 1/4 mile north of Tillis Hill. We knew the cache we wanted as not along any trail but we wanted to get as close as possible before heading in. At about 400 feet from GZ, we realized we needed to start the bushwhacking portion of our hike. Some of our route was thru open woods with minimal brush, but then we would hit a thick section of palmettos. These aren’t fun to walk thru but I suppose it is better than brambles. We eventually made it close to ground zero which was right next to a large very old mining pit. It took a bit of skill to safely make it down the steep rocky sides of the mine but I made the find.

We decided to come up with a better exit route. We realized we were only a couple hundred feet from a horse trail that would lead up to the campground area. This was a much easier route. We circled on the trail just outside of the campground. It actually looked quite nice and had rigs just as big as ours setup for what was looking like a pleasant weekend. We will need to keep this in mind if we ever just pass thru the area. After exiting the campground area, our trail led us back to Trail 13. Instead of going the half mile back to the car along what was a fairly busy forest road, we followed an actual hiking trail that looped around and would intersect Trail 18 which we could follow back to the car. The hike in the woods was quite nice but when we got to Trail 18 we realized this was a very sandy trail and didn’t look like a fun walk. If we continue along the hiking trail it would come back to Trail 13 north of our parking spot. In hindsight while the walk in got woods was nice, we ended up hiking 1 extra mile and still needed to hike along the Trail 13 road. We don’t always have the best luck when we just wing it during our hikes.

Trail 18 - A Sandy Mess

We enjoyed the hiking trail portion of the hike we did in Citrus but but too much of that outing was on forest roads or bushwhacking. We sat down and looked at the various trail maps we have of that area and came up with a plan that would make a reasonable 7.5 mile loop which would either be on hiking trail or a horse trail and avoid the forest roads altogether. The map below was created in CalTopo and output to both our Garmin and phones to Avenza map app which should keep us from getting lost. Having driven up Trail 13 the other day, we knew it was a reasonable road and would just need to drive a bit more of it - not quite 7 miles north from County Road 480.

We arrived at our intended trailhead and the shoulder of the road was plenty wide enough for cars to park and one truck was already there. We hadn’t gotten as early of a start as we had hoped so we sat in the car to have our lunch before heading out. Since the terrain here is fairly flat, there wasn’t an obvious choice as to which direction to start the hike. We picked counterclockwise simply because there was a cave about half mile from our parking spot and figured it would be better to explore this early in our hike.

Starting Out Trail Towards Cave

There is an EarthCache at the cave which is how we even knew about it being there. As we approached it’s location, we heard lots of voices. It turned out there was a large group of backpackers (on the order of 15 to 20) that had declared this their lunch spot. It was hard for us to investigate the cave since they were all around the opening and along the trail. We got enough information and our required picture in order to log the EarthCache and moved on.

Cave Entrance

At just over a mile into the hike, the trail crosses over the road we had driven in on and then parallels it for a bit. Since this trail continues to the southeast, we had to be careful not to miss the turn onto our horse trail at the 2.6 mile mark. At the intersection is a large concrete water tank that was nearly full but I doubt even a thirsty horse would be will to drink what was in it. This horse trail was in pretty decent condition and didn’t look to have been used very recently. It’s path was a diagonal to the north east and should intersect with another hiking trail in 2.5 miles. Things were going good until the 3.8 mile point when we intersected Trail #12. The horse trail that was quite obvious for the last mile or so all but vanished. We were forced to cut east across Trail #12 and then north along Trail #9. So much for our plan to stay off of the forest roads. There were some sandy spots but it wasn’t a terrible detour and probably only added a half mile to the hike. As we approached where the horse trail should have intersected, we saw no indication of it from this direction either. Apparently our trail maps need to be updated to eliminate this missing trail.

Nasty Water Along Horse Trail

As we cross over Trail #10, we were able to pick up the desired hiking trail again which should lead us back to our car. It was immediately obvious this section of the forest had been burned fairly recently. The small of smoke wasn’t overpowering but the lack of pine needles and leaves on the ground were a good indication when it was burned. After the fact, I checked the photos I had take on February 3 on a bike ride on the WST near Inverness. At the time we assumed the large cloud of smoke in the distance was likely coming from somewhere in the Citrus Tract. Based on some landmarks in the photo and the location of the smoke, it is clear the section of the woods we were walking in was burned exactly 18 days earlier.

Entering Burn Zone

Trail Thru Woods

Burned Palmetto

I’ve had quite a bit of experience with prescribed burns during our two stays in Brooksville over the past years. And while the landscape here looks rather bleak right now, it won’t be long before it comes back to life with a vengeance. Even in just the short two and a half weeks, there are signs of those plants that survived are sending up new life. As we crossed Trail 11, we saw this was not one of the forest roads that would be fun to traverse by foot, bike or even car. We made it back to the car with our distance at 8 miles which matched the expected 7.5 plus 0.5 mile detour required.

Palmetto Coming Back

Trail 11 Sandy Too

Cave Hike in Green

The next day was 2/22/22 and we headed to Whispering Pines Park in Inverness. There was a special geocaching event that was taking place at 2:22:22 PM. Yes, geocachers tend to be geeks. We got there a bit early and only a few others had already arrived. We started talking about hiking or caching or traveling in general.

As more and more people showed up, a friend of ours back from Rochester NY came over to say “hi”. I knew he often came to Florida for the winters but didn’t know he was near enough to come to this event. We had a good time catching up and he introduced us to a few of his caching buddies. Surprisingly, one of the couples was a caching name we had heard of before but it took me awhile to determine where I recognized them from. During the summer/fall of 2018 as we were heading up to Maine, we kept finding geocaches where one of the most recent finders was this couple. This seemed to happen from New York, Vermont, New Hampshire and into Maine. It turns out they too are traveling the country in their RV and we nearly identical routes that year with them being a couple weeks ahead of us. It was nice to put a face with a name and trade contact info so we can keep in touch.

Brooksville Part 9

Map of this blog's locations click this link to open the map

We seem to be finding more places for hiking and biking this season in Brooksville than when we stayed here last time. I’m not sure why that is other than we keep trying to explore areas we haven’t seen before. The other notable change from last year continues to be the spot we have near the lake at Belle Parc RV Resort. We have a very large number of birds that call this area home but the other day I spotted some birds that I haven’t seen in our lake. Four pelicans were swimming around looking for a meal. It wasn’t the nicest day so I actually needed to shoot my pictures from inside the motorhome. I was hoping they intended to stay around for some time but probably spent less than an hour here as they passed thru the area.

Pelicans Visit

Last season, I mentioned about a few trips we made to the Citrus Tract of the Withlacoochee State Forest. It’s only about 10 miles north of camp. We had done both hiking and mountain biking and really enjoyed the area. Given the the Citrus Tract is over 50,000 acres and roughly 11 miles tall by 9 miles wide, there is a lot of it we hadn’t gotten to yet. There are probably more than 100 miles of multi-use trails throughout the tract. Plus the forest is divided up into roughly one square mile blocks by a large number of forest service roads generally running either N/S or E/W. This seems to be a fairly common layout in the forest land around this area probably to allow the land managers the ability to perform prescribed burns that are on a reasonable scale.

One of the defined loop trails in the northern end of the tract is the Citrus A Loop. It’s roughly a 9 mile route which was a bit longer than we were wanting to tackle. AllTrails shows the trailhead near the Holder Mine Campground. We decide to pick up the trail where it crosses East Haven Street and then cut across the forest road named Trail 8. This should eliminate 3 miles or so from the defined hike and put it at a comfortable distance for our hike. There wasn’t any defined parking along the road, but the grassy shoulder is rather wide and worked well for our hike.

We start out going north which will have us complete the loop in a counterclockwise direction although it’s Florida so either way works. Just a bit up the trail is a small pond labeled Bull Sink on one of my maps. By the time the trail crosses back over the continuation of the road, it is now a dirt fire road called Trail 6. The hiking trail was in good shape and we only ran into one other couple that were illegally riding their e-bikes on this clearly labeled foot traffic only route.

Bull Sink

Crossing a Fire Road

As we continued along the trail we saw there was a pond on our Garmin map and we figured this would be a good spot to stop for lunch. Needless to say, we were rather disappointed when the Fivemile Pond turned out to be more of a mud pit than anything else. We continued a bit beyond the pond and found a spot along the trail for lunch. It wasn’t until we finished eating and continued on another couple hundred feet to find a real picnic table!

Well Marked Trail

Fivemile Pond or Mud Hole?

Trail Intersection

As Citrus A Loop crosses forest road “Trail 8” we hang a left and head east. Our shortcut along this road wasn’t quite as nice as the actual trail had been, but we didn’t run into any traffic and the sand wasn’t too bad for most of the 1 mile before we intersect the trail again. In hindsight we probably could have made it the 2.5 miles along the trail and had a more scenic hike. We did wonder if we should return to the area for a bike ride on the forest roads. The remaining 1.25 miles along the trail back to the car was pleasant. A portion of this section is along the Florida Trail which runs from near the Everglades in southern Florida all the way up and thru the Panhandle area of the state covering over 1400 miles. The 5.5 mile loop we put together was a nice and secluded hike in the woods.

Shortcut Along Trail #8

Back in late November, I was doing something in one of the storage bays and happened to notice one of the slide out motors had a broken casting. One of the four mounting tabs was snapped off and a second looked to be starting to crack. I initially thought I could just order the motor and replace it myself but after watching a few YouTube videos, I realized this was a bit more involved than simply unbolting the old motor. Plus when I searched for a replacement motor, it was difficult to find. Newmar happens to have a mobile tech that works out of Winter Garden Florida and covers a large portion of central Florida. We called and asked if this was the type of job he could handle and were told it was. He apparently is quite busy and we couldn’t get on his schedule for 2 months. Given we are sitting still for that time, it wouldn’t really impact things plus that would permit them to get a motor in hand. We received a quote and signed off on the work order.

In late January, Mark showed up with his mobile repair truck and our replacement motor in hand. He took a quick look and told us some bad news. There was a good likelihood that in removing the motor from the shaft, the coupling would damage the shaft and need to be replaced. This is especially true for a 10 year old coach. If that were to happen, he would not be able to repair it in the field and we would need to take it in for service. He called back to the service department for the dealer he works out of and we could get scheduled for the motor replacement and possible shaft swap at the end of March. We decided that since he had the motor in hand, we should just purchase it from him to guarantee we would have one when the time comes. The only real concern I have is whether the existing motor mounts will remain intact for one last time to pull in the slide. If not, I will need to find 10 strong backs to help push the slide in manually.

The next day we decided to try another hike. This time near Ridge Manor in another part of the Withlacoochee State Forest. Our goal was called the Richloam North Loop Trail. The drive to the trailhead was only one mile from State Route 50 on McKinney Sink Road. A couple of Jeep Wranglers were just coming out as we were heading in. They were plastered with mud but we continued on hoping they hadn’t gotten muddy in the short stretch of road we had to drive. The road was in rough shape and there were some large (car sized) pot holes along the way. Some were partially full of muddy water and we could have adorned our Jeep with the same badge of honor the others had but we drove around the mud instead of thru it! The trail we wanted crosses the road and while it is marked, it isn’t the most obvious trail. Another Jeep trail parallels the hiking trail but it didn’t look passable.

We passed by a small pond that likely dries up at times. The trail ends up rejoining the Jeep trail after a quarter mile. Since it doesn’t appear to be utilized by vehicles, it was in okay shape for hiking. We found one geocache along the way and we’re about a mile out along the trail heading for a second cache, when we’re heard a gunshot. Not one from a distance but more like one from 50 feet away. We yelled out so whoever was shooting knew there were hikers back here. Hopefully we weren’t their intended target. After we found the cache, we decided to cut our hike short and head back to the car. Between the trail being in need of some maintenance and the hunters, we had seen enough of this one.

Pond Along Richloam North Loop Trail 

A couple weeks ago we had visited the Half Moon Wildlife Management Area with our bikes. That visit was on a Saturday apparently during hunting season so it was less enjoyable. We determined that we were now in a window where there was nothing in season for hunters and we headed back on a Tuesday morning to improve our odds of having the place to ourselves. The gate was closed when we arrived which was another good sign in our favor. We hopped on the bikes and set off to explore. I had inadvertently left my camera back at the rig but did have my new phone so I guess I get to put its camera to the test.

We got to the restrooms and office area about a mile in and met a woman getting tools loaded onto her John Deere utility vehicle. We stopped to chat with her to confirm we shouldn’t run into hunters today. She told us we were okay on that front but that the crew was going to be doing a prescribed burn on the west side of the property so we may see some smoke. It turns out this 81 year old woman used to volunteer here but they liked her work enough to actually hire her to help to some chores around the preserve. She told us to bring back any issues we have with downed trees or other trail concerns so she could take care of them. I hope I have her health and energy at that age.

Without the fear of running into hunters, we were amble to hang a right on Welch Road to go for a nearby geocache we had skipped on our first visit. There were a few cattle grazing in the area but did not interfere with our mission. We had downloaded a map for Half Moon into our Avenza Map app and it looked like the trail might continue on to the east even though the road ended at a gate of sorts. We got a little turned around on the multitude of trails here but eventually found the one we wanted. At one point we came to a “Wet Area Ahead” sign and figured we might need to turn around. As it turned out, things have been dry enough for us to get thru but we did need to walk the bikes for a couple hundred foot stretch that was rather muddy and rutted.

Our detour off the main road added 2.5 miles but got us back to the main road about 2/3 miles from where we turned in. By now it was close to lunchtime so we continued north to the picnic table we knew was right across from the boardwalk overlooking Bat House Pond. It was at this point we started to see some smoke about a mile or so west of us. Since we had made it this late in the morning without seeing smoke, we assumed the burn had been postponed. After lunch we headed over to the boardwalk to get a better feel for the location of the burn. There was a smoke on the horizon to the west but we weren’t seeing any flames. As we continued to watch, occasionally there would be a huge plume of thick black smoke as the flames must have encountered a large amount of dry vegetation. This would dissipate after a minute or so and go back to just a small amount of smoke. While we were on the boardwalk, there were several ATVs and trucks that were heading back and forth along the road we were traveling.

Smoke Viewed from Boardwalk

Short, Intense Black Smoke

We got back on the bikes and continued north and ran into our first flames right along the side of the road. We stopped to watch a firefighter on an ATV driving thru the brush a hundred feet off the road lighting fires along his path. We came upon a few more of these firefighters as we moved on. They didn’t motion for us to leave or warn us to stay back. Apparently we looked like responsible people and weren’t inclined to bike off road into the flames!

Flames Along the Main Road

Firefighter on ATV

The next side road on the west was Old Oxford Road, we suspected that this would form the northern border of the burn zone for the day. As we continued north, the smoke all but disappeared from our view. Knowing where the fire was also informed us as to where the fire wasn’t. The woman we met on the way in told us about an old cemetery off of Davies Road which was about a mile north of the northern edge of the fire - well out of harms way. There wasn’t a sign for the cemetery but is near enough to the road to be visible if you know to be looking for it. It is about 100 feet on the north side of the road. There is a wooden fence around the perimeter likely built to keep the cattle from grazing over the graves and toppling tombstones. With a little investigation, I discovered this is called the Alto Cemetery and dates from the late 1800’s when there was a small community here.

Old Tombstones at Alto Cemetery

Our trail map for Half Moon showed this road continuing west as an improved road before changing to a trail. It looked like it should come back around and intersect Potter Bend Road so we decided to give it a try. We had to go thru a cattle gate at the end of the road to continue on the trail. This section probably isn’t traveled very frequently but was in reasonable shape. There were a couple downed trees we needed to lift the bike over and there was some wet areas along the trail but we didn’t encounter any gators. It didn’t take long before we emerged from the woods and went thru the next gate to get onto Potter Bend Road right near the bend. Heading south looked like it could work but that was the direction of the fire so we headed back east to the main park road and then back south towards the car. As we approached the intersection with Old Oxford Road - which we had passed less than an hour prior - the fire was now all the way to its northern edge.

The Prescribed Burn has Spread

We continued south and all along the west side of the road was either on fire or smoldering. Fortunately the wind was blowing the smoke away from the road so it wasn’t too terrible to ride thru. There were plenty of fire crew and vehicles around as they worked to set fire to sections that hadn’t burned yet. It was a little bit surreal to see the flames only a few feet away. Back at the boardwalk, the fire had advanced much closer to the pond than it looked like it should have been able to given the standing water. We didn’t have much further to go before we crossed Alto Landing Road which was the southern edge of the burn zone. For the remaining ride, there was no smoke smell or other indication of the fire. It turned out to be a very interesting 15 mile bike ride for us.

View from Boardwalk as Fire Advances

Chris Checks on the Situation

Burn

There is still a lot of bird activity by our campsite. On days we don’t go out for some adventure, I’ll often sit outside and just watch what is going on in the neighborhood. One day, I heard the osprey making quite a racket with their incessant called. I went out to investigate what was going on. I could see one osprey in the nest and a second one on the limb of a nearby tree. They were both looking overhead and calling out. I finally spotted what they were concerned about. There was another osprey circling around overhead. From all the commotion, I assume it wasn’t a friend coming for a visit. After a few minutes of circling, one of the perched osprey took off and the chase was on. The two of them played tag for a bit before they both flew out of sight. It was 15 minutes later before the one returned home and was not accompanied by the intruder.

Anhinga Calls Out

Drying Out Wings

Great Blue Heron Patiently Waits for Lunch

Osprey Soars Overhead

Osprey in Nest Watches Intruder

I’ve continued to go over to the Croom area of the Withlacoochee State Forest for mountain biking when the weather and my energy levels are good. We have also gone out for a few more rides on the paved Withlacoochee State Trail. On one ride, we drove up to Floral City and then biked north from there. As we approached Fort Cooper State Park we could see a massive column of smoke arising from the the west side of Inverness. We surmised a large portion of the Citrus Tract of the Withlacoochee Forest was undergoing a prescribed burn. We also stopped at Wallace Brooks Park which borders Henderson Lake. There was a small amount of haze on the horizon to the east and suspect that maybe another portion of Half Moon or Potts Preserve was also being burned. This ride was just over 16 miles.

Huge Fire to the West of Inverness

Maybe Smaller Fire to the East?

A couple days later we headed a bit further north to the town of Beverly Hills - Florida not California. The Central Ridge District park has plenty of parking for the several ball fields that weren’t being used early on the Monday morning we visited them. There are restrooms and a connector trail to the WST. I previously thought we had biked all parts of this trail, but realized there was a stretch from here south to Inverness that we’ve never explored before. A lot of it goes parallel to SR 41 so it isn’t the most scenic or quietest trail. On the way back we did a detour into a neighborhood to check out a geocache with a fair number of favorite points. It was on private property but it’s the cache owner’s place, so we didn’t feel apprehensive going for it. The cache is a very large container that sits above the final resting spot for the owner’s beloved dog that had passed 2 years earlier. As we were signing the log book, the owner walked out to greet us and we had a long talk. Besides having geocaching in common, he is an avid cyclist and RVer so we had much to talk about. By the time we made it back to the car, we had gotten in another 16 mile bike ride.

Prometheus' Final Resting Spot