 |
| Carefree RV Resort, Arcadia |
Our next stop for five nights is the Carefree Resort in Arcadia Florida. It’s a quiet area to relax in central Florida and the price for a site was excellent. At the Tampa RV show we found out about a 50% discount for veterans (discounted rate $19/night with full hook ups) and decided to check it out one of their resorts.
The campground is well kept and the staff are very friendly. It’s another snow bird location with a full activity schedule. Sites are close together but for the price we had no complaints.
One of favorite places to visit is the Ding Darling Wildlife Refuge. When we were there earlier the weather was too windy to take out our kayaks. The weather today was perfect. Unfortunately Bev has a bad cold,, however, JC has remained bug free and came along.
Tarpon Bay is in the refuge and has an easy launch site. You register at the desk in the gift shop and pay $13/kayak. (They also rent kayaks). There is a beautiful marked water trail through the mangroves after about a fifteen minute paddle across the bay. It was a slow, leisure paddle, and very enjoyable. The only difficult part is crossing the bay since it was a little windy.
 |
| Ding Darling Map |
 |
| Entering the marked canoe/kayak trail |
 |
| Crossing the bay |
Once Bev was feeling better we drove back to Sarasota for a delicious dinner with our friends Mark and Sharon. They were our workamping neighbors when we worked at Sheridan Lake (a National Forest Campground) in South Dakota. They have been workampers in the Black Hills for many years and now leave their 5th wheel there and rent a pretty park model in Sarasota each winter. Sharon cooked us an Italian dinner and it was delicious. It was great to see them. They will be returning to Sheridan Lake for “one last time”. We’ll see…the Black Hills sure have a way of drawing you back.
 |
| John, JC, Mark, Sharon, and Bev |
Very close to our campground in Arcadia is the beautiful Peace River. It runs for 106 miles and lots of folks find it fun to dig in the sand for fossilized shark teeth and prehistoric mammal bones. Bev is still feeling under the weather so we decided to take a short paddle to check it out. We have two cars so after some research we left one car at the Brownville Park and launched five miles upstream at the Gardener Boat Ramp. Click this link for a great paddling trail map.
 |
| Gardener Launch Site |
 |
| JC soloing |
We saw lots of fossil hunters. Many of them had screens for sifting the sand. One guy had attached floats to his sifter for drifting down the river. Pretty cool idea.
 |
| Fossil hunters |
The current was slow and it was a lazy, relaxing paddle. The banks are sandy and there are lots of places to camp along shore if you want to plan a multiple day trip. Our favorite part was listening to hoot owls calling back and forth. This portion of the river is mostly wilderness and there's a lot to like about that!
Wow! Two paddle trips in less than a week. Life sure is good!
Oh my, that looks so relaxing. I like all the greenery.
ReplyDeleteWe did our share of fossil hunting on the Peace River :)
ReplyDelete