Gold Head Branch Florida State Park- youth / large group site

2 Stars

Ladies this group site has an OUTDOOR NON-HEATED shower! Do NOT start your camping experience here as I did. It's a wonder I continued tent camping. The spigots are about 1.5 feet above the dirt and only give COLD water. There an electrical in the 2 single bathrooms, one mens and one womens, for the whole group. The sinks are pedestal but there is a small bench on which you can set toiletry items. One dad ran an extension cord for his coffee pot. I recommend bringing a camping stove top coffee pot. I have been told by another scout mom that there are better facilities in the family / small group sites but she didn't give details. There's a nice hike to an old mill but our group got a bit lost so be careful, made for a long day with Cub Scouts.

I have to tell 2 hilarious stories from our trip back then I just have to include even though they are off topic. My oldest son has ADHD for which he takes medication during school but often not on weekends if we are doing active things such as camping. A side effect of his medication is he has no appetite. So when he is not on meds he eats enough to make up for it. Unbeknownst to us, as he was socializing with other scout friends in their tents, he was being given a lot of Cheeto snacks. He sometimes gets so excited to have is appetite back he eats too much too fast and makes himself sick. That night it was very cold for Mar. in FL, in the low 30s, and in the middle of the night my then 7 year old gets sick all over himself and in his sleeping bag. The nausea woke him up and hit him fast and hard. He woke up the whole camp screaming as my husband washed his hair in the bathroom sink with ice cold water. Meanwhile, I was attempting to rinse his sleeping bag using a spigot not nearly far enough off the ground with ice cold water. The wet parts of the bag would get muddy and I was trying to rinse the vomit off the un-rinsed parts. We had to clean up immediately because the smell in the tent was unbearable.

My other story from this campout was the wife of the principal of the school our pack is chartered out of offered to take my son on a bike ride with her and her son while I stayed with my 4 year old unable to ride yet without training wheels which don't work well in the dirt. It always makes me nervous to leave him in the care of parents without ADHD experience when he's un-medicated. I was especially nervous since she's the principal's wife. I threatened him that he better be on his BEST behavior. She said don't worry, he's fine and gets along great with her son. I let him go and he returns in his underwear. I said, "Where are your shorts?!" She explained that she had them and his behavior was fine but he put a cactus in his pocket and she didn't think I'd want to attempt to remove the hundreds of fine needles from them. Such an impulsive thing to do ;-). We had a good laugh and I threw the shorts away. She did sweetly remove the ones in his skin before coming back to camp. Two years later we got a dog and chose her as our vet. When I took him to the office and stated my name the office staff asked if the boy with me was the one who put a cactus in his pocket. Making memories, lol :-)!

#goldhead #primitivecamping #youth