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Silver Springs State Park, Florida

2026-05-07 by Martin

We stayed at the Silver Springs State Park campground in April 2026. While we were there, we took a kayak and paddleboard trip as well as a 90-minute glass bottom boat tour on the Silver River. The Silver Springs Park is based around the beautifully clear Silver River with its various natural springs providing millions of gallons of crystal clear fresh water per day from underground aquifers.

The park has an interesting modern development history dating to 1924 when entrepreneurs acquired rights to the Springs and soon started the famous Glass Bottom Boat tours that operate to this day. Other attractions on the property followed, including zoological displays and demonstrations, notably those by famed herpetologist Ross Allen, for whom a central island that we paddled around is named.

In the 1930s, Hollywood discovered Silver Springs and over the years, scenes from at least 20 movies were filmed here, including Rebel Without a Cause starring James Dean, Distant Drums starring Gary Cooper, the James Bond movie Moonraker, Creature from the Black Lagoon, and six Tarzan flicks. Episodes of television shows such as Sea Hunt were filmed at Silver Springs as well. In fact, legend has it that Sea Hunt star Lloyd Bridges learned to SCUBA dive at Silver Springs!

ABC Paramount purchased Silver Springs from Davidson and Ray in 1962, and Silver Springs prospered as an attraction. But beginning in the 1970s, new entrants in the Florida attractions marketplace just south in Orlando, behemoths such as Disney, SeaWorld and later, Universal Studios, led to a steady decline in Silver Springs’ attendance. And with that, the resources to properly care for the attraction and its precious natural resources. Exacerbating the dilemma, the Springs began to exhibit problems associated with modern development affecting many springs in Florida – fertilizer runoff and septic outflow. These contain nitrates, which resulted in an overgrowth of brown algae.

In 2013, the Florida Park Service took control of the property, merging it with the adjacent Silver River State Park, forming our present Silver Springs State Park. The Florida Park Service has worked tirelessly to restore and preserve both the cultural and environmental resources of the 4,000 acres encompassing the Springs and the Silver River.

We spent a couple of hours paddling our kayak and paddleboard along the Silver Springs River loop around Ross Allen Island. We were able to launch our own kayak and paddleboard from the dedicated kayak launch area for a nominal fee. Various canoes, kayaks and paddle boards are available for rent from this location. We saw lots of birds and turtles along the way, but surprisingly we didn’t see any of the many alligators that we later saw during our glass bottom boat tour. This paddling loop is a couple of miles in length and heads out along the Fort King Waterway, a beautiful shady, tree lined meandering water way that only allows non-powered watercraft. As we rounded the end of Ross Allen Island, we joined the larger main Silver River section that took us around the other side of the Island and back to our launch point.

On a different day during our visit, we opted to take the extended (90-minute) Glass Bottom Boat tour that took us along the Silver River where we had lots of opportunities to for wildlife viewing. We were lucky to see a Manatee during our trip as this was quite late in the season and most of the Manatees have moved on from their winter areas such as Silver Springs.

During our trip we saw lots of alligators along the river and also a few of the rhesus monkeys that call the area home. The monkeys were introduced to an Island in the Silver River in the 1930s by Colonel Tooey, a concessionaire who operated the “Jungle Cruise” boat ride. He planned to use the attraction of the colony as one of the sights on his Jungle Cruise but did not know that the rhesus monkeys were excellent swimmers. They quickly escaped the island, forming their own feral troops along the river where they live to this day.

The glass bottom boat tour was entertainingly narrated by the boat Captain who provided interesting facts on the history of the area, and the wildlife that we encountered along the way. We were glad we opted for the extended 90-minute boat tour over the 30-minute standard tour as we got to explore much more of the river and see lots of wildlife.

We enjoyed our stay as the Silver Springs State Park campground and our activities on the Silver River. The State Park system seems to do an excellent job of maintaining the natural environment while running the commercial activities within the park.

Photos of our visit are included below. Please click on the thumbnails for the full size images.

Florida Keys

2026-04-07 by Martin

We spent 10-days in the Florida Keys during March 2026, staying at the Sugarloaf Key RV Resort about 20 miles north of Key West. This was the high-season for staying in the Keys, and we had booked a long way in advance to secure the 10-day stay.

We traveled to the Keys from the Encore Miami Everglades RV Resort, and enjoyed the trip down the US-1 Highway which is known as the Overseas Highway once it starts its journey through the Keys. The highway follows a series of causeways and bridges as it makes its way through the Keys. The most famous bridge being the “7-mile Bridge” about half-way along the Overseas Highway. The current highway parallels an earlier section of highway for most of the way. Various sections of the old highway have been converted into bike and pedestrian trails, and fishing piers. Partway along the 7-mile Bridge we passed Fred the Tree, a wild-growing celebrity Casuarina tree. Fred the Tree is often referred to as a sign of hope and the resilience of the people in the Florida Keys due to its ability to thrive in such harsh conditions on a concrete bridge, while surviving a number of hurricanes and extreme weather events.

The Sugarloaf Key RV Resort is a very nice (and expensive!) RV park with a pool, cafe, bar, boat launch, marina, and sandy beach. During our stay we launched our inflatable paddle board and kayak from the boat launch and enjoyed a few hours paddling through the mangroves islands along the coast of Sugarloaf Key. We also spent some time relaxing on the sandy beach, and Allen enjoyed swimming in the Ocean.

During our stay we made two visits to Key West using the Lower Keys Transit public bus that only cost $1 each way and saved us from having to find and pay for expensive parking had we driven. There was a bus stop on the Overseas Highway just outside the RV park. On our first bus trip we found that the buses don’t really follow the posted time-table, and we waited a long time for the next bus. After this we discovered the Lower Keys Transit app that shows actual bus locations and estimated arrival times at each stop and made our subsequent bus trips easier to plan. The ride into Key West took about an hour because the bus stops at the Key West transit depot along the way for the drivers to take a break while the passengers wait for the trip to continue. The trip back from Key West was about 40-minutes as the bus travels direct without the transit depot stop.

On our first visit to Key West, we walked from downtown Key West to the Fort Zachary Taylor Historic State Park. Along the way we walked past the Truman Little White House. The Harry S. Truman Little White House was the winter White House for President Harry S. Truman for 175 days during 11 visit and was used for various federal government purposes until its conversion into a museum in 1987.

Construction of Fort Zachary Taylor began in 1845 as part of a mid-19th century plan to defend the southeast coast of the United States through a series of forts after the War of 1812. During the Civil War it became a key outpost for threatening blockade runners during the Union blockade. The fort was heavily used again during the Spanish–American War (1898), World War I (1917–1918), World War II (1941–1945), and the Cuban Missile Crisis (1962). In 1976, Fort Zachery Taylor was donated to the State of Florida and opened up to the public in 1985. We enjoyed wandering through the Fort and up onto the ramparts. We particularly enjoyed walking through the red-brick arches and corridors housing the cannons and gun ports.

For our second visit to Key West, we decided to take the Old Town Trolley tour of the city. This is a hop-on hop-off narrated tour bus that travels all around the city with the driver providing interesting facts and history throughout the trip. The entire trip lasted 90-minutes and we learned a lot along the way from our driver Karl. After the Trolley tour we enjoyed lunch at the Two Friends Patio Restaurant on Front Street near Mallory Square on the north end of Key West before traveling back to our RV Park on the bus.

Our 10-day visit to the Keys was an ideal amount of time to enjoy the area and make a couple of visits to Key West. The weather was very good during our visit with temperatures on the high side for the time of year. There is something for everyone in Key West with a variety of historical sites as well as a good number of restaurants, bars, and stores throughout the town.

Below is a selection of photos from our trip to the Keys. Click on the thumbnails for the full size pictures.

Cape May Lighthouse

2025-11-14 by Martin

We visited the Cape May Lighthouse in early October 2025 while staying at the nearby Thousand Trails Lake & Shore RV Park in Ocean View, New Jersey.

Located in Cape May Point State Park, the Cape May lighthouse tour cost $12 and was well worth the fee. We learned a lot about the history of the lighthouse and the area from John, the lighthouse keeper who we met at the top of the lighthouse. We climbed the 199 steps up the original, cast iron spiral stairway to the top of the 1859 lighthouse where we got to enjoy spectacular views of the Delaware Bay and Atlantic Ocean from the very windy outside platform. The Cape May Lighthouse is the third beacon at this location. Still an active aid to navigation, it was restored and is maintained by Cape May MAC (Museums+Arts+Culture). Since Cape May MAC opened it to the public in 1988, more than 2.5 million visitors have climbed to the top. The Cape May Lighthouse is listed in the State and National Registers of Historic Places.

After touring the lighthouse, we walked down to the beach which forms the north side of the entrance to the Delaware Bay. We were interested to see the fairly intact remails of Battery 223 that was built as part of the Harbor Defense Project of 1942. This gun emplacement was once 900 feet inland, surrounded by earth and covered by sod, making it look as if it were a hill when viewed from the sea or air. Periods of severe coastal erosion and storms have washed away much of the sand resulting in the gun emplacement now sitting on the beach close to the water. At low tide the gun turrets at the front are visible. Battery 223 was later converted to a Sound Surveillance System station during the early days of the Cold War (1955-1962), but storm damage forced it to be relocated to Fort Miles in Delaware.

As we walked back into the park, we passed by a large birdwatching platform overlooking an area of ponds, meadows, and dunes where we learned that the annual “Hawk Watch” was in progress. Cape May is viewed by many as the premier hawk migration route of North America. In the fall, hundreds of hawks are counted as they pass the narrow corridor of land along the Cape May peninsula heading south.

Watkins Glen State Park New York

2025-07-27 by Martin

Watkins Glen State Park is in the village of Watkins Glen, south of Seneca Lake in Schuyler County in New York’s Finger Lakes region. The centerpiece of the 778-acre park is a 400-foot-deep narrow gorge cut through rock by Glen Creek.

We visited Watkins Glen State Park in mid-July 2025 while staying at the Watkins Glen / Corning KOA Resort a few miles away. We parked at the Upper Entrance parking area which is actually at the west end of the gorge. The gorge runs between this parking area and the Main Entrance parking area at the east end of the park in the Village of Watkins Glen.

From the Upper Entrance parking area, we descended through the gorge on the Gorge Trail which is the closest trail to the stream and runs over, under and along the park’s 19 waterfalls by way of stone bridges and more than 800 stone steps. Along the trail we passed several landmarks including Jacobs Ladder (a set of stone steps that form the initial descent into the gorge), Mile Point Bridge, Frowning Cliff, Rainbow Falls, Central Cascade, and Glen Cathedral. The scenery along the Watkins Glen gorge was stunning, with spectacular views around every bend.

We dropped about 500-ft in elevation from the start of the approx. 1.2-mile Gorge Trail to Point Lookout where we ascended a set of stone steps to the North Rim Trail that took us back to the Upper Entrance Parking area along the top of the gorge. The North Rim Trail is a natural trail which gradually climbs through the forested rim of the gorge. This contrasted with the stone walkways, steps, and bridges that made up the much more spectacular, but also more crowded Gorge Trail below.

The trails can be hiked out-and-back as we did, but if you only want to hike one-way there is a park shuttle that runs from one end of the park to the other throughout the day. Photos of our visit are provided below. Click on the thumbnails to view the full-size pictures.

Letchworth State Park New York

2025-07-25 by Martin

Known as the Grand Canyon of the East, Letchworth State Park is a 14,350-acre masterpiece. Named in 2015 as the Best State Park in the nation, Letchworth features a wild 17-mile gorge carved by the Genesee River tumbling over waterfalls and meandering through the heart of the park, offering spectacular views at every turn. The river crests over three major waterfalls amid cliffs as high as 600 feet encircled by lush forests teeming with wildlife.

We spent four nights in the Highbanks camping area in loop 800 in early July 2025. There are eight camping loops, four allow pets and four are non-pet loops. Each loop has a shower and restroom building. Common amenities include a store and laundry. The camping loops are all similar with about 30 to 35 sites in each loop. There is a mixture of 30 and 50 amp sites. None of the sites have water or sewer connections, however there is a water fill station on the entrance road to the camping area and a number of shared water spigots at each loop. There are several sewer dump stations on the main road out of the camping area.

We spent three days visiting different areas of the park. The first day we visited the lower falls area which included a 1/2 mile hike from the lower falls recreation area parking lot to a set of stone steps down to the lower falls viewing area and on down to the lower falls stone arch bridge, a historic footbridge that crosses the Genesee River in the Gorge. This bridge was built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930’s along with many other infrastructure projects within the park.

On our second day we rode our e-bikes from the camping area about 5-miles north to the Mount Morris dam overlook area. The Mount Morris Dam is a concrete gravity dry dam on the Genesee River. Built between 1948 and 1952, its purpose is to mitigate downstream flooding between Mount Morris and Lake Ontario. We hiked the 1-1/2 mile Highbanks trail from the Dam overlook area down to the Genesee Valley Greenway, a multi-use trail that crosses the Genesee River in the town of Mount Morris. The hike between the dam overlook and the Greenway wound through dense woods along the edge of the Gorge. At some sections along the trail, you could see evidence of the Genesee Valley Canal that used to run parallel to the river between 1840 and 1878.

Our final day touring the park took us to the middle and upper falls. Both falls were just a short walk from the Upper/Middle Falls parking area at the south end of the park. The Upper Falls has a Railway arch bridge crossing immediately above it that creates a dramatic frame over the falls. The middle falls are the highest of the three falls and has the closest viewing area of the three.

We enjoyed our stay at Letchworth State Park. The three days we spent touring the park were enough to see the highlights, but we only touched on a few section of the 66 miles of hiking trails within the park which would take a lot more time to explore.