Brooksville Part 11

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

We have been at Belle Parc nearly 4 months and have less than a month to go before we head out. I feel like we have accomplished a lot of chores on the rig and visited many great parks and preserves, but there seems to be a large number of things I would like to get done before we pull out. With just a few weeks remaining, there is a good chance it won’t all get accomplished. Such is life.

The bird activity near our site seems to be rather consistent. The osprey definitely have an egg or two in their nest since there is always one adult present – it’s head just barely visible from my viewpoint. Other birds continue to use the fence to perch on while preening their feathers or drying in the sun.

Snowy Egret Scratches

Osprey Patiently Waits for Lunch

Small Gator

Pied-billed Grebe

Gator Again

Damsel Fly Pauses

Egret and Anhinga Atop Fence

We had my sister and brother-in-law over for lunch and to see our new furniture and check out our site next to the pond. While sitting out behind the motorhome, there was a fair amount going on. Not just birds and gators but also the herd of cattle were on the far side of the pond grazing on some land that just a few months earlier was completely submerged. I’ve seen these cows many times but their behavior today was odd. The farmer has two young boys that we frequently see out fishing. I noticed the boys running from the house towards the cattle. At first the cattle started to run towards the kids, but the boys saw the reaction and turned around and ran back. But then for some reason the cattle turned and ran the opposite direction. Even though the water was down 18 inches or more from when we first arrived, it was still pretty deep in the direction they were heading. Not all of them picked a route that was shallow enough to run across and I think a few of them weren’t expecting to need to swim across. It still wasn’t clear why they seemed spooked.

Little Blue Heron on Prowl

Spooked Cattle

Out for a Swim

Fish Surfaces Behind Rig

We had visited Annutteliga Hammock Preserve earlier in our stay but saw there are actually two parcels of land that make up the preserve so we decided to try the other one for a hike and a few geocaches. This second one is a little bit smaller in size and just off of Route 19. The parking lot was empty so we had the place to ourselves. We had a couple different trails listed on our phone apps so we started on one of them that we hoped would get us to the geocaches hidden there. This preserve is much less wooded and more sandy than the other one. We followed our trails and found the caches but when we attempted to follow the trail we expected to loop back around to the car, we ran into problems. We bushwhacked thru some dried up brush attempting to stay on the trail our phone showed but never ran into an actual trail. I suspect this part of the preserve is a low area that gets flooded seasonally so the trail doesn’t get used much (if at all!). We eventually spotted some marked trees on the far side of the field and headed to them. Sure enough it was a real trail but not one that was heading back to the parking lot. By now we had gotten to within a quarter mile of a trail we had already walked on, so we simply bushwhacked some more to intersect it and make it back to the car. This definitely isn’t one of our favorite trails in the area.

Sandy Terrain

Pleasant Section Through Sparse Woods

The following day we headed for a state park we had heard good things about from others in the area. Colt Creek State Park is southeast of Brooksville not far from the town of Dade City. They have both hiking and biking listed as options so we came prepared for either since it isn’t all that close and we likely won’t make it back a second time.

Beautiful Day at Colt Creek State Park

As we entered the park, the ranger at the entrance booth informs us that a portion of the Orange Trail is closed for a prescribed burn. Just our luck since our original investigation of the various trails had us planning on trying this 8 mile loop trail – by bike if possible or as a hike if necessary. We head to a parking area near Mack Lake to come up with plan B. It’s a nice spot. There are several people out on the pier fishing and few others out kayaking on the lake. They appear to have rental boats so that could be something different. There is a half mile nature loop from this area so we head there for a quick walk and a geocache.

Overlooking Mack Lake

After that, we sit down to have an early lunch back near the lake and decide to try some bike riding on an open portion of the Orange Trail which will lead us to the Yellow Loop trail on the south side of the park. After a short ride along the Orange Trail, we see the sign for the closure of the other section of the trail. By now it was early afternoon, yet we were not seeing any signs of smoke or other activity associated with a prescribed burn. We decide to not press our luck by continuing past the closure sign and passed thru the equestrian campground to reach the Yellow trailhead. We picked counterclockwise simply since it was the trail sign we encountered first. It started out along a small canal or possibly Colt Creek since that is the name of the park? It was a pleasant ride in the shade of large trees. We only spotted one gator along the way.

Starting Out in the Yellow Trail

Big Gator Across Water

There were only a few sandy sections but none so bad as to require us to walk them. After about 5.5 miles, we were back to where we had started. Being a Tuesday, the park was rather quiet so we just biked the park road back north. The park’s campground was along this part of the road so we did a quick ride thru it. Looks like a nice campground and fairly new with many sites large enough for a rig our size. A short distance from the campground is the Orange Trail intersection and then headed west into another shaded portion of the park. This eventually looped around a few small ponds. I found it amusing that a sign is required to warn people to not swim with alligators! The Orange Trail continues into the northern portion of the park but we knew there would be a closure sign somewhere along the way and it wasn’t clear if there would be an alternative route out other than backtracking, so we just biked back to the car to call it a day. Even though we weren’t able to do the route we had hoped, we still found Colt Creek State Park a nice place to visit.

Please Don't Swim with Gators!

One of the repairs I needed to make on the motorhome was the central vacuum system. Yes our rig has one, but if you have ever camped before, you know that all sorts of stuff gets tracked into the camper, so having it is quite convenient. Ours has been having problems for nearly a year. It works much of the time but often will only run for a few minutes before shutting off. Waiting a few minutes may get it to work again for a bit but not always. Saying it is a nuisance is an understatement. I would have gone into troubleshooting mode earlier but the vacuum is mounted on the side wall of one of our basement bays right next to our furnace/water heater. Access was very limited, and looked like it would be a real pain to remove. Being stationary for 5 months and having the ability to receive deliveries, Chris convinced me that now was the time to fix the vacuum.

I was right, gaining access to the four mounting screws was nearly impossible. One extra joint between my wrist and elbow would have been helpful. After a lengthy struggle, I got it out without damaging something else in the process. When I set the thing on the picnic table to play with it, I could not get it to fail whatsoever. After an hour, I discovered that I happened to have the thing sitting in a vertical orientation whereas it is mounted in the rig in a horizontal fashion. Surely that wasn’t a factor since it may be mounted in either direction. But as soon as I flipped it to horizontal, it started to act up! I played with it the rest of the day and part of the following day and came to the conclusion that a small relay board inside the unit (which turns the vacuum on/off based on whether the vacuum port door is open or closed) was starting to fail. I found I could get a replacement board for about $80 and I was sure it would fix the problem. I searched a bit more and found the actual relay for $3 online. All I would need to do was unsolder the old relay and install the new one.

Of course, while I was in troubleshooting mode, Chris was doing her own investigation. She discovered that Dirt Devil had a newer model that has the same footprint as ours but is quieter and has more power. I never did get to try my $3 solution but instead ordered the new one for $186. As an aside, we discovered that these are made back near my hometown in Louisville Ohio where I have many relatives living to this day. I wonder if any of them happen to work there and assembled my vacuum? It arrived a few days later and after an even bigger struggle, I got the thing installed and it does live up to the hype – much quieter and it does really suck!

Chris had found a good family run produce stand at a farm near the place I mountain bike at quite frequently. One day after our ride, we stopped by to pick up some vegetables and check out the real reason Chris goes there – goats! I’m not positive where her fascination is with goats comes from but it is quite real. While Chris did some shopping, I wandered around the various pens to check out the other animals that are living at Beasley Farms. The chickens and goats were more accessible than the horses and cows which were way out in one of the large pastures.

Cluck, Cluck

Snoozing Rabbits

When Chris finished with her shopping, we headed over to see the goats and feed them some of the scrap lettuce set out by the farm owners. The goats were definitely happy to see someone coming over with food. There are more than a dozen of them and a few are rather assertive when it comes to feeding. We did our best to distract those mean goats while feeding the less pushy goats.

Approaching Goat Area

Goat Checks Me Out

Resting in the Hay Trough

Chris Makes a Friend

Coming Over for Food

Yum Yum

On one of my solo mountain bike rides at Croom WMA, I rode a trail in a portion of the park I typically don’t ride in. The Red trail is on the south side of Croom Road and starts at the Smith Prairie parking area. It can be turned into a 7.25 mile loop fairly easily. It was nice to ride a trail different than my normal route. At one point I got to a section of the forest that was completely filled with lupines in bloom. They were so prolific and beautiful, I even felt obligated to stop to send a picture to Chris so she could see what she was missing.

Lupine Along Red Trail at Croom

In mid March, we had a storm front move thru and there were lots of watches and warnings. We decided the laundry building 100 feet from our rig would have to be our “safe place” if it came to that. The storm came thru and we didn’t experience a tornado although there were reports of one 30 miles to the north. We didn’t experience any real issues – just some small twigs, leaves and lots of spanish moss littering our site. The following day, I hear what was clearly a large vehicle working just 7 sites up from ours. I stepped out and saw a dozen or so people watching something so I felt obligated to go see for myself. Apparently the storm had snapped a tree on the farmer’s property and it had fallen onto one of the travel trailers. Fortunately, the rig did not suffer a direct hit and seemed to have some cosmetic damage. The motorcycle that was parked next to the trailer had a bit more damage but wasn’t completely destroyed. While I watched the farmer use his huge pay loader to removed some of the remaining tree debris, I was talking to one of the other residents. As we commented about the damage on this site, he asked if I had seen the damage in another part of the resort. I told them I hadn’t so he told me where to look. Later in the day on our way out, we drove past the site. It turned out this one was just 4 sites from where we were last season. This guy’s F150 pickup truck apparently was no match for the two foot diameter tree!

Mushed F150 and Remaining Stump

Here are a few more random photos from early March, all taken from our site. One day I happened to be sitting behind the rig and the small gator was resting in the shallow water. Several birds came by and got a bit closer than I felt would be safe. I was ready with the camera in case the gator went for one of them. The ibis got the closest but the gator ignored it.

Large Gator

Seven Turtles Lined Up

Small Gator

Three Cormorants

Ibis with Gator Just Beyond