Manatee Springs Florida

Saturday Nov 23, 2013

Manatee Springs.... we arrived!

the Springs! 

Greg getting ready for snorkeling

Our campsite

Nature hike (I just woke up)

lots of buzzards waiting around for something to die

Suwannee River

fall colors at the Suwannee River

We pulled out of Lake Placid at 8:20am heading to Manatee Springs in Chiefland FL.  We had called the State Park phone number to get reservations but Manatee Springs had no openings.  I called (but did not reserve a spot) at a RV camp in Old Town not far up the road from Chiefland.  Our intent was to hang out at Manatee Springs for a while then drive up the road and spend the night in Old Town at Suwannee river Hideaway. The trip from Lake Placid took about 5 hours.  It was 4-lanes all the way but through lots of small towns with stop-n-go traffic.  We drove thru beautiful horse farms outside of Ocala.  Once getting to Manatee, the park ranger said they could get a camp site for us!  We parked and immediately went to the springs to snorkel.  I was here when I was very little but for some reason it did not look the same!  The springs were much smaller than I remembered.  We did get in the freezing cold water (it was 72 degrees) and snorkeled around.  Nothing to see.  No manatees, some fish, no snakes, no alligators.  We snorkeled for about 30 minutes then went back to camp.  Got on the bikes and road the trails for about an hour.  Still didn't see any wild life until coming back to camp and saw a couple of deer on the side of the road.  The wind was starting to blow but the temperature was very nice in the 70's.  Dinner was frozen pizza (cooked in the convection microwave) and salad.

Sun Nov 24, 2013...  It was 68 degrees in the RV (without the a/c running).  The wind was chilly.  We walked back to the springs and along the boardwalk but no signs of manatees.  Back at camp, our neighbor said they saw a "cow and calf" earlier that morning.   Aw... we were too late getting there to see them.  We broke camp at 10:15 and the temp was 58 when we left.  We don't exactly know where we are going next.  No cell coverage at Manatee Springs but we had called a friend of Greg's who lives in Port St. Joe about 3-1/2 hrs away.  Couldn't connect with them last night so once we left the park we had to pull off on the side of the road once we got cell coverage again and called them back.  They were in Tennessee!!!  St. Port Joe will have to wait until our next trip down.  We studied the map a while and came up with Panama City as our next destination........stay tuned!