Silver Springs State Park Ocala, Florida (Part One) Feb 22 – Mar 8, 2026

This is Part One of our Two-Part blog post for this stay. Part two can be found here. It began raining at 5 am on the morning of Sunday, Feb 22nd, the day when we were going to be leaving Santos Trail Campground in Ocala to go to out next stop at Silver Springs State Park in Ocala for a 14-night stay. It stopped raining around 6:30 am, but then started again around 10 am. Fortunately we weren’t leaving until right at the checkout time of 1 pm since we only had a short 25 minute drive to SIlver Springs State Park, and the rain had stopped by then.

And all those wonderful Oak trees that were surrounding our site? Well, as predicted, our slide-out roof was covered in a blanket of their leaves that had fallen on it during our stay. That wouldn’t have been so bad, but the rain made them a soggy mess to clean off before we could bring the slide-out in.

Silver Springs State Park

Silver Springs has a rich history and you really should read this page to learn how the natural attraction first used glass bottom boats and how many movies and TV series used the springs for filming.

Silver Springs State Park is comprised of 4,000 acres of land that encompasses the famous springs, the Silver River, and the park property. Though best known for its titular attraction and their glass-bottom boats, the park is also home to a museum, pioneer village, an education center operated by Marion County Schools, and a campground.

Campground

The campground includes 10 spacious cabins, 59 RV/tent sites with water and electric hookups (13 of those also have sewer hookups) that are split between the Sharpes Ferry Loop and the Fort King Loop, and a Primitive Tent Camping area exclusively for groups.

Our site, in the Fort King Loop, was a very large pull-through with water and 50-amp electric hookups. The site was nicely level with pea-sized gravel right across from the restroom/bathhouse and the loop’s only dumpster. This made using the restrooms and showers, as well as disposing of household garbage, very convenient.

We have found that, with the two of us, our black tank usually fills in 10-12 nights. Our gray tank can usually hold about 6 showers’ worth of water, even with the water-saver shower head. We did bring our “honey wagon” or “poop tote”, as it is better known, but using that is a real aggravation and I try to hold off on that unless we HAVE to make use of it.

So, since we had no sewer hookup and were there for 14 nights, we planned to make extensive use of the restrooms and showers to keep our tanks from filling up. Having the restrooms/bathhouse right across from the site (which Cindy planned for when making our reservation; she’s a gem!) was awesome for us.

Like Santos, this campground was under a burn ban; so no campfires for this stay either.

Below Freezing Temperatures

Monday morning we used the bathhouse to take our showers. The showers were clean, spacious, had ample hot water AND had a heat lamp! Good gracious that felt SO good on a morning with 40-degree temperatures. I’ve included a couple of photos of the showers in the album for this post.

Like our recent stay at Myakka, this part of the “Sunshine State” was having much colder weather than usual, so our furnace ran all Sunday night and Monday morning. The forecast was that it would get even COLDER Monday night into Tuesday morning. Time to get out our jackets and Bella’s sweater again.

We ran errands during the day and when we returned we found a notice on the picnic table from the campground about the freezing temperatures we would have that night and the precautions they asked each site to take. Around 5 pm I filled our fresh water tank so we’d have water overnight, then disconnected our water hose and put it and our water filter away in the cargo bay. I also left the campground water spigot dripping as they requested.

Tuesday morning we awoke to a temperature of 29 degrees! Believe me, I was urging Bella to quickly do her “business” when I took her out at 6 am, lol.

Exploring Silver Springs

After a nice, hot breakfast that Cindy made we drove over to see the Pioneer Village and SIlver Springs Museum, both of which were not far from our campground. Unfortunately, both were also not open to the public during the week. That’s because during the week the Marion County School System brings bus loads of school kids to the museum/educational center/pioneer village and the public is prohibited from visiting during that time.

So instead we hiked a little bit on a nearby trail, hoping to see some of the monkeys that have been in Silver Springs as descendants of those used in the Tarzan movies that were filmed there in the 1930’s and 40’s. Sadly we saw none.

Afterward we drove over to the attraction itself (the entrance is about a 10 minute drive from the campground) and walked around the springs. We watched the glass bottom boats come and go around the head springs, saw folks in canoes and kayaks (some that were transparent!) in the springs, and visited the shops and cafe before heading back to Nomad. We just wanted to look around a little before we made our planned return the following week to actually take a glass bottom boat ride.

We started watching The Pitt, (we both like Noah Wylie) but after 3 episodes I decided I didn’t care for it and Cindy liked it so she’ll be watching that on her own.

We also tried watching The Night Manager, but Cindy didn’t like it after 1 episode and I did (always like watching Tom Hiddleston) so I’ll be watching that on my own.

Packing And Repacking

Wednesday was spent going through tubs in Voyager’s covered bed. We tossed some things that we just haven’t used or needed (though not many), and pulled some things out to take back and put in storage when we drove down to Orlando that coming Sunday. Then I finally got serious about organizing things in the tubs according to use and combined some others. I also finally (after almost 5 years) created a list of which things were in which tubs.

This was all in an attempt to make more room in the bed so that we can take some things with us from storage to have when we spend 6 months sitting still in one spot in Georgia beginning in April. We’re taking a tub full of Cindy’s crafts so she has sufficient projects to work on, some physical books we both want, an extra portable table, and a few other things.

But basically from 9:30 am until 4:30 pm I was working on that project, with Cindy’s help in the morning as we were going through the clothes we have in tubs. Suffice it to say, at the end of the day I was ready for the project to be over. In fact, it was NOT over as I still had a few things to finish in our cargo cabinets in Nomad, but those would wait for another day as they didn’t affect what we would be doing on that Sunday.

Thursday we had a nice visit from Cindy’s cousin Darla and her husband Ron. We always enjoy when they stop by for a few hours and we catch up with each other. That night we watched the latest episode of Star Trek: Starfleet Academy.

Propane Tank Exchange

Friday we ran some errands. One of them was to do a propane tank exchange with our oldest tank. It was going to expire in July and I wouldn’t be able to get it refilled after that. So, for the first time since we started camping, I was going to do a tank exchange. They are fairly simple; you go to a location (usually a retail outlet like Lowe’s, Home Depot, or, in our case, even a Dollar General) that has a locked up cage of full tanks (in our case a Blue Rhino) out front, give them your empty tank and $20 or so (depending on the price of propane) and they give you a full (though I have read it’s almost always NOT full) tank.

That way you get rid of your expiring tank (they recycle them) and now have a new or fairly new tank to last several more years. All for just the price of refilling a tank. So $20 something versus $60 something.

While I was waiting outside the Dollar General for the attendant, a delivery truck from Little Debbie Snacks backed in next to me and the driver went inside. It took all my self-control not to get in the back of his unlocked truck and grab some packages of our favorites; Swiss Rolls or Nutty Buddies. We’ve been good so we haven’t had those in years, but I can STILL taste them, lol.

That night we started watching “Monarch: Legacy of Monsters” from Apple TV. It stars Kurt Russell and his adult son Wyatt Russell as they play the same character some 60 years apart in the timeline. We watched the first two episodes and I think we’ll both be sticking with it.

It poured rain from around 3:30 pm until 10 pm. It was supposed to rain all night and most of Saturday, but it ended up not doing that; just cloudy all night.

Saturday was dreary all day but no rain. In the afternoon we continued watching the extras on the LOTR DVD and were amazed at all the things you never really notice are being done in the movie; from effects to coloring to lighting to music to sound effects, it truly was a masterpiece of film making.

We spent part of the day gathering up the final few things we’ll be taking back to the storage room in Orlando the next day and looking forward to seeing our East Coast kids and grandkids during part of the time we’re there.

That afternoon and night we binge-watched the remaining 8 episodes of season 1 of Monarch: Legacy of Monsters. It was that good.

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