#343 O'Leno State Park & River Rise

We got to O'Leno Park and did not know the first thing about it but it was two hours away and that's all we cared about. We noticed that as state parks go it was fine except you almost immediately were on a dirt road. It made things a little challenging but you know we were way out in the country. Paved would have been nice but it was also very woodsy and that meant a lot to me too. There was a strange little hill where the hump was too high so as I went across it RV landing pads were plowing through the soft dirt. It was doable but I have to say in a big rig it was a little bit spooky. We found a site that appealed to us and we got settled in.

The next day we started learning more about the park and what river rise is all about.

Here we are enjoying a nice river and it's flowing rather briskly and it just seems to get slower and slower and then it just becomes a really big lagoon. This is where the Sante Fe river dives deep underground. It travels underground for like 3 miles and then rises at another State Park and I thought that was just very fascinating.

Sometimes after the river sinks these little water features just appear and disappear out in the woods

We were going to go over to where it rises and they said don't expect it to be dramatic. It's more just like a big lagoon and the river leaves out of there flowing and continues. I thought it was beyond cool. India, I did a nice hike and just read all the signs and looked at all the flood stages but that's me about all we did there but it was really interesting.

The highest flood marker was 1964 an inch below was 2017

Address: 410 SE Olene Park Rd, High Springs, FL 32643

March 4,5