Three Rivers State Park, Florida - March 26th to 29th, 2023
Not all state parks are created equal. We enjoy the ones that provide opportunities for activities within the park. Three Rivers State Park had everything we needed for fun, hiking trails, biking trails, and a lake to paddle on.
Sunday’s drive from Fred Gannon Rocky Bayou State Park to Three Rivers State Park was pretty uneventful. We stopped for groceries and gas, then ate lunch at an interstate rest area. The temperatures were up in the 80’s, so we turned on the cab air conditioner during the drive for the first time this season. It is probably just the start to some heavy use for the season.
The road to the campground was rather rough. It was damaged from the logging trucks that cleared the damage out of the park after Hurricane Michael in 2018. Also as a result of the hurricane, the campground lacks some shade, but new trees have been planted and should provide more shade with time. The campground sits on Lake Seminole. We can partially see the lake from our camp site. The lake is large and straddles the border between Florida and Georgia.
There are plenty of signs warming about an alligator and no swimming is allowed. So Ann does not plan to take the paddle board out onto the lake. However, the campground rents kayaks and canoes for $15 per day, so she thought she might give that a try. The park also has 9.7 miles of multi-use trails, so we planned to do some hiking and biking in the park.
The park seems to be more “wild” than the other two state parks we have visited so far in Florida. There are no highway noises. Instead, there are lots of animal sounds, from birds to frogs to insects. The temperatures cooled down over night, so we had our bedroom windows opened wide all night to let the cool breeze flow through. We fell asleep to sounds of crickets and woke up to the sounds of birds. It was so refreshing. This reminded us of when we used to tent camp with our kids. That is something we missed in Red Tail Lodge (One), our VanDOit camper van. In our van, only the front cab windows opened, so we couldn’t hear the sounds of nature very often. We love feeling more a part of nature. The campground was pretty dark. Not many people had exterior lights on. We like it like that. As Ann was lying in bed, trying to fall asleep, she noticed a bright light coming in her window. She peered out the window to see where it was coming from. It was our Hughes Watchdog surge protector that was plugged into the electrical pedestal. The whole face of the Watchdog logo lights up. It’s white while everything is working properly and turns red when there is an issue. We’ll have to see what we can do to turn that down.
Monday morning, we went for a hike right from the campground. We chose the Lakeview Trail. As the name suggests, it follows along the lake shore, past the boat ramp and through the day use area. There was no one at the day use area. Then the trail continues further, to the state park boundary. We circled around on another trail, then retraced our steps back to the campground.
It was a hot day, in the 80’s, but there was a breeze which kept us comfortable. The trail is mostly in the woods, but the woods were a little thin in places, probably due to hurricane damage. There was a constant chatter of different types of birds from the tree tops. A variety of small flowers lined the trail along with a handful of other flowers, such as lilies and yellow daisies.
A large tortoise, with a shell about a foot across, scampered across the trail a distance in front of us. By the time we reached the edge of the trail where he had disappeared into the grass, we spotted him. He was poised at the entrance of his burrow. As we approached, he scurried down into the hole to safety.
We returned to our camp site by lunch time. Our hike, which was 5.4 miles with an elevation gain of 272 feet, took us two hours and 45 minutes to complete. It was hike number 11 of our 52 Hike Challenge for 2023.
To give us some shade, we put the awning out. After enjoying our lunch, we hung out in our camp chairs in the shade for most of the afternoon. Keith tried to figure out why the wind sensor didn’t seem to be working on the awning. He replaced the batteries, downloaded the phone app, and adjusted the sensitivity level. It still didn’t retract when he gave the awning a good shake. He’ll need to investigate that a little more.
During Keith’s tinkering with the wind sensor, he pulled out one of the kitchen drawers to take a look at the awning control unit mounted in the inside of the cabinet, behind the awning switches. As he did so, he noticed that the right drawer slide of the bottom drawer was only held in by one screw, when there should be two. Ann noticed that she was having difficulty pulling items out of the back of that drawer, but couldn’t remember if it was always that way. It turns out that the drawer was not opening all the way. We were also wondering where a couple of loose screws that we found earlier came from. Luckily we saved them and Keith put the missing screws back in. Now the drawer works properly again. Keith also looked for settings on the Hughes Watchdog to see if he could turn down the brightness. He didn’t find any. Instead, he taped over the dog’s face, except for its eyes. That’s better!
Just as we started to think about what to cook for dinner, the rains came. At first, we hung out under the awning, but as the intensity of the rain picked up along with the wind, we retreated inside. Because the windows are the awning style, we were able to keep them open pretty far without water coming in. It was nice to have the cool air flowing through Red Tail (our Winnebago EKKO). We also left the entry door open. What we didn’t notice at first was the entry door was not under the awning and was getting soaking wet. When it rains in the future, we will shut the entry door and open the kitchen window.
We left the awning open during most of the rain, but we probably should have closed it, especially since we knew the wind sensor was not working. We actually forgot about it and didn’t close it until after we went to bed. That’s not a good thing. The rain lasted all evening and night. Luckily we had leftovers from dinner the day before so we didn’t need to cook for dinner.
Tuesday morning the rain stopped for a couple of hours. There was standing water everywhere, so we didn’t feel like hitting the trails on foot or on bike. There were more thunderstorms in the forecast, so Ann didn’t feel like being caught out on the lake in a boat with lightning around. Instead, we got some chores done before the next storms hit. We took out the trash. The campground recycles aluminum, so we took our cans over to the bins.
We also dumped the toilet cassette in the bathhouse so we wouldn’t run the risk of filling it up while stuck in Red Tail during the rain. The toilet has a progress indicator, but it seems to only show red the last two times we use it before being extremely full. We’ve been dumping it about every two to three days, but normally we only use it after dark and first thing in the morning, not all day.
Keith asked for help on the Facebook Group for the issue with the awning wind sensor. Someone suggested checking the Bluetooth pairing. That turned out to be the issue. Looking at the Carefree phone app, the wind sensor did not show up as a device. To get it to pair up again, you need to extract the awning, then press and hold the retract button. Keep holding the button down until the awning fully retracts plus an additional three seconds. Then the wind sensor should show up in the phone app device list. Success!
Ann snuck a shower in at the campground bathhouse before lunch, just before the rain started again. The rest of the day, we hung out inside Red Tail. Ann worked on a blog post. Keith mounted a couple of bug zappers from the ceiling inside Red Tail. Inevitably, bugs make it inside the rig. It doesn’t take many flies or mosquitos buzzing around to keep you awake all night. We’ve been using these small zappers inside our rigs since after getting a whole swarm of mosquitoes inside our van during Season One (Slice of Germany & Mosquitos in the Pacific Northwest - July 8, 2019).
The sun was out briefly on Wednesday morning, then it was just cloudy the rest of the day, no rain, but the temperatures were cooler, only in the 60’s. Surprisingly, the ground dried up fairly quickly. All of the standing water from the day before disappeared. We waited until after lunch before getting our e-bikes out to explore the rest of the trails in the park, giving the trails a little more time to dry out some more.
The trails are strips of mowed grass through the woods, with some tree roots, mud, and rocks in some places. We picked up the Orange Trail from the campground, just a couple of camp sites over from ours. We came to a locked gate across the trail, but there was a small trail around it. From the map, it looked like the trail headed over to the county road before turning to follow the park boundary line. The trail past the gate was not well used, our legs brushed up against the vegetation along the way. We were glad that we both were wearing long pants. The trail got better when we reached the road. At that point we joined a wide path that looked like it was used by service vehicles. It followed alongside a fence. The trail was between the fence and the county road. Then the park trail appeared on the other side of the fence and ran parallel to the one we were on. Oops! We were on the wrong trail. Instead of turning around and retracing our path, we continued until we reached the park road. We were a little concerned about passing the park entrance station and being asked to pay to enter, but no one came out to say anything to us.
At the park road, we were able to pick up the Green Trail which we followed along the park boundary to the other end of the park. The trail was bouncy and a little rough. There was no way we would have taken our old Trek hybrid bicycles on these trails. Ann was thankful for the suspension on her expensive seat post and Keith was a little jealous. There were also a few sketchy parts, with moist, slick, red clay, and deep erosion ruts. We just made sure we didn’t stop in the soft spots and managed to negotiate around the deep ruts.
At the other end of the park, we picked up the Eagle Trail, then the Dry Creek Trail over to the Day Use area and the boat ramp. From the boat ramp, we followed the park road to get back on the Orange Trail. We rode along the fence, on the park side this time. However, we came to a large tree laying across the trail. If we were hiking, it would have been no problem stepping over the trunk. But our e-bikes weigh over 60 pounds. Ann managed to walk her bike over some tree branches around the end of the large trunk. Keith lifted his bike over the trunk. We’re not sure which way was easier. Keith remembered to turn the power off on his bike, just in case he accidentally hit the throttle. We have both activated the throttle unintentionally before, almost losing control of our bikes.
It was nice having the e-bikes on these trails. We could choose how much of a work out we wanted. When the incline started to work our thighs too much, we just bumped up the pedal assist. When we just needed a quick assist, on a short incline or trying to get started on a hill, a quick boost from the throttle came in handy. Our pedal assist settings during the day ranged from zero to two, out of four. So we still gave our legs a workout. In total, we covered 8 miles with an elevation gain of 525 feet in a little over two hours.
When we got back to our camp site, there was red mud all over our tires. So we sprayed our bikes down, wiped them off, then left them outside to finish drying off before storing them back in the garage. We didn’t recharge the batteries, because both of them were still reading full, all five indicator lights were on. There are outlets inside the gear garage, so we could charge the bikes while they are stored. However, after reading about all the e-bikes whose batteries have caught on fire, that’s probably not a good idea. We’ll only charge the batteries outside our rig.
We didn’t get a chance to paddle on the lake, but we really enjoyed hiking and biking the trails. Normally we like smooth trails for cycling on, but we found the bumpy trails in the park to be a lot of fun.
Check out our related video: Three Rivers State Park, Florida
(Ann)