Christmas at Withlacoochee

We spent a few days around Christmas at Withlacoochee River Park, a Pasco County Park on the Withlacoochee River.  Our main motivation for choosing this park was that we were in our required 1-week break between Thousand Trails parks and all of the Orange County Parks were closed for Christmas.  

Withlacoochee Campsite

This park felt very much in the middle of nowhere, and we approached from the wrong direction (from the SOUTH on Auton Road for anyone ever trying to do this in the future), which had us driving for about 0.5 miles on a dirt road before reaching the park.  As soon as we reached the park entrance the road transitioned to paved and was paved to the north (which we discovered on our way out).  This was a nice little park, with a large first-come-first-serve open field and a 15-site wooded campground that allowed reservations (where we stayed).  Despite the sites being fairly close together by public park standards, the trees and underbrush made our fire ring seem pretty private.  The park had a lovely 1.75 mile paved bike trail that wound all through the woods around the park.  The Florida Trail ran for a bit along the Withlacoochee River itself.  There was an overlook tower and lots of little trails that sprang off the paved trail.

Biking on the paved trail

Aaron risking his life for a better view from the tower

Withlacoochee River

Aaron did his best job yet on the lights at this site I think.

He even got our flag outlined!

A red-shouldered hawk graced our campsite just about 10 feet outside our front door!

Red-shouldered hawk!

We enjoyed a quiet Christmas in the campground.  Our neighboring campers had some great Christmas decorations up!  Unfortunately Christmas day was quite chilly by Florida standards, so we stayed inside all day watching the latest movie releases on our various streaming services.

Some people have Christmas trees for
their presents...we had a Christmas Chair

Being slightly northwest of Orlando, this provided a great launching point for our great Texas adventure - over the next couple months we'll slowly work our way west to San Antonio and back again, mostly keeping close to the Gulf coast in hopes the weather won't get TOO cold on us!