Sonya's Blog - Day 216 - Blue Spring State Park

Sonya’s Blog - Day 216 - January 24th - Blue Spring State Park

Manatees are on the agenda today. I wanted to make sure we got to see some before we left Florida. Large numbers winter in the warm water of Florida until they can return to the Ocean during the summer. Blue Spring State Park is a spring that comes off the St. John’s River and has a large population of wintering Manatees. The great thing about Blue Spring is that you do not have to take a boat ride to see a Manatee, you will see them just walking along the boardwalk. We headed out in the morning for the hour long drive.

When we got to the park, it was very busy. There was a Manatee Festival going on down the road, but there was also a line-up of cars waiting to be admitted to the State Park. We got in line and waited and it took about 20 minutes, so not too bad. When we were paying they had a board with the number of Manatees spotted today and there were 387 or something. So we should have no problem spotting one or two. We were worried about finding parking with our big truck, but they were letting cars in at a slow enough pace that we had no problems. We also quickly found out that Kizmet was welcome to walk around with us, there were just some areas that they did not want pets. Good enough.

We walked straight to the boardwalk and saw Manatees right away. As we continued to walk along the boardwalk, we saw more and more Manatees. There was one area where there were hundreds of Manatees hanging out and grouped together (probably for warmth). They cannot handle water colder than 18 degrees C, which is why they migrate into warmer springs and rivers for the winter. Blue Spring maintains an average temperature of 22 degrees C throughout the year. We walked all the way down to the end to where the spring trickles in and it is like the hot tub area for the Manatee. It was a beautiful park and I was so impressed by the boardwalks and the excellent viewing, but it was well away from the Manatees so they did not feel threatened. They were just swimming around doing their thing. There were also lots of billboards and we learned more about the Manatee. The most surprising thing was that they are related to the elephant. They figure that they were land mammals that then became water dwellers. Pretty cool. They seem so gentle and wonderful and we just loved watching them swim around.

They had some lovely picnic tables in the park, so we stopped and had our lunch that we had brought. There is an old homestead house in the State Park that had some live bands that were playing there all day. We wandered over there and had a listen and checked out the house (they have restored it to how the original owners would have decorated it in the late 1800’s. They also had a couple of videos about the Manatee and why they are endangered (although Natasha read they were taken off the endangered list last week). In 1970 only there were only 14 Manatees migrating to Blue Spring and now there are hundreds, so that is good news. Many of them had scars on their backs, mostly from boat motors. Poor things.

We were at the park for about 4 hours and it was one of my favourite stops in Florida, without question. Definitely a place to visit if you come to Florida, so amazing and worth it.

Look at this crazy amusement park that we saw on the side of the highway:

It is called The Holy Land Experience and you can experience what it like in Bethleham at the time of Jesus. We had a good laugh. Florida has so many amusement parks, it is hard to believe that they can all stay open, such tough competition.

ext on the agenda was the AFC Championship game between the New England Patriots and Denver Broncos. Blake really wants to see the game and we do not have cable at our campsite. There is a Wild Buffalo Bills place a couple of KM’s from our campground and he thought he would pop in there to watch the game (he had called and they would be showing it). The games stated while we were driving back, but Blake was able to listen to it on the radio. We got to the restaurant just as the 2nd quarter was starting. Blake and the kids ran in and I took Kizmet and walked her back to the campground. We had a good walk and she was tuckered out when we got there after all her exercise earlier in the day. She had a big drink of water and fell straight asleep. I walked back to the restaurant and made it time for the start of the second half. What a great game, Blake was positive that it was going to go to overtime because Brady looked unstoppable near the end there. About 1/2 the crowd was cheering for the Patriots and half for the Broncos, so it was pretty exciting. We also stayed for the start of the Carolina Panthers and Arizona Cardinals game. We were pretty sure Carolina was going to win and that was pretty evident right away when Carolina scored. As we were paying Carolina scored again and that pretty much sums up how the rest of the game went. We saw the better game, so that was good. Blake is super excited for Superbowl and we will be in New Orleans when it is on.

We headed back to the trailer and settled down for the night. Everyone was tuckered out, so not too much happened. The kids called their Nana and told them all about Universal and the Manatees and then went to bed. It is going to be another chilly night, so we all got our warmer blankets out.

Sonya