Woke up early this morning, or rather, got woken up, by a phone call from the company that takes care of camping reservations for the Florida State Parks system, as well as quite a few other states. They wanted to let me know that they had problems with the reservation I had made last night for a two week stay over near Gainsville in mid December. Something about my credit card payment not going through or something like that. I finally got a hold of them around 10:00 and got it all straightened out, but why they thought calling at 7:05 a.m. on a Sunday morning was okay is beyond me.

  A leisurely morning once I was up. A nice shower, some breakfast and a chance to read the Sunday comics. I have rediscovered instant grits for breakfast now. Not only simple to do, but they also taste good and are filling.

    Ended up driving down to Manatee Springs State Park right after noon and spent a couple of hours wandering around there. Checked out the springs of course and wandered out on all of the boardwalks. I really wish I had a canoe today, it would of been nice to paddle out on the Suwannee River for a couple of hours. Did see a couple of manatee's out in the spring run, but they were right where the run met up with the river and the water was to dark, to deep and they were a bit to far out to really get a good view of.

    I had some lunch in the town of Chiefland, Chinese food this time, and then drove on back towards camp with a short stop at Fanning Springs State Park near Old Town Florida. A very small park right in town and right on the river. The spring is smaller, but still plenty of water for a swimming pool and a couple of docks. There was a women there in a small sea kayak who was sitting and watching one young manatee in the spring run right past the last dock. The water was plenty clear enough, but the sun was at just the wrong position to cast a bad glare off of the surface of the water. I did get one picture of it though and it is shown below.

     Got back to camp around 4:30 and took a walk out to the river bank. It's a bit more than a mile out there and I did see a couple of deer, an armadillo and I heard a couple of turkeys, but never saw them. Got to the river bank just as the sun was starting to go down. Really beautiful time of day out there even though it was starting to get cold even as I was walking back to the trailer. It is suppose to get darn cold tonight, down below freezing is what I'm hearing, but no rain and no snow at least. It is still suppose to be warm and sunny tomorrow anyway.

Manatee and Fanning Springs State Parks - Nov 25, 2012

Looking at the spring run of Manatee Springs. The water really is that color of blue, I didn't tweak the photo color to make it look like that. Just nice clear water, a nearly white sand bottom and a clear blue sky.

The main spring comes up in the midst of that dark area in the middle of the pool. Nearly 150 million gallons of pure water every day.

You can actually swim right here in the spring pool. There were a couple of people who were just getting ready to go scuba diving in it. Lot's and lot's of fish in the pool, as well as quite a few turtles. No gators that I could see.

 

 

Heading down the spring run. You can see the Suwannee River in the far background.

There are a couple of manatee's on the right side of the photo just out from the trees. They look like a couple of sand bars though.

On to Fanning Spring State Park. I'm standing on the last dock and the river is the farthest piece of water in the picture. The sun light was just making the leaves pop.

There was a women in a sea kayak that was sitting near the one manatee I saw in this spring.

You can sort of see the manatee in this photo. It is that blotch right where the reflection of the kayaker's hat is.

Just like the light in this one.

Back at Otter Springs, I got to the banks of the Suwannee River just as the sun was going down.

Have grown to really love bald cypress trees since spending time in the south. They are actually some type of evergreen, but are maybe closer related to a larch tree than a pine or fir. This is based on the fact that the cypress looses all of it's 'leaves', actually more like really soft needle clumps, every winter, just like the northern larch does. They have seed pods that look somewhat like cones in that they have a scaled look to them. They happen to sink if they hit water though, unlike most seeds that float in water. These seeds are capable of sprouting in up to 10"-12" of water and growing up and out of it. As they grow older special roots start sprouting up above the ground or water around each tree. Called knees, these conical growths are thought to help the tree roots breathe. They also collect lot's of detritus, leaves and soil when the water is high. As the area around the tree is filled in it creates it's own little island around it's base. Pretty neat.