Ditching the Car for Camping

[Kitsune]

Last weekend I parked my car at the Juniper Springs Campground in the Ocala National Forest, pulled all of my supplies from the car, and turned away from the campground.

It was the best decision I've made in camping, so far.

With an old-style, external frame pack on my back, I made my way up the sandy Florida Trail and into the woods, alone. I walked north for about four miles and found a quiet pond with soft grass surrounding that called to me and set up camp there. I spent the afternoon reading, napping, and enjoying the sun with no sound other than birds and the wind through the trees. Water was pulled from a clean stream, dinner was heated over a liquid fueled stove, and at night I did nothing besides stare into a silver sky filled with drifting satellites and shooting stars (which is an amazing event for me, living in a city that never sees true darkness at any time of the night). The morning frost was shaken off with hot coffee and apple oatmeal and, at some time during the day (I took no watch with me, considering time to be irrelevant out there), I packed up the tent, extinguished the fire, and made my way back, reluctantly, to civilization. I didn’t have the time to spend more than one night, but I would have gladly have stayed an entire week.

This outing reminded me that I'll never car camp, again. There was no luxury of water from a tap, no restrooms to walk to, and there was no easy escape should the weather go suddenly bad. Despite all of that, there were too many positives in the experience for me to go back to paying $17/night at a national forest slot or even more in a crowded state/county campground. Animals, on the trail, didn't seem interested in raiding the camp at night, possibly because they're not used to handouts or easily available food. There were signs of raccoons and bears, but there were no familiar masked bandit raids in the twilight. Everything was truly, wonderfully quiet and that includes the blissful lack of a Toby Keith CD being played on repeat at someone's pickup two slots away or the racket of an RV generator kicking in for a morning shower. No screaming children, no people yelling to scare off hungry critters, and no roar of traffic. The contrast is astounding.

This was my second backpacking trip and if any of you car camp but haven't yet tried walking the trails, I highly recommend it! Does anyone else, here, do any hiking?

Pictures posted, soon.