Hillsborough River State Park - Inaugural Voyage / Shakedown Cruise

floridarandy

Well-known member
Hillsborough River State Park

For those first discovering this thread I'm adding the picure link for the park here:

http://floridastateparks.floridasun.airpost.net/hillsborough river/

Karen and I leave tomorrow for 4 days at Hillsborough River State Park just east of Tampa and north of I4.

http://www.floridastateparks.org/hillsboroughriver/

This will be the inaugural trip for our 09 2900MK. Just far enough to experience the interstate (60 miles from home or so) and within 10 or 15 minutes of Camping World at Exit 10 I4 as well as the Florida State Fairgrounds where there the Tampa RV show is this weekend so we can explore the gadget booths:

http://www.frvta.org/rv-shows/

We're also going to try the Florida DOT weigh station near Exit 13 to see if we can get our weights. Called them last week and they said "come on by".

We'll try and post pictures of the park so those of you who haven't seen it can get a better idea. The website posted above has good general info and pics but nothing specific to the sites so look for more next week.

Randy
 
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Rrloren

Well-known member
Randy , do you know what the fee for the weighing will be? I expect to be in the area sometime in Feb and might be interested if their open.
 

MICKEY

Past Florida Chapter Leader
RANDY;
I'm going to try and persuade you not to use scale house for your first weight. You can open an expensive can of worms there. You are much better off going to a truck stop with scale. If it's cat scale you pull up mash buzzer and wait for reply. They will ask you what truck number, just give them one, doesn't matter. Then when they say pull around you park out of way and can go get weight from fuel desk. There are no repercussions for any reason. If you go to scale house, in Florida you must be tagged for the entire weight of both tow vehicle and trailer. Most owners are not. For example if your trailer weighs say 10, 000 and truch weights 6500, your tag and registration should be for at least 16,500. Also your rear axle weight cannot exceed rated value for published vehicle or the combined weight posted on tire by manufacture, which ever is less. Usually frt axle is no problem but needs to be weighed. Then if you want you can disconnect from trailer and rescale truck only. Subtract #2 from #1 weights and this will give you pin weight, and axle weights.
Now as of now, private vehicles are not being forced to enter scale houses. Only reason is for congestion for scale house and normal truck traffic. But
that does not give us a bye for the law. If I was a gazell, I probably wouldn't taunt the lion pack:) However if I were the lioness I would tell you to stop by anytime.
 

floridarandy

Well-known member
ok....weight info next. we made it to hillsborough river state park on the inaugural voyage. first hassle was minor but worth recounting. had a 2" hitch put on the front of the f250 and a 2-bike rack that fits in it. rack kept skewing as we left town and had to exit first exit after we got on i-75. fortunately there was a firestone tire store there with an impact wrench who tightened the bolts and we were off. one hour from sarasota on i-75 to i-4...two exits up to the weigh station and then about 10 minutes to the park. no issues...first campground back-in site worked ok. here are the initial pics...more on this interesting park tomorrow:

http://floridastateparks.floridasun.airpost.net/hillsborough%20river/

Randy and Karen
 

floridarandy

Well-known member
Florida Weigh Station I4 Eastbound.....

I'd called the weigh station a few days ago to check about stopping....they said come on by. this is one of the hi tech stations where the bulk of the semis use "pre pass" which allows them to run at 45 mph along a lane parallel to the interstate where they get measured and weighed by some amazing technology and only have to enter the "scales" if they fall outside the law. so, the "keep right" lanes to the scales were emptied as we entered. the state officer asked what we were looking for and i explained i wanted weights on the truck axles and, if possible, a split on the sundance 2900mk's individual rear axles.

really nice guy and really helpful. absolutely no issues and NO COST. for those who are intersted here are the weights:

f250 front axle 4940 rated for 5250
f250 rear axle 6040 rated for 6100
truck gvwr 10980 rated for 9800

5ver front axle 3980 rated for 6000
5ver rear axle 4100 rated for 6000
5ver gvwr 8080 rated for 13000

combined gross entire rig 19060

still need; to check f250 cgvwr but i assume we'll be close.

i highly recommend using the state dot scales. helpful and free.

Randy
 
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