Moving from Spring to Spring

Wednesday & Thursday March 5 & 6, 2014
Rainbow Springs State Park
Dunnellon, Florida

 

 

WEDNESDAY

 

 

This is our last day here in Blue Spring and as usual I am reluctant to go.The manatee are still here in enough numbers so there will be no swimming in the spring for me this year.  I guess I have to come twice if I want to enjoy both the manatee and the water of the springs although last year I managed to do both in the two weeks we were here. 

Maybe that’s the key.  This year it was just 11 days.  But last year our stay stretched into Daytona’s Biker Week and DeLand also has a biker week at the same time so the park was full of motorcycles.  This is such a wonderfully quiet place that it seemed almost sacrilegious to have so much noise.  So this year I was more careful when I planned our dates.  BUT that meant missing out on the swimming.

 

 

 

I do my morning walk to the spring run.  The ranger says he’s seen 8 manatee this morning but I only see this little turtle coming up for air in what looks like a massive spring run when he is in the middle of it.   I am reminded this visit that the spring water comes from so far beneath the earth that it has no oxygen in it until it reaches the river.  Thus all the manatee, turtles, alligators, and fish have to come up for air.  We’ve seen a lot of tarpon jumping out of the water this year.

 

 

 

 

I do see  these two critters on the boardwalk.  Sue and I are the up early ones but because the manatee were playing around so much yesterday, Mo has come out early to see them today. Unfortunately, none are around.   So they are heading back for breakfast and an early trip over to Hontoon Island for a bike ride before the predicted rain shows up at noon.  If you don’t have a kayak and want to go over to Hontoon, there is a free ferry from the land side that you can take and they are taking their bikes over.

 

 

I wish them a happy ride and stay around for about 15 minutes and watch to see if Pixie goes out of the run.   Not while I’m there.

When I get back to the campground road I find them trapped about two sites before their own by a fast talker.  Sue gives me that “help” look.  You know the one people do with their eyes?   So I stop and join them.  

This man was the fastest talker I have ever heard.  I couldn’t discern that he took one breath for air.  It is amazing. Sue takes his picture while he talks.  I take this picture while he talks.  It becomes clear there wasn’t going to be a break in the monologue and  someone will have to interrupt him and say that they really have to go before it rains. HA!

 

They are too nice to be so rude so I do it for them.  LOL    I just talk over him and say “well it was great to meet you but they have an appointment they have to get to”.   He stops dead and seems really taken off guard.  He says “oh well, umm, nice to meet you too”.   We walk off and they are saved.  I felt badly about it since he obviously had a lot to say and was happy for the ears to listen. But it had been over 15 minutes at least since they left me.  I ask Sue if she thought he was alone and lonely.  But she says he’d referred to “we” did this and that.  Hope he didn’t mean he and the dogs.

 

Sue and Mo go off to breakfast and their bike ride.  We get a lazy breakfast, start some of the pick up from our 11 days and then run some errands.  The vegetable stand, the grocery store, the truck supply, the pharmacy – something for everyone.  

 

By the time we get back it is mid afternoon and Sue has gone out with a former work colleague to kayak Snake Creek one last time.  I’d say she puts us to shame biking the island in the morning and then kayaking the creek in the afternoon.   Mo is reading on the patio and I go over as she starts to do some close up of her own.  We chat for a while and then I leave for an early dinner and she returns to her packing up.

 

 

They are leaving tomorrow too and driving 500 miles to Fort Pickens so they plan a very early start.   We are driving less than a quarter of that distance so we will no doubt go down for the morning walk and lazily finish the departure lists before driving a whole 90 miles to Rainbow Springs.

After dinner, Sue comes over to say good-bye, she’s had another nice afternoon on Snake Creek although she says it was not as spectacular as the day before when she and Mo were the only ones on the water.   For an hour or so, we chat politics, health care, the environment as birds of a feather.   David gets into one of his stories (wink to Carrie) and Sue is a great listener.   I can’t help taking a picture.   As I recall this wasn’t a fish story!

We wish them safe travels all the way back to Oregon.  It’s been fun having them as neighbors.

 

 

 

THURSDAY

 

 

Today is moving day for us too but since we aren’t going that far, we can take a last walk on the boardwalk to say good bye to the manatee. 

The boardwalk is stunning as always. What a wonderful job they have done here at this state park in keeping it natural.  I really feel like I am walking just below a jungle canopy.

 

 

 

 

 

The Head Spring

 

 

One of the two spots where there are steps into the spring run for swimmers once the manatee leave for the season.  This one is used by divers also.

 

 

 

 

The steps across from the stores where swimmers and tubers often get out and then walk the boardwalk back up to the steps above to swim up to the spring head or just float back down.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The manatee are here today in bigger numbers than yesterday. Not big numbers mind you but perhaps 50.  Many of them appear to be sleeping across the spring run on the opposite side from the boardwalk.  The sun shines there in the early morning when the cloud cover isn’t so thick.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mama and baby

 

 

 

 

I take David’s picture with Mandy as we stand at her overlook and count the manatee.  She is no doubt the most photographed manatee in the park.

 

 

 

 

 

These two have caught up with us as they swim down toward the mouth of the spring run.

 

 

 

 

 

We say so long to some of Blue Spring’s other residents who are out today too.

 

 

He is a BIG one.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Over the years we’ve been stopping here, Blue Spring has become one of our favorite places for its low key atmosphere and “real Florida” feel.   We’ll miss it and Mandy too as we head on north.