Category: Sights to See

Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Historic State Park

May 27, 2014 Jolene MacFadden

Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Historic State Park is a fun place to visit and it will be a great place to volunteer for a few months. It has two parts, one is the historic homestead of the famous Florida writer and the other is the picnic area with boat launch. We visited this park while we were camping at Paynes Prairie Preserve State Park and enjoyed walking the land and seeing all the artifacts from another era. They still have chickens in the yard, a garden, fruit trees and much more. The park rangers and volunteers give talks about the park, the history and stories about Ms. Rawlings. We took lots of pictures while we were there and will post them below. We hope you will consider volunteering for this lovely out-of-the-way historic park.

For those who don’t know she wrote the great classic “The Yearling”.

Campground Host Experiences, Sights to See, Volunteer At A Florida State Park, Workamping

Our Vacation Ends at Manatee Springs

May 2, 2014 Jolene MacFadden

Our vacation ends at Manatee Springs State Park and we have arrived at our new assignment. Due the flooding down the Suwannee River the Manager for the Suwannee River Wilderness Trail River Camps has placed us at the Woods Ferry River Camp instead of Adams Tract. It seems the road leading into Adams Tract is flooded and he has all of the river camps closed for campers until the river goes down. From what we are told the camp host at Holton Creek is flooded in but has been utilizing this time improving his canoeing skills. We will also use this quiet time to get the campground cleaned and ready for new visitors. They haven’t had a campground host here for a month and between the manager, park ranger and our fellow host at Holton they have tried to keep it tidy. But we intend on giving it a thorough cleaning during this downtime.

Information for Campers

Wekiwa Springs State Park

Park Info, RV and Campers, Sights to See, Volunteer At A Florida State Park

Myakka River So Far

February 12, 2014 Jolene MacFadden

Myakka River so far has been a great experience. The weather has been pretty volatile with cold days, wet days, wet and cold days as well a bright sunny days too. There are a lot of campground host volunteers here during the winter months of January to March. Most are from up north with some of those as far as Canada. This is a very social occasion for these volunteers and they have pot luck dinners, movie nights and bomb fire game nights. Most of these people have been volunteering at this park for years. Being as they have so many volunteers quite a lot can and does get done during these months for the park rangers. There is cleaning of the huge park including all the public restrooms; campground cleaning; volunteers manning the main entrance taking money from new comers and the north entrance on weekends; working in the visitors centers; bird watching teachers; as well as mowing and clear cutting of the surrounding woods to prepare for the annual controlled burn and all the special events. This year the volunteers have agreed to host a weekly morning social hour with coffee, tea, juice and assorting snacks being available for just a $1 donation per person. It is a great chance for our fellow campers to get to know each other, meet the campground hosts and some of the ranger who drop by and listen to some music from some very talented volunteers. This is such a large park with so many things going on that they really need all these volunteers to keep things moving.

Adams Tract WrapUp

June 22, 2013September 15, 2025 Jolene MacFadden

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.

Birds We Have Seen

February 12, 2013September 14, 2025 Jolene MacFadden

We have traveled to 17 of the 51 State Parks and Recreational Areas on our list to visit so far. Granted it has taken almost 6 months to see those that we have and it looks like we will not get to all of the others without a little help from our friends. As the saying goes. But the ones we have been to have been rather nice with a few hiccups here and there.