Highlands Hammock - A Florida State Park

Retired JSO wrote:
We camp at many Florida State Parks, at Stephen Foster White Springs now, but they have a long way to go to match the beauty and charm of our neighboring Georgia State Parks. Georgia seems to put more money back into their parks while it hard to get a level spot at most or our Florida parks....
Georgia at least cuts the grass and weeds.. We are kind of disgusted with the way our Florida State Parks have been run the last several years.

I don't know what Florida parks you are staying at but I will definitly disagree with your broad brush indictment of Florida parks. I have stayed at 5 different parks in the last year and have not once been dissatisfied with the condition of the park from the foliage to level sites to the restrooms to the workers. In contrast I have been in 4 Ga. parks in the last year that were ok but nothing special. One park we had to move twice to find a level spot and another had so many broken branches on the roads and sites we had to stop and clear them out and another with rude employees who could have not cared whether we were there are not.

Laman wrote:

Retired JSO wrote:
We camp at many Florida State Parks, at Stephen Foster White Springs now, but they have a long way to go to match the beauty and charm of our neighboring Georgia State Parks. Georgia seems to put more money back into their parks while it hard to get a level spot at most or our Florida parks....
Georgia at least cuts the grass and weeds.. We are kind of disgusted with the way our Florida State Parks have been run the last several years.

I don't know what Florida parks you are staying at but I will definitly disagree with your broad brush indictment of Florida parks. I have stayed at 5 different parks in the last year and have not once been dissatisfied with the condition of the park from the foliage to level sites to the restrooms to the workers. In contrast I have been in 4 Ga. parks in the last year that were ok but nothing special. One park we had to move twice to find a level spot and another had so many broken branches on the roads and sites we had to stop and clear them out and another with rude employees who could have not cared whether we were there are not.

x2! If you're staying at Stephen Foster, that's an extremely nice park. Ga State parks have nothing on the Florida ones, I bet you like Skidaway Island too. The only Fl parks that I haven't been impressed with were the ones down south, but there really isn't anything nice down south.

Don't you just love it when a plan comes together :-).

QUOTE: x2! If you're staying at Stephen Foster, that's an extremely nice park. Ga State parks have nothing on the Florida ones, I bet you like Skidaway Island too. The only Fl parks that I haven't been impressed with were the ones down south, but there really isn't anything nice down south.

I am typing this from White Springs now.. My complaint with Florida SP are they dont do maintenance to keep everything in order.

No, I despise the coastal marsh parks in either state, I am not a friend of the local Gnat population.

We are at a park somewhere 2 weeks out of every month so we know what we are talking about.

Gold Head hasn't had a site upgrade since the 80's.

Rainbow Springs spent 100"s of thousand of dollars to upgrade the bath houses, new sewer lines, electric upgrade, new roads, underground sprinkler system and lush landscaping. You have to walk through knee deep grass to get to the sewer hookup at most sites mid summer. And they have let all the landscaping die..

Fort Clinchs beach campground roads still take days to dry after a rain..

Maintenance is needed at all parks and it seems Georgia does more with less.

Spent labor day weekend Highlands Hammock. Sad to announce that restaurant is once again closed. They are definately hurting for volunteers, even the CCC museum was closed. Beautiful park though.