Park #10-Lake Louisa State Park

Well, it's already time to leave our 10th park. We're at Lake Louisa State Park, in Clermont. The park is about 25 miles straight west of Orlando - it was about a 100 mile drive to get here from Fort DeSoto. We got here on Wednesday and only stayed four days - normally we stay either 7 or 14 days at each park, but I had a little scheduling trouble with the next couple parks so had to piece together a slightly different pattern. Florida state parks allow you to make reservations eleven months in advance, and for some parks if you don't get your reservations in that early you're going to have trouble getting in. It's crazy! So - anyway - we were here at Lake Louisa two years ago and weren't overly fond of the park for some reason - this was when Florida was having drought conditions so the lakes here were really low and we weren't able to use the kayaks and Dave wasn't able to fish from the docks. Plus, it seemed like there were a jillion rangers just riding around and around so we had to be VERY careful about letting Foster outside without his leash on (which we sometimes were kind of "casual" about since he was SUCH a good dog). So I booked us in here as a short "filler" in between other parks - but to our surprise we have really enjoyed our time here this year! The water levels are back up, so the lakes were much nicer, and Dave had good luck with fishing. The park is really large - 4,500 acres! - and the campground is almost 3 miles back from the main entrance, so Dave was able to get in long, hard bike rides every day. Plus there are over 23 miles of trails so I got in hours of hiking (which is still weird for me without Foster, especially since I hiked a lot of the trails two years ago WITH him). There are six lakes within the park, plus lots of smaller "ponds", and there are lots of rolling hills and many different types of habitat - it is a REALLY pretty park. For some reason I didn't take any pictures - I think maybe because it's so big that there isn't a single shot that would begin to capture the "whole". The campground is also very nice - large open lots and a gorgeous bathroom (...it's amazing how you become a very critical judge of bathrooms on these trips - it's one of the first things we report back to each other on when we get into a new park). Because there were so many things to do in the park, we didn't really do any "day trips" out of the park at all, other than to drive back to Plant City today to pick up my new glasses (...I can SEE again!). One other thing happened here - there's a guy here who has a beautiful Samoyed that he walks every day (a Samoyed is virtually identical to an American Eskimo, just a little bigger). The second day I went out and asked the guy if I could pet his dog - she was a 51 pound female and was really sweet - she was five years old and just loved being petted. She stood there and leaned up against me while I petted her. I stood there for about 15 minutes, talking to the guy - he was quite nice - and of course told him about losing Foster. After about 15 minutes I found myself starting to tear up and told him that I was going to go now, and have myself a little cry. He was very sympathetic and totally understood - he actually has always had Samoyeds and his last one just died about a year ago at the age of 12. It was so nice to just crouch down and hug her and pet her, and I think it was good for me overall. I'm kind of amazed by how painful Foster's death still is for us - we lost him on January 2nd, so it's been just over a month. OK - back to the park... We had quite good weather these last four days other than it being quite windy, so we just enjoyed the heck out of being outside in the sun - I'm actually get a LITTLE bit of tan on my arms - YAY! Dave, of course, is brown as an Indian. So tomorrow (SuperBowl!) we leave this park and go about 75 miles north to Silver River State Park, another one of our favorites from two years ago. We plan to get there early in the afternoon, make a run out for junk food (which we almost NEVER do!) and then have our own two-person SuperBowl party - I'm pulling for New Orleans and Dave's for the Indianapolis Colts, so it should be fun. The next update will be from park #11 already!