January 6th 2016 – Hopkins Prairie

On our way to search for early morning coffee, we saw the sign to Hopkins Prairie we should have taken the night before. We pulled in and talked to a local who told us the campground was 3 miles down the road and told us where to get coffee (the latter was actually more important to me at that moment). While getting coffee, we talked to a ranger and he recommended Lake Delancy. We drove out there and met the camp host and some volunteer workers. We told them our plan to stay until Monday and they ironically recommended Hopkins Prairie as the best place for us. We stopped at the grocery store for supplies then we headed to the campground. It is a beautiful place and the price was right( only $5 a night with our interagency pass)! It was a little cloudy and cool but much better than where we came from. Only a few of the sites were taken so we had plenty of places to choose from. We picked a spot that would hopefully give us plenty of sun for our solar panels. In the evening we ran into a friendly young man named Eugene and his Husky/Collie mix named Bosley. He shared some stories with us of his experiences in the military. He volunteered to scavenge some wood for us on the nearby Florida Trail because the campsites were pretty well picked over. He and Francis went out and returned with bunches of wood. After relaxing around the fire for awhile, we thankfully headed to bed in our tent. The car comes in handy but the tent is a lot more comfortable.