Spring is really trying to be sprung here in north Florida. In the last 7 days we have had almost 90 degree weather and highs in the 60’s. We have had mostly sunny days and mostly rainy and cloudy days. Nothing really seems to faze our visitors here at Alligator Lake Recreation Area in beautiful Lake City, Florida though. They come every single day to walk to trails, ride their bikes, play on the playground, picnic at one of the pavilions and every single weekend their are lots of birthday parties. Generally, the big screened in pavilion is only rented on the weekends and is reserved all the way into August, I think. So we have lots of trash cans to empty on Saturday and Sunday. The other smaller open but covered picnic pavilions are first-come-first-serve so we get quite a few people here first thing in the morning to stake out their favorite ones. Other than picking little pieces of confetti string and candy wrappers the visitors have been fairly good about cleaning up after themselves by putting their trash in the cans. We still have to chase down the occasional piece of tissue paper or paper bag that ends up the surrounding wooded areas.
Riding around the park in our 4WD Green Gator machine is pretty fun as is meeting some of our visitors. We don’t get out and about as much as we would like because we are preparing for our big crafting event at Stephen Foster Folk Culture Center State Park in White Springs, Florida during Memorial Day weekend. You know, the great Florida Folk Festival where we hope to sell lots of our handcrafted items and maybe earn enough to fix out RV engine problem. Anyway, we have met people working in the area from Minnesota, youngsters traveling around from south Florida and even the occasional full-time RVer looking for a place to spend a few hours between campsites. We DO NOT have camping here of any kind but our paved parking areas are pretty big and can accommodate almost any sized rig. We have even had a semi-truck with trailer come in to take a potty break and eat his lunch before he got back on the road. Obviously, week days are better than weekends to visit as they are less crowded and Sundays are better than Saturdays. Please remember we are closed on Mondays; dogs, alcohol and shooting aren’t allowed in the park.
Surprisingly, we greeted a fellow workamping couple we met at Stephen Foster year before last. She worked and continues to work off and on in the Craft Village. They were cruising around the area waiting for a camping spot to open and stayed in the park a couple of hours. It really is a small world. We have the Memorial Day weekend off here and would love to camp inside the campground at Stephen Foster like the rest of the performers and vendors but, sadly, we will not be able to until we get the engine rebuilt. Luckily, White Springs is only 20 miles down the road from here so we can drive back and forth each day. It is not ideal but that can you do?
So, if you are in the Lake City, Florida area and would like a quiet, pretty place to rest for a couple of hours come on by.
Till next time…Keep safe out there!
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