Roving Reports by Doug P: 2019-3 Eustis to Williston Florida

2019-3

now this is a porch worthy of sitting a spell
or even taking an afternoon siesta

Traveling through Florida

Campground: Southern Palms a Thousand Trails/Encore park. PA discount $22.50 + $4 daily resort fee + taxes of $1.76 and $9.90 for (4 nights). Approx 1100 campsites. Mostly grass sites with hookups behind camper requiring long extension cords, water lines and sewer connections. PS cable tv was a joke, more snow on the screen than a winter storm up north. Passport America search.

Campground: Devils Den. A natural spring (for snorkeling and scuba diving) and campsite. $120 per week +9% tax, full hookups back-in and pull-thrus. RVParky search. ($17 per night)

Distance traveled: 64 miles

Eustis Florida

Heading out of the Orlando area which is always a challenge deciding which route to take. Almost all routes involve toll roads which I’d advise any Rv-er to take. Traffic will still be heavy most likely, but you avoid stop and go traffic. I took toll road 417 up to Sanford before heading inland to Eustis Florida.

It’s odd that I’ve never explored this small community not far from the more famous Mt Dora community that most folks including myself have venture too. Eustis is a thriving small community connected to the rest of the state via hwy 19 and hwy 441, originally to main arteries through Florida.

Eustiis Historic museum, lots of interesting stories

view from a restaurant

Eustis is bordered on the west side by Lake Eustis which has a nice boardwalk along the lake. I was in luck as the day I arrived the town was celebrating it’s 1^st Friday Downtown fest. I arrived promptly at 6pm and was able to find plenty of parking. The festivities are centered around the main heart of the pretty little town. A jazz and blues band was playing, excellent music by the way. Lots of food vendors and a number of the local bars/restaurants were selling beer and wine out on the street for $3 a glass. The food vendors all had very reasonable prices as well. What an awesome way to spend an early evening. Good music, drinks and food and I even went into a thrift store and purchased a couple bargains.

fountain on Lake Eustis and downtown

Anhinga

1st Friday night performers

an excellent blues and Jazz band

gorgeous Eustis downtown area

florida in full bloom

classic cars downtown

another downtown building

A second plus is that the County Fair is right next door to my campsite. Haven’t explored it yet, but will probably go this evening, since the daytime temperatures are heading into the 90s. Went on Sunday ($2 entrance, great deal) but hotter than a steam pot on a hot stove. I stayed only a short time before walking back to the campsite. They had a small number of farm animals and a nice selection of 4-H exhibits, photography, preserves and baked goods many with ribbons, lots of winners.

At the local museum I learned about an artist Catherine Stockwell who painted over 5000 paintings. She painted with both hands at the same time, often finishing her masterpiece(s) in 20 minutes.

artist Catherine Stockwell

Big freezes in 1894-95 and 1899-99 brought temperatures down to around 8 degrees, exploding and killing the orange trees. Though it recovered and eventaully became known as the orange capital of the world.

A Band Shell was built down by the lakefront facing the main street. However, the locals all hated it, as the sound echoed off the buildings and irritated the downtown owners. It was lifted up, moved a bit and turned sideways and still stands today.

the band-shell down by the waters edge
that was turned sideways
so sound would not echo off the downtown bldgs

Eustis started one of the first festive events honoring George Washington in 1902, today it is known as GeorgeFest.

Distance Traveled: 72 miles
Williston Fl
Visit with Eddie and Debby Tennant.

Eddie and Debby, proud owners of a new motor home
congratulations and many happy travels, only a couple
more months before Eddie retires

I took all the back roads and must admit some were really narrow. Looking back through my rear-view mirrors, I could see that my trailer tires were touching both the middle line and the white line, ekkk.

Fortunately there was little to no traffic on those back roads.

Williston downtown

you know you are in a rural town
when you see this in the heart of town
Williston Fl

Devils Den Springs

so much history, now used for snorkeling and scuba diving

I found a great little campground which is part of the Devils Den springs complex. It’s a simple campground, most with full hookups, lots of shade trees and dirt driveways. The springs are used mainly for snorkeling and diving. Water temp is a constant 72 degrees. The cave was originally entered through a small “solution hole” in the roof. In the 1990’s the hole was enlarged and a set of stairs was cut into the side of the limestone to enter the cavern and springs. Maximum depth is 54 feet and there are four underwater passages the longest of them being 90 feet in length. Chamber three, 70 feet in length contained human remains dating back 9,500 years ago and extinct Pleistocene species bones which seem to be associated with the human bones though they are from 2 to 11 million years ago. A museum in Gainesville has these artifacts.

this entrance and the hole up top
were built/expanded in the early 90's

Above ground a large concrete pond was built with multiple depths, designed to train scuba divers, but hurricane damage was done to it the 90’s shortly after it was completed and the pumps etc were never restored. The private company now running the place in in the process of reviving the pond, draining silt, fixing a leak in the cracked concrete and restoring the pumps to full operation.

man made pond, built in the early 90's
damaged shortly afterwards by hurricane

only now is it being restored for use
as a dive training pool

I’m visiting with friends from my from my former Naval job. Eddie and Debby. Eddied is set to retire with a few months and they already have a bigger motorhome to travel in. Wishing them all the best on the new journey in life.

The town of Williston is holding on but the original downtown buildings are in bad disrepair and are mostly vacant. It’s a relatively poor community, but it still has all the basics. Within an hours drive to Gainsville or Ocala as well as the gulf coast.

This is horse country, farm country and Debby tells me meth country as well. A sad note on the opioid epidemic.

stunning horse farms throughout the area

Cedar Lakes Woods and Gardens

Next door to Devils Den is Cedar Lakes Woods and Gardens. It was built in an old abandoned

limestone quarry. With last years heavy rains in Florida and hurricane Michael, the water level in rose about 11 feet in the quarry. When it was first decided to make it into a garden with surrounded by water, the owner had concrete sprayed along the walls and floors of the limestone pools to contain the water, creating islands for the gardens linked by bridges and paths. Needless to say, the limestone pit is currently underwater including all the of the tropical plants, palm trees, bridges and paths. Only the upper levels were navigable. Still it made for a pleasant morning walk, though one wonders why they never incorporated a means to remove or drain unwanted levels of water.

the limestone quarry with 11 feet of flooding

most of the tropical flowers were either moved or destroyed

upper level walkways were available to view
the flooded out limestone quarry

dogwood in bloom

been flooded for over 6 months

Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings historic state park

back side of one of the three buildings that make
up the Rawlings "cracker house"

About a 35 minute drive through horse and cattle ranches I revisited the Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings historic state park. I so enjoy touring the home she lived in and wrote such books as The Yearling, Cross Creek and South Moon Under and The Secret River among others. This is a favorite stop in Florida as the house is a true “cracker house” and contains all the original furnishing when Marjorie lived here with her first and second husband. Afterwards I drove over to the small town of Micanopy another historic location with lots of antique shops, a few restaurants and B and B’s. Not a single commercial modern day store or gas station in sight. Bringing me back to what Florida was 50 years ago.