Buck Hall — Day 1

A bit of rain, A visit to the ranger station, a bit of shopping, we look at wolves, we didn't see Red-cockaded Woodpeckers.

It rained overnight, so the day started out a bit damp. We had a reservation for the next four nights in site 9 at Buck Hall. This isn't the best site in the campground, sited at the far end opposite the dump station, but it was all that was available when we made the reservation a few days ago.

Next to us in site 2, the campers were leaving. This is one of the best sites, overlooking the Intracoastal Waterway and fairly separated from the others. It is also a non-reservable site. We decided to take it. With this decision came a bit of a complication.

We asked the camp host if we could just move our reservation (pre-paid) to the new site. He had no way to do this as it is a rather small operation at Buck Hall and the only contact he has with  the reservations people is a daily fax telling him what sites are reserved for the near future. He suggested we call the Recreation.gov call center (also called ReserveAmerica), since they handle the reservations. We did this...to no avail. From their point of view, once we were at the campground, all changes were done within the campground. We seemed to have a catch-22 here. The best they could do was cancel our last day and we'd forfeit the fees for the first two days, the reservation fee and pay a cancellation fee, which was more than a night's fee. This was a non-starter.

Since we would have had to forfeit the current day reservation anyway, we decided to pay for two nights in the new site and take it up with the Forest Service directly. Our luck then started to change. A young couple in a VW van came in looking for a site. We had an extra site. The campground host had no objection. They took our old site, paid us the fee we had paid, a discount for them since we get 50% off with our senior pass and everyone was happy.

All we had to do now was figure out how to cancel the next two nights in site 9. We were planning to go the the Charleston Whole Foods, as it was a pretty cold, gray morning. The ranger station was only a few miles out of the way, so off we went. We found the person responsible for recreation for the forest and explained our situation. They had never come across the problem before, but assured us that they would contact ReserveAmerica directly and resolve the problem. They sure did! later that day we received a cancellation email from ReserveAmerica, which refunded both our camping fees and even the original reservation fee, with no cancellation charges.

It was off to Whole Foods and a resupply. On the way back to camp we made a couple of stops—first the Sewee Center to see the Red Wolves. They are native to the region but were, like most wolves, persecuted in the past to the point of extirpation. They are bringing them back, but here they are only in a large fenced area, not wild. It is a bit too built up now, even with the National Forest, to allow them to roam free.

After stopping to see the wolves, we headed back into the National Forest to look for red-cockaded woodpeckers, a rare species that only lives in southern pine forests. We were unsuccessful in Ocala, where they also live, and were hoping to see them here. We found the trees were there were supposedly active nests, but saw none. We'll try again another day.