Spent a wonderful day yesterday hanging out with some good friends and visiting Blue Springs State Park to look for manatee's. I met my friend here in Florida early in the morning and we drove up to the park where we met up with a couple more friends, Donna and Rhonda, who had flown in a couple days earlier and were going to be in town for a couple of weeks.

    We wandered around the park for a little bit and checked out the spring run to see if there were any manatees in residence. Turns out that there were only a couple hanging out and that may be because the weather has been so warm lately that there was no need for them to move into the spring for warmth.

    As I said, we did see a couple, basically a cow and her calf, but that was about all. Lot's of fish to look at and a turtle or two plus the area is just so beautiful. The water in this spring, all 101 million gallons per day, is so clear that it reflects every color around it. So on sunny clear days it looks very, very blue. But yesterday with all the clouds, it looked much more green in color. We also wanted to do a 2 hour boat ride out on the St John river, but it turns out that the trips were all full, but they were also much more expensive than the one I had taken over at a State Park in western Florida.

    So.... since it was clouding up, cooling down and looking like rain, plus it was nearly 1:00 in the afternoon, we all parted company and Jan and I went over and had a burger at a local 'Five Guy's'. Haven't eaten at one of those for at least a year so it was nice to have a burger and piping hot fries.

   We went on back to Jan's place afterwards and sat around talking, drinking wine and watching old versions of NCIS on TV. A couple of hours of that and then it was off to 'Paco's' for some good Mexican food. We met up with Jan's daughter, Marie, and had a great time eating and drinking Mexican beer. The food is not as good as some in the west, but is so far above anything else I've had east of the Mississippi River that it tastes great. I had chicken enchilada's and a guacamole taco with beans and rice, so I'm set for a day or two.

    I headed back to the trailer after that and spent a pleasant evening reading and drinking tea. Tonight is the start of the weekend 'Orange Blossom' contra dance. Looking forward to dancing to some great music and a wonderful caller and seeing some old friends. George Marshall will be the main caller tonight and Wild Asparegus will be the main band. Till then I just plan to hang out and read some more, maybe watch a movie. Will just have to see what suits me.

Blue Springs State Park near Orlando Florida - Jan 17, 2012

The spring run is about a mile long from where the spring comes out of the ground to where it enters the St John River. Along the way it is lined by some beautiful old Live Oaks and Palm Trees. The color's are remarkable.

The spring water is so clear that it reflects whatever colors surround it. When the day is sunny and clear the water is mostly blue, but when there are a lot of clouds the water is often more green colored.

A cold front was starting to come through so the temp was down to the low 70's - high 60's. It also had lots of clouds and the wind was starting to blow which made it hard to see into the water, but which made the Spanish Moss move in some beautiful ways.

My friend Jan and the one manatee that is always easy to see. Jan and I go back more than 40 years to Denver and the boating program down at Washington Park. She went on a couple of canoe trips with all of us and also use to x-country ski with us on the weekends.

Love the color. It probably helps to have a nice polarizing filter on your camera, but it is really quite pretty just looking at it.

The bottom of the river is all white coral sand so it reflects color's really well.

More interesting lighting effects.

We did actually see a couple of real manatee's. In this case a cow and her calf. You can see the little one in the upper left corner. Sorry it isn't clearer, but with the wind the water was disturbed just enough to make it hard to see into it.

Looking up river towards the spring source. This spring flows at a rate of up to 101 million gallons per day, (yep... no mistake on that number), so you essentially have a river right from the start.

The source of the spring is just a big water filled hole in the ground. The water comes out crystal clear at a steady 72 degrees. The manatee's move into the spring runs in the winter when the river and ocean water drop in temperature. But I think it has been so warm lately that there has been no need for them to be there this year.