Nice slow day for relaxing. It was nice to sleep in long enough this morning to feel like I had finally caught up again. Spent most of the day just hanging out at the trailer and wandering around the town here in McIntosh. I did take some time late this afternoon to run into Gainsville and have some dinner, a burrito, at my favorite Mexican restaurant.
    Part of the day, and some of this evening was spent looking through some additional pictures from a couple weeks ago. My girlfriend, Rima, was still down here at that time and we took a day to drive over to Wakulla Springs State Park. One of our favorites, we always take their hour long boat ride on the Wakulla River for $8.00 each. One of the best deals ever. We always see lots of birds of course, but we also see gators, turtles and maybe a manatee or two. The photo's below show some of these and I hope you enjoy them.

Wakulla Springs State Park in Florida - Feb. 12, 2016

Part I

Looking down river from where Wakulla Springs comes up out of the ground. The actual spring is just to the left in the photo and all but a very small portion of the water you see in this picture comes out of that one spring..... more than a million gallons of water per day. By the way, it's more than 80 feet deep in spots around the spring opening.

Here is Rima on top of the diving tower overlooking the actually spring. To the left is nothing but forest, nearly all the water in this picture is coming out of one large hole in the ground just beyond where she is standing.

Taking a State Park tour boat down the spring run. I love how the bald cypress trees have created their own small islands in the middle of the river.

A warm and sunny day so there were quite a few alligators hauled out on shore soaking up a few rays.

The water coming out of the spring is a steady 72 degrees and more than 99% pure so it is so clear that the color is a reflection from the sky on the white limestone sand on the bottom of the river.

There were lots of turtles hauled out on stumps along the river.

Another happy gator.

The growth around the bottom of the trees are called cypress knees, a type of root system that not only helps stabilize the trees in their muddy or wet environment, but they are also suppose to help in respiration for the trees when they are surrounded by water.

As you can see I really like to take pictures of these trees.

A closer look. These trees are related to evergreen such as fir, pines and cedars, but they lose their needles (leaves), every fall. The growth you see is actually Spanish Moss, a type of       flowering plant (angiosperm) in the family Bromeliaceae (the bromeliads) that grows hanging from tree branches in full sun or partial shade. They get all of their nutrient needs from the air and only use the trees as a way to get up where the wind is more likely to blow good things their way.

I think Rima was having a good time too.

One last turtle picture for today. There will be more coming, most likely tomorrow.

*brk