February 15 Central Florida

On January 26 we moved our camper to Lake Louisa State Park near Clermont, slightly west of Orlando. It is the area known as the Florida Ridge and is hillier than it has been in other parts of Florida. This part of Florida is also full of lakes, many of which are interconnected and the the state park has several including Lake Hammond, Lake Dixie, Bear Lake, Smokehouse Lake and its namesake Lake Louisa!  Mark kayaked on the Crooked River which goes between Lake Louisa and Lake Susan. We took some nice hikes at the park and Mark enjoyed picking and eating wild tangerines. One morning we took a Segway tour at the park. Neither of us had been on a Segway before and we enjoyed our tour. It only takes a little bit to get the hang of riding them and then it is quite intuitive.

The Orlando area is a huge, sprawling metro area with construction going on everywhere. There are new subdivisions going up all over the place. We had a wide range of temperatures while we were in the area from 32 degrees and frost warnings to 80 degrees. 32 was the coldest it has been here in 4 years !

We visited some friends in the area: Michael and Lea, Mark’s cousin and his wife were in the area to golf and we spent several hours visiting with them. We also got together with Deborah and Tom. Deborah went to library school with me and was also one of my bridesmaids. We had lunch together and then went to a free tour and wine tasting at Lakeridge Winery and Vineyards. Yes they do grow grapes in Florida : Muscadine grapes varieties which are sweeter than most, but make some fine wine. It was a lot of fun. 

While at Lake Louisa we visited Harry P. Leu Gardens. They are a beautiful tropical botanical garden. It was very lush and jungly with lots of palms and cycads. They also had a huge display of camellias! 

One afternoon we went to the Nature Conservancy’s Disney Preserve south of Kissimmee. It is an 11,000 acre preserve (8,000 acres of which was donated by Disney). It is a very nice area . We took a 3 mile hike and saw lots of song birds.

We spent a day at Disney’s Animal Kingdom. I particularly liked the African, Asia and Pandora the world of Avatar areas. The animals in Africa and Asia were amazing. We took the Kilamanjaro Safari ride twice and saw lots of animals in their habitats. We saw a baby white rhino and its mother. Even the tram driver was surprised at that. I think we saw all the shows and rode all the rides. We stayed for the lighting of the “tree of life “ when the park was closing. It was a long day and we were exhausted, but we had a great time.

On February 4, we moved north a little ways to Alexander Springs  Campground in Ocala National Forest. That day the temperature got up to 81 degrees and we went swimming in the spring. It is a constant 72 degrees and incredibly clear and beautiful. We had lots of fish swimming around our feet. The next day the temperature dropped down to a high of 61 degrees. We drove a ways north to visit Salt  Springs recreation area. Another beautiful spring.  We took hikes on the Bear Swamp Trail and the Salt Spring Nature Trail Loop, both beautiful walks.

Alexander Springs

Salt Spring

Salt Spring Trail

The next day we visited Blue Spring State Park. It is another 72 degree spring and manatees come here for the warm water. The manatee count that Sunday was 235. There is a really nice board walk along the spring run and the water is so clear that you could see lots of manatee and fish also. We also took a 2 hour boat tour on the St Johns River. We had a great guide. She has been doing this for 23 years and could really spot the wildlife! We saw alligators, manatees. American bittern, limpkin, black crowned night heron, sandhill cranes on their nest and lots more. On the way back to our campground, we stopped at DeLeon  Spring State Park. We are discovering how different all these springs are. 

Blue Spring

Limpkin

Sandhill Crane on nest

Black Crowned Night Heron

Monday and Tuesday were rather dreary and rainy. We did manage to hike for about 2 hours between rain showers on the Florida trail as it passes near our campground. The trail stretches 1500 miles from the Everglades to Pensacola. We found it to be a very nice trail and well marked. Mark found 5 geocaches along the way.

On February 9, we moved south again to Wekiwa Spring State Park on the northern end of the Orlando metro area. It is a very nice state park and we biked, hiked, swam in the spring and Mark kayaked. 

Wekiwa Spring

We also made a day trip to the city of Winter Park. Winter Park is a beautiful city on four lakes which are connected by canals. We took an hour long boat tour which went on 3 of the lakes and 2 canals. The majority of the homes on the lakes, and throughout the city are huge beautiful homes. We also walked the main shopping street, and the Kraft Azalea Garden. We also visited the Albin Polasek Museum and Sculpture Garden that displayed his works. Our final stop was a walk through the campus of Rollins College. It is a very nice campus situated on Lake Osceola.

On our last full day at Wekiwa Springs Mark was reading his Facebook page and found an entry in a bird watching site about Lake Apopka North Shore Wildlife Drive, so off we went. It was amazing!  The 11 mile drive is managed by the St. Johns River Water Management District. They are trying to rejuvenate it from years of farming fertilizer and pesticide contamination. We saw thousands and thousands of birds, mostly water fowl and anhingas and lots of alligators. We saw herons and limpkins on nests. In one place we saw tons of whistling ducks. It was quite the excursion.

Black Bellied Whistling Ducks

Now we are at Silver Springs State Park near Ocala, but more about that next time…