Camping at Juniper Springs

 

This past week I did the unthinkable and kept little man out of school to take him camping at Juniper Springs for his birthday. I don’t have anything weighing on my conscious so, I must have made a great decision 😀

I had everything we needed and I was so excited about that, I had such peace of mind going knowing that all 8 of my checklists had paid off.

However, I would say 1/2 way there it hit me like a brick in the face… I forgot his presents at home. For a whole two minutes I hated myself but really I was only sad that we wouldn’t be able to play a game I got him together while we were there. Other than that I knew we would really not NEED to do the whole presents thing on top of camping at the same time. 

He turned five, so wild that five years have gone by and in the same amount of time he will be ten… but i’m going to stop there haha. I am so glad we went with this campground and went when we did. It wasn’t busy at all and it was very quiet, other than the hour meltdown he had in the beginning: a friend swung by when we were just about to walk down to the spring, he got confused and i’m sure thought we were leaving when we got in her van instead to ride down. He just was not calming down after that. I understood though and felt bad, I should have stuck with our plan and with what he knows instead of switching up on him. He did calm down though eventually but, by then the spring/day use area was about to close. When we got back to our stuff I got him cleaned up and ready for bed. I made sure to charge everything so I whipped out my laptop and put on Moana for him while I put our stuff away and got ready myself…you know, being bear aware.

 

For breakfast I made sausage and potatoes. The Coleman single stove is awesome, I love it so much and highly recommend it. Really would have been nice when we lost power for a week after Hurricane Matthew. I also had ordered a lightweight camping cooking pan off of groupon, definitely is lightweight and non-stick although I brought olive oil in a little travel bottle lol.

After I put all the food away, we set out for the showers/bathroom which is next to the dish washing room. All the bathrooms there have showers…I didn’t know that. They also have benches, making them accessible. I like that their faucets are the annoying ones you have to keep pressing down every 30 seconds if you need more water, water conservation is wonderful !

Since we had to check out later we were already mostly packed up and We went to the spring after, the whole time he never got past the steps but he still had fun which is all that matters. I did get in though and there is no getting use to it even when you go to Springs frequently. After that first time though I was good to go. I kept his life jacket on in case he did want to get in and for obvious safety reasons.

My son is hilarious, I came up from the water one time to find his hand going into someone else’s bag of chips… Not the first time either smh. The man tried to tell him only crumbs were left haha. Hungry little guy. He will eat two PB&J sandwiches, minus the crust.

We saw an alligator and lots of turtles in the fern hammock springs (not for swimming), little gator is too cute !

– Highly recommend this site for camping, even with the few negative points i’m going to mention last just because some may not care or find it to be something that would affect them.

 

1. There were two people working around the grounds that were very inconsiderate. I went to the bathroom at the entrance because I needed to wipe his nose (he is on the bathroom floor crying) and the woman says “just be careful okay because this bathroom is actually closed.” I got lost getting back to our site once and asked a man on his golf cart where I needed to go, he gave us directions and drove off. My son and I are barefoot and he is still screaming lol. So this man comes back to us a few minutes later saying “…just wanted to make sure you guys made the right turn.” I calmly said thank you. He isn’t required to offer a ride like the man at Alexander Springs did, but I did find it inconsiderate all the same.
2. They have quiet time starting at 10PM. A lot of comments complaining about it on facebook, I didn’t have anything to do really and was exhausted anyway by then so I couldn’t tell you what they may say personally.
3. None of the sites have electrical hook-ups. I brought my power bank with me, and of course you can use your car as well.
4. The bridge is still not fixed, it’s been that way since October after the hurricane. You can see a white picket fence behind my son on the boardwalk that is blocking further entrance.