Adams Tract WrapUp

We are starting to wrap-up here at Adams Tract River Camp. It’s funny but we will miss this place. But we also miss being on the road. We have passed the 9 months full-time RVing mark and are looking forward to the next 18 months we have scheduled so far. The hardest part about being here is that we really don’t have the extra money to get out and explore. That was the reason we accepted all these campground hosting assignments in the first place was to be able to save a little money and go exploring more. Sadly, that hasn’t been the case. We will have to work on bringing in an income while we are traveling as well as the retirement payments we have been living on the past couple of months. It makes all the difference if you can bring in some extra income while you are traveling so that you can enjoy those trips to local parks, eat out in a local restaurant every now and then or just be able to have extra gas money to explore the areas when you are not doing your campground hosting duties.

At the River Camps we have to be available in the late afternoons when people show up and clean in the mornings after they leave but it would have been nice to go to more places in the area while we were here. We did get to go to Troy Springs State Park and Lafayette Blue Springs State Park. We took lots of pictures but sadly half of the ones at Lafayette Blue Springs didn’t turn out as well because we got rained on off and on the whole afternoon we were there. We will be starting a new section with pages for those Florida State Parks that we have visited that only have “Day-Use” facilities and do not have RV camping facilities. These include those with Primitive Tent Camping only and those that only offer Cabins or no camping at all. We have visited a few of them already and hope to get those pages up very soon. We will be off from campground hosting the entire months of April and September next year. This will give us a chance to visit some more Florida State Parks to do more reviews.

Since we have been here we have seen some armadillos, a couple of deer, a large red-headed woodpecker, plenty of cardinals and wrens and some pesky squirrels. Those, besides the various kinds and colors of snakes, spiders and lizards, are just about the only wildlife we have seen in this area. We get some of our groceries from the Mayo Thriftway Supermarket which is a small town grocery store. The majority of our supplies we get from the Wal-Mart Super Center (open 24 hours a day) in Live Oak, Florida on Highway 129 near I-10 (about 25 miles from Adams Tract). If you have the freezer space and want a good deal on some meat, go into Branford, Florida on Highway 129 (A.K.A. 804 Suwannee Ave) and stop by the Cuzin’s Cafe. They have a meat store right next to the cafe that has freezer specials of Angus Beef and Pork. Great deal. They haven’t gotten a website up and running yet but we bought one of their $109 freezer specials and it has lasted us a month. The package included steak, bacon, short ribs and stew meat. We did have tp order our meat two days in advance though. The meat store and cafe are owned and operated by the same family (386) 935-0985. We were going to try Mobley’s Custom Meats in McAlpin, Florida next but we have run out of time and will have to try them next year. Adams Tract is 10 miles from Mayo, Florida and 10 miles from Branford, Florida. So, if you run out of anything while you are here you will have to drive to one or the other towns to get it.

We loved the town of Mayo and Lafayette County so much that we created a website just for them. It seems that the whole county is only about 253 square miles and has about 8,700 people living here. They are not much on websites or even Facebook but we hope to change that. We have taken pictures, gotten business information and are looking for some local high school kids to serve as blogging interns for the website to keep it updated while we are gone. Check it out: http://townofmayo.org It is a pretty little town with come vacant store fronts and offices that could use some businesses to open up here. Granted, the entire county is mostly made up of farmers and tree farms but there is lots of potential here. Mostly, they seem to need a dentist, an eye doctor, a craft supplies shop, a cellphone shop and even a few more restaurants. There are two or three restaurant buildings for sale in the county. They do have a Subway, a Sub and Pizza Shop, the Mayo Cafe, a Mexican Restaurant, a barbecue place and a small coffee shop next to the courthouse that is only opened till 2:00pm Monday – Friday. They have a hardware store, two auto parts stores, five convenience stores with gas pumps and two auto/truck repair places. They also have one laundromat, an antiques store, a Bed and Breakfast Inn, a motel with RV Park, a pharmacy and a couple of places to get your hair cut. Not much else though. There are only 2 public schools and they are both located in Mayo, an elementary school and a middle/high school combined. There is one private Christian school located of U.S. Highway 27. For more information about the county and the town of Mayo, please go to our website.

For anyone who is considering being a campground host for the Suwannee River Wilderness Trail’s River Camps we hope you will. All of the camps are beautiful, have hot showers, full RV facilities for the host including the on-site sewers as well as access to a washer/dryer. They are not really all that busy except possibly on most of the weekends and some through the week while school is out. The work is not that difficult. The campsite facilities are well-maintained and if there are any questions, problems or if you need supplies then you just call the main office on the cellphone that they provide for you. Each of the State Parks along the Suwannee River Wilderness Trail help the River Camps out when there are repairs, garbage to be picked up and they can even bring you some supplies if the main office can’t get out to you quick enough. The River Camps have locked gates to the street entrances. If you want a day off all you have to do is go when you don’t have any reservations or call the office to let them know if you have to be gone more than 8 hours. So long as the camp is ready to receive visitors your time is pretty much your own. Yes, you will have to mow the grass, pick up the trash, empty out the garbage, dust out the sleeping platforms and clean the bathrooms. But that is what you have to do in exchange for staying of some of Florida’s most beautiful areas. We have enjoyed our time here and look forward to coming back next year.

We can’t wait to get to our new assignment. It should be fun too!