Santos Trailhead Campground Ocala, Florida Feb 10-22, 2026

We left Myakka River State Park around 10 am on Tuesday, February 10th and drove 3 hours northeast to Santos Trailhead Campground in Ocala, Florida for a 12-night stay. This was our first time staying at this campground.

We arrived at 1 pm, which is the check-out time and 2 hours before the check-in time. Fortunately for us the campers in our site had already left and the gate attendant, though sternly reminding us that check-in time was 3 pm, let us come in.

Santos Trailhead Campground

Santos Trailhead Campground is a small RV and tent campground with 25 water/electric sites and, as the name implies, is the trailhead for a 16-mile long hiking and biking trail that draws a lot of bicyclists. There is a bathhouse and dump station. Thankfully we were getting in and out before the huge bicyclist’s festival the first weekend in March. One of the volunteers told us the place is filled with RV’s, trailers, and bicyclists and that the empty field across from us would be filled with tenters camping primitively.

Way too “peoplely” for me.

Our site was pretty level and on a curve of the road so there was no one on one side of our site. The site was not very wide, so Cindy’s screen room had to be set up behind Nomad instead of to the side. Lots of trees and foliage around us, which is always nice until it’s time to clean off the slide out, lol.

Shortly after we finished setting up we got a text message that the campground was just put under a burn ban, so no campfires for this stay.

We ate a late lunch/early dinner at 3:30 pm and then a light snack later in the evening. I had fasting labs scheduled for the next day at 9 am, so I ate some nuts shortly before bed to try and NOT be hangry the next morning.

Wednesday morning we drove to the testing facility for my labs, then went to Cracker Barrel for a nice, big breakfast and picked up some groceries afterward.

That night we watched episode 6 of Wonder Man. I’m enjoying it but Cindy has decided she doesn’t want to watch the remaining two episodes.

The Gout

For days I’d had severe pain and swelling at the joint to my big toe and ball of my left foot. But, for several days before that, it was in other parts of my foot. And the month before that it was my right foot. Standing up or walking had become extremely painful. Because it had been affecting both feet, I’d been wondering if I had something called migratory arthritis. But to the best of my memory I’d never had Rheumatic fever with strep infections, which is a precursor to that ailment.

So Thursday morning I had finally given in to Cindy’s entreaties that I go to an urgent care doctor to have it looked at.

The doctor took one look at my foot while listening to my symptoms and said, “You have gout” and Cindy smiled because she had suggested the same to me a few days earlier. My response was that I was too young to have gout, lol

That night we watched episode 6 of Star Trek: Starfleet Academy and it was one of the best episodes so far in this inaugural season. Paul Giamatti is over the top as a villain, that’s for sure.

Friday, with my leg propped up and elevated, I watched the last two episodes of Wonder Man. Cindy did not and afterward I told her, truthfully, that those were probably the two best episodes of the show. There has been no word yet on if there will be a second season for Wonder Man, but it might be fun to see him show up in the Avengers: Doomsday movie that’s being released at the end of this year.

Happy Valentine’s Day

Saturday was Valentine’s Day. We thought we might enjoy a lunch out instead of dinner, so I took Cindy out for steak at lunch time. It would have been a good idea except we got seated next to the only table in the restaurant with loud, screaming kids. I considered asking to change tables, but the place was packed and there weren’t any open. Still, the food was good and the company, at least at OUR table, was excellent!

We watched our own shows that night. Cindy caught up on her “When Calls The Heart” show and I watched a couple of movies. “The Old Guard” because I had seen the first movie a couple of years ago. Sadly, it wasn’t as good as the first. And “The Wrecking Crew” with Jason Momoa and Dave Bautista as estranged brothers brought back together to solve the murder of their father. Very formulaic and cliched, but I suspect everyone who watches it does so for the same reason I did; because of the two stars and their performances. It was a very entertaining movie.

I’m really looking forward to seeing Jason Momoa as Lobo in the new Supergirl movie this Summer!

On Sunday we were under a tornado watch from noon until 8 pm so we took down Cindy’s screen room and put everything that was loose outside away. Heavy thunderstorms blew in around 5 pm and it stormed until midnight. But, thankfully, no tornadoes.

Monday we celebrated Presidents’ Day for those who deserve such laudatory expressions. We did our laundry and I refilled one of our propane tanks that had run out.

Ring Doorbell

Tuesday I worked on setting up our new Ring doorbell. I THOUGHT it came with mounting strips so I wouldn’t have to dril into the outside wall of Nomad, but it didn’t. I hurriedly ordered those, then charged up the device’s battery, downloaded the app to my phone, made the network connection and got everything ready so that once I DO get the mounting set I can put it to work.

We got the Ring because Cindy made a good point to me several weeks ago; since we’re going to be staying by ourselves in a basically secluded spot for 6 months, as opposed to the populated campgrounds we’re usually in, it would be wise to have something that allows us to see someone approaching our door AND lets us monitor Nomad when we’re not inside or around it, such as when we leave to go buy groceries, do laundry, etc.

Hopefully, Ring will do that for us. Thanks to my brother for sharing his experience with such devices.

I also took the time to reformat my blood sugar readings in Apple Notes into a simple table showing date/time/reading/notations because I would be having a telehealth visit with my specialist on Thursday and I wanted the notes to be easy to read and understand. I know; NERD!

And my PCP agreed to give me a prescription for the Allopurinol that will hopefully keep the gout at bay by reducing my uric acid levels. BUT I have to get more labs done because this medicine is dosed according to certain levels in your kidneys. So now I have to go back to get labs again on Wednesday.

This getting old is pissing me off, lol! Literally!

On Wednesday I got my labs done, picked up my prescription and called it a day as far as running around goes. I also finished reading centenarian Dick Van Dyke’s latest book, “100 Rules for Living to 100: An Optimist’s Guide to a Happy Life” and will try to be more optimistic in my outlook on life…maybe.

Like the unwritten rule about propane running out in the middle of the night, early Thursday morning proved there is a similar one for smoke detector batteries. Ours went dead at 5am and wasn’t quiet about it.

Had my telehealth visit with my specialist. My kidneys will be the death of me yet, lol.

At dinner we watched episode 7 of Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, as well as our usual shows like The Daily Show, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel Live. Our feeling is “if ya gotta get bad news every day, ya might as well find something to laugh about in it”, and these shows give you good laughs about the absurdity we must all endure.

On Friday we had to go out for some errands. We also stopped by Barnes & Noble and this was a nicely stocked store. Cindy got a cool book illustrating the aspects of Tarot cards for herself and a Harry Potter Monopoly card set for Amber, while I picked up a BTS sticker pack book for Ann.

Green Tea

I also picked up some Green Tea at the grocery store, which is supposed to reduce uric acid naturally. I had one cup of Green Tea many years ago and thought it tasted horrible, but I’d endure it not to have another year of gout pain. However, we found they now have Green Tea infused with ginger, mint, or lemon. I chose lemon and when we got home Cindy brewed up a cup, then poured it into a glass with ice for me. Surprisingly, it was good. The lemon gave it a nice, refreshing flavor rather than the “tastes like grass and dirt on your tongue” taste that I remember.

In the afternoon we tried a “dry shampoo” for dogs on Bella because she had been smelling really doggy lately. I didn’t expect it to work very well, but it actually did clean her fur and skin nicely and left her smelling more pleasantly fragrant than I thought it would. And it’s definitely less of a bad experience for her. I mean, for a dog with retriever in her, she has never liked water. Whether we immersed her in a tub or used the outdoor shower on Nomad she has always hated being bathed. But the dry shampoo is rubbed into her fur and skin and then dried off with a clean cloth and she really enjoys being rubbed and massaged dryly as opposed to being soaked or showered in water.

Red-Shouldered Hawk

While our neighbors at nearby sites have changed every few days, we’ve had one constant companion during our entire stay; a Red-Shouldered Hawk that hung out in the trees, sign tops, and water spigot tops in the field across from our site. Cindy got some beautiful photos of it and you can see them in the album for this post.

That night we watched more of the extra features on our extended version LOTR DVD. It has been incredible and mind-boggling to see the things they did to bring that set of books to life on the big screen in a believable way.

Saturday morning Cindy brewed up a cup of the green tea with lemon and I tried it hot for the first time. Still much more tasty than I expected. I thought I was going to have to endure a horrible flavor to keep high levels of uric acid at bay, but this will not be as distasteful as I imagined.

We would be leaving the next day, and it was supposed to rain starting at 5 am the next morning, so we packed up the ground mat to keep it from being soaking wet when it was time to leave. We also did as much as we could to pack things up ahead of time, but we’ll still have to do some things like the slide-out and stabilizers. Hopefully that will be after the rain and not during it.

This was a good stay especially for Cindy who hiked several trails during our time there.

Thanks for following The Wandering Wetheringtons.