One Saturday in late February we planned out a FULL day of park visits - and knocked 6 off the list! Some of them didn't take long to see while others took quite a bit longer. We had an awesome time and enjoyed park hopping together!
PARK 1:
Our adventure started off in Dunnellon, FL at Rainbow Springs State Park. What a gorgeous park this was! When we pulled in, we were not prepared for what we were about to experience. It was "Cracker Weekend" so they had all kinds of demonstrations, food, and live music. Native Floridians are called "crackers" so it was a festival to celebrate their heritage. The people watching was fantastic...and we learned a few things too!
This park had multiple waterfalls and a huge, gorgeous head spring. The pictures do not do it justice.
After checking out all the waterfalls, we headed to the demonstration area. They had people making cornbread over a fire with a cast iron skillet, churning butter, grinding corn, playing all types of instruments, and describing periods of time in FL history.
Then it was off to see the head spring - GORGEOUS! They have kayaks and canoes to rent there and some people were coming into the spring from the river on paddle boards they got from somewhere else. Of course, you can swim too!
PARK 2:
After our Cracker Days, we headed to Fort Cooper State Park where we saw parts of the fort from the Second Seminole War. There was a huge lake that we hiked around to get to the fort area. This was a quick visit.
When we walked back around the lake from the fort, we heard an egret continuously making all sorts of noises and then all of a sudden, a SPLASH and violent noises coming from the tall grasses. The egret was most definitely attacked by a gator...and didn't win the fight. It was a very strange experience.
PARK 3:
As the day wore on, we hit up a very fast park right off the side of the road, Yulee Sugar Mill Ruins. We parked, got out of the car, and walked around for about 10 minutes reading the signs and that was it! The site was part of a thriving sugar plantation that supplied southern troops with sugar products during the Civil War. These are original remnants from the mill.
After park 3 we stopped for lunch down the street at Neon Leon's, a Zydeco restaurant with a New Orleans Mardi Gras theme.
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| My philly sandwich - creole style! |
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| Clay's shrimp sandwich. |
This was probably my favorite park of the day - Homosassa Springs Wildlife State Park. It was basically like a Florida Zoo, complete with gators & manatees of course.
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| Gator greetings! |
We started by going to a Manatee information show, where they told us all kinds of facts and exactly what they did at the park to help manatees survive in the wild.
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| Lu, the 54 year old hippo. |
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| Burrowing Owls - like in Carl Hiassen's book HOOT! |
These baby gators were behind thick glass:
These cute otters were wrestling and having a great time:
They did have a Florida Panther but it was being stubborn and wouldn't come out for a photo!
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| Bald Eagle fight! |
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| watch out NC! |
GATORS! Don't worry...they were behind fences!
They had an underwater tank you could walk down in to see right into the Springs. Typically manatees are there for you to look at but they were being fed in another area.
PARK 5:
Visiting Ancient Burial Mounds at Crystal River Archaeological State Park. This 6 mound complex was a popular place for Native Americans to travel to and bury their dead and conduct trade. This was also a quick one to visit but it was unlike anything I've ever seen.
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| steps leading to the top of the mound |
View from up top:
PARK 6:
We finally launched our kayaks at the LAST possible hour of the day at Crystal River Preserve State Park. This area borders 20 miles of the Gulf Coast and you can launch boats, kayaks, or hike trails along the park area. We basically got there and unpacked quickly so we could kayak as long as the daylight would allow.
While we were unloading, we finally got a taste of the "no see-ums." These are basically TINY, TINY biting bugs that will drive you insane. I am not exaggerating when I say that we both almost tipped our kayaks over because we were literally being attacked by these ridiculous bugs. They were all over us in a huge swarm as we tried to get into the water, but once we were moving, they basically left us alone. Talk about being stressed out!
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| trying to look happy with hundreds of bites all over us! |
What made this park worthwhile was that we saw about 4-5 dolphins as we went down the river but I could never get one in a photo. You can see the rippled water in the picture below - just missed them!
What a great day full of exploring we had! Come visit and we will take you along!
