Alexander Springs at Ocala National Forest: December 27 - 30

After leaving Juniper Springs we headed over to Alexander Springs. I forgot to take a picture of our rig at the Alexander Springs Campground so you'll just have to trust me we were there 😊. We liked the campground at Juniper Springs better than the one at Alexander Springs but we like the actual springs at Alexander better. Alexander Springs had a more natural setting, a sandier bottom and variable water depth.

One issue we had at the Alexander Campground was that our site was just uneven enough to cause our ammonia absorption refrigerator to not cool sufficiently. The refrigerator owners manual says it is made to operate when stationary within 3° side to side and within 6° from front to back as viewed from the front of the refrigerator. Our truck has a readout of tilt and incline that said the refrigerator should be out of level 2° side to side. So we were within specification but the performance was unacceptable (as emphasized by Jane). My first attempt to  rectify the issue was to jack up the front of the truck (since it was low relative to the back) with the new 6 ton bottle jack I ordered from Amazon back in October and had never verified. I was jacking up the front wheel and had it off the ground several inches.  I decided in the interest of safety I should put my jack pad partially under the tire in case something let loose. (Note: my jack pads are wooden blocks about 12" by 12" wide and about 5.5" high.) I could only put the pad in partially since the wheel wasn't high enough yet to get it completely under the wheel. I then continued to lift the truck with the jack a little more when I noticed the wheel wasn't raising anymore. Since it was a Chinese jack I figured the 6 ton rating was bogus and I would just bail on that approach to leveling the truck. Well not only did the jack stop raising the wheel but it actually started lowering the wheel and got the partially inserted jack pad stuck in no man's land. After having Jane try to kick the jack pad out from its partially inserted state while I was pumping up the jack didn't work, Jane suggested we lift the camper off the truck with the camper jacks so the bottle jack wouldn't have to work so hard to lift the front wheel. So I lifted the camper off the truck bed which seemed to help but not quite enough to get the jack pad completely out from under the wheel. So I had Jane use the hammer instead of her foot to kick the pad out and we were able to finally get the jack pad completely out. The only thing left to do was to level the camper independently of the truck using the camper jacks: jack pad/bottle jack crisis averted and refrigeration acceptable. I am now in am now in the midst of an e-mail exchange with the bottle jack manufacturer BAOSHISHAN.

Getting back to the springs, it was getting a little warmer with peak air temperatures around 80℉. So after leveling the camper we headed to the springs for a dip.

I mentioned the varied water depth at this spring so in addition to snorkeling, people we also scuba diving. One group of scuba divers actually looked like it may have been a teacher and two students.

We use Jane's mini iPad for most of our picture taking. We recently got a "waterproof" case for it so I thought it would be interesting to try taking a barely subsurface picture. I decided on barely subsurface because I didn't want to push the waterproof capabilities. So I thought those pictures we worth sharing since they give a different perspective.

So our next stop is Clearwater Lake Campground. For my daughters who were on the camp staff during their college years with one of them meeting there future husband there, Clearwater Lake is about 10 miles from Camp Boggy Creek as the crow flies or about 20 minutes by car.