Florida Parks
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Exploring Hontoon Island State Park
If you love day trips and hiking, exploring Hontoon Island State Park is the adventure for you. Hontoon Island is located in Deland, Florida, making it a great day trip from Orlando. The island is only accessible by boat. Take your own private boat or the ferry. Keep in mind the ferry’s last trip is 7:00 at night, but that can change so be sure to check with the park rangers. Hiking Hontoon Island has several hiking trails to explore. We hiked the Hammock Hiking Trail to Indian Shell Mound. This was a fairly easy hike, a bit wet in places, but manageable. It was a long hike, about 3…
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The Old Spanish Sugar Mill
We woke up on a lazy summer Saturday and with a craving for pancakes. With not much going on we decided to take a little day trip to The Old Spanish Sugar Mill for the best pancakes around. The Restaurant The Old Spanish Sugar Mill Grill and Griddle House is a unique restaurant located in De Leon Springs State Park, Florida. It is a Do – It – Yourself restaurant, where you make your own pancakes on a built in griddle right at your table. If you order the All You Can Eat Pancakes, which of course we did, you get two pitchers of pancake batter. The red pitcher is…
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Kathryn Abbey Hanna Park
Our Father’s Day weekend was spent camping at Kathryn Abbey Hanna Park in Jacksonville, Florida. This is a city park with amazing beach access to Jacksonville beaches. We all loved this campground and had a fantastic time exploring all it had to offer. There is a lot of things to do at Kathryn Abbey Hanna Park, also known as Hanna Park. It was fairly easy to find and is a great location to the beaches. Camping The campsites were a bit small, but offered some privacy will foliage between each site. The sites are full hook-ups, which makes things so much easier, but there is also a dump station located…
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Hiking Ravine Gardens
It was a beautiful day to be outside in Florida yesterday. We took the opportunity to take a day trip and explore Ravine Gardens State Park. This is a unique park to hike especially if you want a bit of a challenge. Ravine The ravine in Ravine Gardens was naturally made by the Whitewater Branch spring that eventually drains into the St. Johns River. This spring-fed creek formed the ravine over thousands of years. It is a marvel to look at and explore. Azalea Trail Hiking the Ravine Gardens was a challenge for us. We are not avid hikers by any means so hiking the Azalea Trail was a workout,…
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How to Make a Campground Reservation in Florida
We love camping in Florida and apparently so do a lot of other campers. Finding a campsite for a weekend getaway can be frustrating. You will quickly realize that the more popular campgrounds are booked months in advance, especially during the winter months. I’ll give several ways we learned on how to make a campground reservation in Florida. If you are like us, you don’t always know that very far ahead if you will have time off to camp for a weekend. I have found some helpful websites and an app to help find the perfect campground for each of our camping trips with just a few weeks to plan.…
