2015 Feb 21 - First Full Day at Hillsborough River State Park

We started our day with a trip to the Poolside Cafe. Despite the WiFi service being lousy, I was able to get a post up to the blog, but we gave up on trying to pay a couple of bills. As the name implies, there's a swimming pool behind the cafe which is said to be the second largest in Florida, only bested by one at Disney World that holds 300 gallons more water. It's rare that we see a state park with a swimming pool.


At 2:00, we boarded the tram for a trip across highway 301 to Fort Foster, one of the forts in the chain of forts built across Florida during the Seminole wars of the 19th century. This particular fort has been rebuilt twice; once in the 1970s, due to decay, and once in the 1990s due to arsonists. The fort is built over the ruins of the original and is historically accurate. The Seminoles have never signed a peace treaty!


After the fort tour, we took a walk along some of the trails in the park. There was an old suspension bridge in need of repair, and a picnic pavilion whose support pillars were made of cypress trunks.


We got back to camp around 4:45 and cooked some burgers over a wood fire before walking to a campfire program about some of the sounds the park animals make. Then back to camp for a beer, a little TV and a good night's sleep.