Park #13-Blue Springs State Park

Well, we are now at Blue Springs, in Orange City, Florida. It's about 35 miles north of Orlando and is a really pretty park! The big attraction here is the MANATEES!!! (More about that in a minute.) Anyway, the park is a really popular destination point and is definitely the most crowded park we've been in, at least as far as the "day use" area. The focal point is the Blue Springs themselves, which are gorgeous - BOY, have we seen a lot of springs during this trip! There is a really nice boardwalk that runs alongside the spring run, for probably a quarter mile or so, maybe even longer. There are also two tour boats that run up and down the river (the St Johns River, actually) three times a day - and there are literally busloads of people who come into the park to see the manatees and go on the cruise. In fact, every day there are cars lined up outside of the park waiting to come in - and they can't GET in until other cars LEAVE the park. It's kind of incredible. Since we've been here, there have probably been somewhere between 20 and 40 manatees in the spring run at any given time - and the water is SO crystal clear that you can see them perfectly. Plus there are a jillion fish in the clear waters, as well as turtles and "fishing" birds - and someone said they saw an alligator swimming in the run a couple days ago. (On the other hand, when Brenda and Arnie stopped at this park during their vacation in January, they said there were probably 150 manatees in the springs - but we are certainly NOT complaining about the number here now!) Anyway, there is also a kayak/canoe rental concession which provides us with a perfect spot for launching.
So - what we've done so far: Wednesday we just got settled in, bought some groceries, picked up some movies, etc. It was kind of a rainy day so we were fine with that. On Thursday, Dave took his kayak out fishing for the afternoon and I did the 6.2 mile (10 K) AVA walk that is actually in the park - not really a great walk, to tell the truth. Part of it was on some nice trails, but the majority of it was on kind of boring service roads running along the outer edge of the park - but I got the stamp for my book! On Friday, Dave did the same thing even though he hadn't had any real luck fishing the previous day - but he told me that the river is so pretty to be out on that he didn't really care. I, in the meanwhile, went into the next little town north of here, called DeLand, and did the AVA walk in the town. I had to get the walkbox at the Volusia County Library. And THIS walk was much, much nicer. It was basically a walk through the historic residential area, through the college campus (Stetson University) and along the main downtown street. The city of DeLand has done an excellent job of renovating their downtown and it is very attractive. Plus, there are some great old homes and mansions. The Stetson mansion was owned by the same man who "invented" the stetson hat - and obviously he also founded the university of the same name. Anyway, I had a great walk and was proud to get my FIFTH stamp in less than two weeks.
Saturday was cold, rainy and windy - NOT nice at all. I told Dave I wanted to show him DeLand because I thought it was so nice, so we took a drive into town - and ended up hitting road blocks. Saturday was actually the first day of the Daytona Bike Week (...motorcycles, that is) - and the first "event" of Bike Week is a rally in DeLand. It was SO sad - they set up a great venue - two live bands, tons of food and merchandise booths, and the downtown is so cute, with a large choice of bars and restaurants - but the weather was AWFUL, so they had about five blocks closed off for the event and there were probably barely 100 or so bikes. We walked around with our umbrellas, but got tired of the weather REALLY fast so headed over to the Beef O-Brady's just outside of town. I felt so bad for the city - they obviously put a huge amount of effort into this one day event, and it just rained ALL day long!
So - today - is Sunday and I finally went out in my kayak and paddled around where Dave had already gone twice - OH MY GOD - it was INCREDIBLE! There were manatees swimming all around us. We had one "pod" of four that we just slowly paddled alongside of for a really long distance - and when I say alongside of, I mean they were swimming so close to my kayak (...on both sides of me) that I could have easily reached out and touched them. It was amazing. They swam under my kayak, and under Dave's, and just gently bobbed up and down to get their air. It was SO cool. I tried to take some pictures, but realized almost immediately that the camera can't begin to capture this experience - the pictures are just gray stuff (which is the back of the manatees but you can't really tell), so I just put the camera away and just enjoyed the experience. It was kind of windy and a little bit cool - probably low 60's - but tomorrow is supposed to be beautiful, with no wind and temps in the low 70's. So I plan to spend almost all of the afternoon on the water, with the manatees - what a great experience!
(Just as an aside - I started an online Forensic Accounting class today, through Davenport, the third of four classes I need to take in order to teach for them. It's great that the technology allows me to take a class while on the road, but now I have to find time to read chapters, do case studies, and participate in online discussions - I hope it doesn't cut into my FUN time too much....!)