Florida

Three Rivers & Suwannee River State Parks, FL

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5 of 13 Jekyll Island Trip Series.

This post is about two Florida State Parks:

1. Three Rivers State Park – on Lake Seminole, which is formed by the convergence of the Chattahoochee and Flint rivers.

2. Suwanee River State Park – is THE “Swanee River” of the “Way Down Upon Swanee River…” minstrel song by Stephen Foster in 1851 (also known as “Old Folks at Home”). My dad used to sing that song all the time on family vacations. It has been stuck in head now for about a week.

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Taken from the dock at Three Rivers State Park, Florida. That’s Georgia in the fog on the other side of the river.
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Not much to photograph at Three Rivers State Park. If you are a fisherman it would be a great place to hang out. Otherwise there’s not much to do here. The trees in the area where decimated by Hurricane Michael in 2018. This is a small campground and the long ‘asphalt’ road back to the campground looked like it had been carpet bombed. Very slow going dodging potholes. We stayed here because Florida cancelled our reservations at Falling Waters State Park. We were happy to move on to Suwannee River State Park.

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Suwannee River State Park was a big improvement over Three Rivers. This panorama is of the Suwannee (which is flowing from right to left) at the point where the Withlacoochee River joins with the Suwannee. There is a railroad bridge at the very left of the photo. The railroad bridge and a busy ferry crossing at this strategic location during the Civil War caused an interesting historical feature of the park.
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The remains of the Civil War Earthworks. An earthen “fort” is still easy to imagine.
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Gears from old paddleboat and old paddleboat “wheel”
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Clear water from Little Gem Spring flows into the Suwannee. Hiking a trail along the river sure is a lot different in Florida than it is in Indiana…

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River edge of the Suwannee. As the water gets deeper it turns orange, then red, than dark coffee colored from lots of tannins in the water.
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Becky got out her sewing machine and knocked out some quilt blocks
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Rich Reflections
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Cyprus Knees. This is probably boring stuff to Southern folk; but fascinating to Indiana folk.

Topsail Hills Preserve State Park, FL

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4 of 13 Jekyll Island Trip Series.

Wow, what a campground… The fanciest, most resort’ish campground we have seen.

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Our campsite at Topsail. Sites are highly landscaped and semi-private from adjacent sites. Short walk to the bath house. There is also a shuttle to the beach for people like us with no bicycles.
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Favorite pic of a Brown Pelican. These are big, majestic birds. The were floating in “squadrons” along the beach; just using the heavy winds to move them along. More pics below. They were fun to photograph…
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The beach at Topsail with “double red-flag” blowing. That means don’t get in the water. Dunes are roped off to preserve turtle and bird nesting areas. The waves were coming all the way up the beach occasionally. I was looking up shooting pictures of pelicans flying over when a big wave filled my shoes with sandy water…
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The Dunes

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A Least Tern soaring overhead
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Ruddy Turnstone’s: so named because they turn over stones looking for yummy stuff

2023: Jekyll Island Axis/Vegas RV Meetup +

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1 of 13 Jekyll Island Trip.
Early spring trip April 4th to May 8th. 34 days

A little post-trip analysis:
2,749 miles by RVparky planned routing, 3,025 actual miles (10% additional)
271.26 gallons of gas. $904.27 for avg cost/gal $3.33
10.735 Avg miles/gal

The 2023 Jekyll Island Meetup is the main goal of this trip. Revisiting with friends we met at last year’s inaugural meetup. Last year there were about 24 Axis/Vegas RV’s. This year there will be about double that and a representative of Thor Motor Coach (Anson Adams) will be attending.

We enjoyed it last year. Jekyll Island State Park is a beautiful place and we learned a lot about our new RV from friendly people having similar experiences. Becky’s sister Jennie had done similar meetups with her Winnebago View RV and enjoyed them.

List of Overnights: numbers match the map tags above
1 – Bowling Green KOA, KY – 1 night
2 – Monte Sano State Park, Huntsville, AL – 3 nights
3 – Gunter Hill Park, Montgomery, AL – 1 night
4 – Gulf State Park, Gulf Shores, AL – 3 nights (visit with John & Pam and see the park everyone talks about)
5 – Top Sail Hill Preserve State Park, Santa Rosa Beach, FL – 2 nights
6 – Three Rivers State Park, Sneads, FL – 3 nights
7 – Suwannee River State Park, Live Oak, FL – 3 nights
8 – Manatee Springs State Park, Chiefland, FL – 3 nights
9 – Jekyll Island State Park, Jekyll Island, FL – 4 nights
10 – Fort Frederica National Monument (in-route Passport Stamp)
11 – Santee Lakes KOA, Summerton, SC – 2 nights
12 – Ninety Six National Historical Site (in-route Passport Stamp)
13 – Cherokee/Great Smokies KOA, Cherokee, NC – 2 nights (begin Blue Ridge Parkway)
14 – Oconaluftee Visitors Center-Great Smoky Mountain National Park (in-route Passport Stamp)
15 – Asheville East KOA, Swannanoa, NC – 2 nights
18 – Boone KOA, Blowing Rock, NC – 1 night
20 – Fancy Gap/Blue Ridge Parkway KOA, Fancy Gap, VA – 2 nights (jump off Blue Ridge Parkway)
21 – Babcock State Park, Clifftop, WV – 2 nights (near New River Gorge National Park)

To follow this trip in chronological order, scroll down a bit to: Monte Sano State Park & Gunter Hill COE Campground, AL →

Then keep following the forward arrows (arrows pointing right  →) at the bottom (of the white portion) of each page
OR: use the Tab: “PLACES: WE’VE WANDERED” at the top of each page.