Nephew time at Kelly Park!

Our second Orange County Park of the season was Kelly Park...I think this one might really be my favorite.  It has the absolutely beautiful Rock Springs, and the campsites are all huge and private.  A huge highlight of this visit is that we hosted my oldest (10-year-old) nephew by himself for the first time (that is, without either parent and without his siblings).  We've babysat all 4 kids a couple times, but this is the first time we've had just one for a dedicated fun weekend focused on him.

Our campsite at Kelly Park - the 'fun' area is tucked away
way back there behind the trees - nice and private!

Before I get into the nephew weekend...a couple of maintenance updates.  We had thought replacing the fuel filter a few sites back was going to fix the weird engine lag issue we experienced, and it went away for a few drives, but came back on our way here, so the fuel filter didn't fix it after all...it's also possible we got some bad diesel fuel, so we're going to wait for another fill up before pursuing any more expensive fixes.  Then our first night at Kelly Park our refrigerator went out in the middle of the night (why is it always the middle of the night for the refrigerator??) with an overheating error.  The next day Aaron diagnosed and figured out that the fan that is supposed to cool the outside heating coils was not working...because the thermostat that turns it on had died.  He rewired the fan before our nephew arrived so that we could turn the fan on manually and ordered the new thermostat, which arrived at the end of our stay - he got it installed and now everything is working great!  

Aaron up on the roof diagnosing the issue

With his new wiring apparatus to allow us to switch the fans on

Ok, now on to my nephew's visit!  We met him with his father about halfway between our campsite and their house to pick him up, and by the time we got back to the campsite it was getting a little dark, but he was still eager to have a campfire and cook dinner outside!  We had 'hillbilly burritos' from a campfire cookbook I had, cooked in pie irons my aunt gave us at Thanksgiving.  Our nephew loved it!  He assembled and cooked his own.  

Cooking dinner in the pie irons

Our nephew with the fruits of his labor!

We had a fun-filled Saturday, starting with cinnamon biscuits for breakfast - my nephew doesn't like raisins and always picks them out of the cinnamon raisin biscuits I make, so since it was just him, I left them out as a special treat!  We traipsed over all the trails in the park either walking or biking.  Aaron and I had been on the main trail in previous visits, but this time we went on ALL the trails.  It was fun and a little exhausting - we even temporarily wore out my nephew, which is hard to do!

Cinnamon biscuits for breakfast

Aaron was full of all sorts of good ideas...

Beginning our bike ride from the campsite

A much needed break after a long bike ride!

They invented a dogfight football game while I cooked - one
threw a football and the other kicked a soccer ball at the same
time (so they were both on offense and defense)

My nephew asked to go back to Blue Spring State Park, which happened to be on the way back to his house, so we stopped there on the way taking him home.  We'd had a bit of a cold snap and there were 444 manatees at the park that day!!  Wow!  We saw lots of babies, including one that seemed to be only about 2 feet long hovering next to his mother's back.  Amazing!

444 Manatees!

My nephew is attempting to point at the manatee

Manatees!  Including the baby one!

We went out on the boat with my sister's family to celebrate my niece's birthday later that day.

On the boat with my sister's kids

Our stay at Kelly Park was great, and we really enjoyed having our eldest nephew all alone for the weekend - we'll have to do it again!

Family Camping at Magnolia Park

We spent a week and a half back at one of my favorite parks - Magnolia Park.  Though as I think back on all the Orange County Parks, I realize it's really hard to pick a favorite.  They each have unique traits that make each special and fun.  But I digress.  We enjoyed the peacocks yet again, and this time I talked to the ranger when we checked in about them and discovered that the three girls and one juvenile boy are actually all siblings - two girls from last year's brood and a girl and a boy from this year's - and the third peahen we saw last year was actually the mom for all of them and was killed by a car near Thanksgiving.  Thankfully she produced three new peahens before passing, or the park would have been in bad shape with just five peacocks and no peahens!

All siblings!

We actually switched sites midway through our visit this time.  I made the mistake of STARTING our reservation on a Saturday, which meant when the booking window opened, most of the sites were taken by people who were camping for the weekend starting on the Friday!  We ended up at a site (5) on the side of the campground we'd never stayed at before, which was farther from the restroom and lacked privacy.  After a few days we switched the other side of the campground, to a great site right around the corner from the restroom with a huge open area in the back for a tent...important for the family camping coming up!

First Campsite - #5 - it's a little short for us and there's another
campsite immediately at the left side of the photo, but it worked
just fine for a few days!

Second campsite - #17 - to be fair it's pretty close to the camp
host on the right side there but you can't see them through the
RV; you can just see the retaining wall that provides some recessed
privacy and the large spot in the back for the tent - also, much more 
room for the car in the front!  (this was taken before my sister arrived)

My sister and her family came to camp with us our second weekend there and we had a great time!  The kids loved 'peacock hunting', especially at night when we found the peacocks and peahens in the trees and even got out at the right time one evening to watch them flying up to roost for the night!  The peahens seem to have an easier time of roosting what with their lack of a huge tail.  We took the kids to the Lake Apopka Wildlife Drive - they had a blast!  They kept count and found 51 alligators!

In the back of my sister's truck with all
the kids (and my sister) - Aaron kept
out of the sun in the front with my
brother-in-law

Aaron got out of the truck and got way too close
to this alligator to get this picture!

We also took the kids to Kelly Park to float down the creek at Rock Springs...but we cheaped out and didn't get tubes.  Turns out that a strong flowing creek really freaks out the kids :-(.  I didn't think about it ahead of time, but I suppose that feeling of being pulled along the water could be really scary the first time you feel it.  As a result, we couldn't convince the younger three kids to just lean back and float - rather, the twins clung to me the whole way down and the youngest clung to her mother.  Unfortunately if you AREN'T floating there are a lot of shallow shin-killing rocks scattered along the whole route - I have the bruises to prove it!  The water was a little cold for the kids as well, so this excursion was a bit of a bust but I think they still had an overall positive experience seeing the crystal clear water (see my previous post) and experiencing something new.

The rest of the weekend we just hung out at the campground - the kids enjoyed the multiple playgrounds and large open fields for football and we all enjoyed some fireside time.

Burning marshmallows at the campfire

My sister's dog found the peacocks 
fascinating too!

 

I have to close with a few more peacock photos just because they're so awesome :-).

I'm not sure how well this comes out, but
what you're looking at is the juvenile
peacock trying to fan his tail feathers out -
it's a little funny to me because the poor
kid doesn't have much going on there yet!

Ok this isn't a peacock but this guy
cracked me up because he came and 
perched on this pole RIGHT outside
my car window while I was waiting
for Aaron to pull around to the dump station
- I guess he thought I might hand him nuts
out of the car window?

This post is quite a bit late because I came down with some nasty cold right after we left the park...hopefully there won't be such a delay before the next post!

Kelly Park and Florida Springs

Over the last couple weeks we discovered a wealth of gorgeous locations in Florida created by the presence of large springs.  Kelly Park, a county park in Orange County, was the cause of this discovery.  This is the only Orange County campground we hadn't yet visited.  A neighbor at Trimble Park told us last year that Kelly Park was a nice park and we should try it out.  'Nice' was an understatement!  Kelly Park has the largest campsites of all the county parks, with corresponding privacy, and holds the absolutely incredible Rock Springs.  Our former neighbors had told us that it could be difficult to get into with a big rig, but we had no trouble at all.  To be fair, there is a tight curve to follow if you follow the park's signs to the campground, and perhaps that would have been difficult, but the park ranger advised us to drive out of the park and pull around to the after hours gate, and when we did that we had absolutely no trouble getting to our campsite in our 40' RV.

Look at that massive campsite!

We wandered down to the springs and were completely blown away by the view that awaited us.  I was used to springs in Virginia that trickled down the side of a mountain.  I was completely unprepared for the gorgeous high-flow creek created by Rock Springs.  The water was completely clear and with the sunshine and trees it had a turquoise color that reminded us of the Caribbean Sea.  This spring is a popular tubing destination, and mid-stream the park built a reinforced swimming area, careful to prevent runoff from the ground and parking lot from reaching the clear water.  At only $5/car, this is a great deal for a family outing!  Pictures won't do it justice but I'll attach a few anyway.

The springs start in the cave behind the floats

My sister came to visit a few days while we were here, and we decided to explore some of the other springs in the area - Wekiwa Springs State Park (wekiwa means 'spring' so the name is kind of funny) and Blue Spring State Park.  Wekiwa Springs' primary focus was a huge swimming hole, which was still remarkably clear but did not have the pristine quiet appeal of the spring head of Rock Springs.  I think if you were to rent a canoe or kayak you might be able to see some more beautiful areas there.  Blue Spring was a real treat though...the park ranger let us know as we drove in that SeaWorld was there to release a rescued manatee!!  We couldn't believe our luck.  Apparently manatee sightings are very common at the park (the springs were full of manatees - the rangers counted 38 the day we were there), but it was such a treat to watch the recovered manatee released to the wild.  They told us that the manatee had been rescued 500 pounds lighter in February 2021 when she was suffering from cold stress.  She required CPR from a University of Florida veterinarian at some point to recover!  After almost a year of rehabilitation, she had grown to 900 pounds and they decided she was ready to return to the wild.

   

We also enjoyed seeing the other manatees in the springs - we're pretty sure we even saw one or two babies!

Mother and baby?

Not a manatee but it was hilarious watching this alligator haul
himself out of the water to sunbathe on the log

This is the released manatee - she fit right in with the 
manatees already there, and we could keep track of her easily
by the breakaway satellite tracker they attached to her tail

With my sister

We drove my sister down into Disney World one day to go to one of our favorite restaurants - Sanaa - where we enjoyed the 'bread service' and were treated to ostriches hanging out right near our table!

With my sister back at Rock Springs

As if all that excitement wasn't enough, we did do a few other things while we stayed at Kelly Park.  We bopped into Magic Kingdom one day - still VERY busy due to a marathon week at Disney World, happened across a very randomly placed Challenger memorial at a local school, and enjoyed biking, hiking, and wildlife watching at Kelly Park.

A memorial to the Challenger

These wild turkeys made a pass through the campground 
every day

We also spent a lot of time emptying our new waste tote over the two weeks!  Thank goodness we have it!  With regular water usage we can go about 2 days between hauling a load to the dump station.  (I know, you're asking: what about the 4 days you used to be able to stay off sewer? Well, with the waste tote, I don't haul the dishwater to the bathhouse dishwashing station anymore, and that makes all the difference.  Also, the tote only hauls 21 gallons from our 60 gallon tank, and we don't usually make more than 2 runs at a time.)  Aaron figured out a good way to hook the tote up to the car so he doesn't have to break his back hauling the tote to the dump station, which was particularly good this time because we were quite far from the dump station at this campsite.  We did have to do this once while my sister was with us, so she got some good pictures of waste toting in action!

Filling the waste tote from our gray tank

Aaron's rig to attach the tote to the car - the blue straps are 
ratcheting straps attached to the metal loops on each side of
the car (where the back door latches) - we added work towels
to protect the bumper

Emptying the tote at the dump station - I keep my foot on the
cover to prevent the elbow from popping out of the sewer hole

Overall it was an AWESOME two weeks at Kelly Park, and my only regret is that we missed out staying here the last two years!  Also, I think I've already booked the rest of our stays in the Orlando area (though we're still working out the details of when we want to leave), so we probably won't be back this year.  If you're in the area, check this out!  It's really an awesome place to be.