Way down upon de Suwannee River, far, far away. Here’s wha my heart is turning ebbed. Here’s wha de old folks stay. Stephen Foster lyrics from “Old Folks at Home” Florida’s State song.
Stephen Foster NAILED IT!
No, really. We were the youngest four people in the entire state park. The youngest people with the oldest RV. The blue hairs in the park had some majorly pimpin’ land yachts. They’re really living the high life while on the road.
Wilson enjoying a walk through the campground.
Due to the elderly keeping to themselves most of the day, it felt like we had the entire park to ourselves. This park is gorgeous!
Going in, I had a laundry list of activities and day trips on the docket for our five days stay. Some of my elaborately imagined fantasies included canoeing down IIchetucknee Springs, a boat ride on the Suwannee River, and lots of biking and hiking trails with the kids.
While I feel like we did get to enjoy aspects of the park, due to a vicious virus hitting our family, our time was spent mostly at the playgrounds on site, enjoying the craft village at the campground, and touring the campground on our bikes.
Jane and Wilson enjoyed one of two playgrounds that were available at the park.
While our time at Stephen Foster won’t be filed away in my mind as adventurous, we had some wonderful moments in between everyone getting sick.
It’s funny, on Wednesday, I was pretty bummed that we were just hanging out reading books to the kids and playing board games with Jane, but then I realized, thanks to Mark, this isn’t a week long family vacation that’s a total bust. We have all the time in the world to experience all the activities that are available.
When was the last time that our family was sitting around on a Wednesday morning enjoying each other at a slow pace?
Jane was introduced to and dominated both myself and Mark in Candy Land, which she adorably insists is called “Candy Landy”.
For me, my mind hasn’t embraced the fact that we have a year to do this. I still feel like I’m on vacation. So between the cleaning up after sick kids, taking Wilson to Lake City urgent care for a check, and prepping meals for those who could stomach them, the time spent with each other in the sunshine was beautifully enjoyable.
Jane and I enjoyed some local singers, singing a collection of the over 200+ songs Stephen Foster wrote.
I am so envious. The start of a great journey. Now that you all are better and rested, I can’t wait to see where you’ll be next.
Stephen Foster was one of our all-time favourite parks. We’re glad that things are settling down and y’all can enjoy traveling.
Do they still play Foster tunes on the carillon every 15 minutes?
It was a great park despite our illness. We’ll likely return next winter. They do still play the Foster tunes on the bells, but I think only on the hour now.
Katie, It IS Candy Landy, they just labeled all the boxes wrong. I love the pictures, I don’t miss Jane and Wilson so much (lair, lair pants on fire!!).