March 20 :  Florida Panhandle

We left Gainesville on March 4 and traveled West to the Florida Panhandle. Our first stop was a 4 night stay at Ochlockonee River State Park near Sopchoppy, about 45 miles southwest of Tallahassee. It is a quiet and beautiful park on the Ochlockonee and Dead Rivers. We hiked and biked around the park and also saw a white deer and a white squirrel.  

We used the park as a base and made day trips from it. One day we went to Tallahassee and drove past the state capital . We also visited the beautiful Alfred B. Maclay Gardens State Park. There were beautiful azaleas, camellias, magnolias, pools and reflective ponds. The Maclay home was also very beautiful and full of antiques. 

Another day we went to St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge. We saw the St Marks Lighthouse and walked many trails. We saw lots of birds including tricolored herons, green herons, willets, sandpipers, killdeer and more. We saw three eagles nests and two eagles, one which was sitting on the nest. We also stopped at Bald Point State Park and walked to the beach. There were loads of hermit crabs there, which we can only guess were mating. 

Horseshoe Crabs

Another excursion was to Edward Ball Wakulla State Park. This spring is supposedly at the largest and deepest in the world with 41 miles of underground caverns. We took a nice hike there, took a boat tour and saw lots of alligators and a few birds and had lunch at the lovely old lodge.

Wakulla Springs

Our next stop was for a week at Dr Julian G Bruce St George Island State Park. The island is connected to the mainland by a 4.1 mile causeway. Then it is another 4 miles to the state park and finally another 4 miles to the campground with the road ending at the campground. The island is very quiet with 2 small grocery stores and about 4 restaurants. The cottages on the island are limited to 4 stories and usually the first floor is stilts. Unfortunately it rained, thundered, and was very windy much of the time we were there. The red flag was always flying at the beach. We timed our hikes in between rain showers, but still saw a lot of birds and even watched a dolphin playing in the water. The beach and dunes are lovely with beautiful white sand. In fact, our campground’s name was Sugar Hills Campground. 

One day we drove across to the mainland where our first stop was the Apalachicola National Estuarine Reserve Nature Center. It has very nice displays talking about fresh, brackish, and salt water, with aquariums showing fish that live in each part of the river, and the importance of estuaries to the environment. There’s also a display about the oyster industry. We walked many of the boardwalks and overlooks in the rain. We then visited Apalachicola, a very old town with lots of nice old homes and then ate raw oysters and sea food at Up The Creek Raw Bar. Very delicious! After lunch we visited two state parks - John Gorrie State Museum Park - he invented modern refrigeration in 1842 - it was very interesting to see the displays. Then on to Orman House Historic State Park which was the Orman home from 1837 to 1990.  Orman was a early settler of the area and very influential in developing Apalachicola. 

 

Orman House Historic State Park

On our last day on St George Island we visited the St. George Island Lighthouse which was toppled by a hurricane in 2005.The local residence collected and saved the original bricks and rebuilt the light. Then onto a delicious  lunch of seafood at Blue Parrot on the Beach.

On March 16th we moved to Topsail Hill Preserve State Park, near Santa Rosa Beach Florida, in a driving rain storm. This park was a very nice with exceptional facilities. Even though we could only stay two days, we rode our bikes on many of the bike paths, enjoyed the beach that had double red flags to keep swimmers out of the water, and loved the quiet campground.

Now we have left Florida and moving toward home. More to come

March 5 Moving Northward 

 On February 13, we moved north to Silver Springs State Park near Ocala Florida. We set up camp and then went to the Silver River Museum in the park. It is only open on weekends because it is owned and run by Marion County Schools and during the week so school children in grades 4 and 6 come to the museum and attached pioneer villages for classes in natural history and Florida history. It was a very nice museum divided into 3 sections : prehistoric history of Florida, history of Florida in the last 500 years and old dugout canoes. After we visited the museum, we went to the day use area of the park. The springs are beautiful and crystal clear. 

Pioneer Village

 We took a lot of hikes around the park. The Sinkhole trail, the swamp trail, the creek trail and the Sandhill trail, all emphasized different kinds of environments in the park. Mark also went kayaking a lot on the Silver Springs River. One time a manatee swam under the kayak. 

Manatee in Silver Springs from kayak

 We took a glass bottom boat ride. I thought this might be a little hokey, but it was so beautiful. Since the water is so clear, you could see tons of little springs bubbling up. We saw tons of fish and even had 2 manatees under our boat. The springs were privately owned before it became a state park and many movies were filmed here including Tarzan, a James Bond movie and the TV show Sea Hunt. One of the former owners brought monkeys to an island to entertain the tourists. He thought that monkeys could not swim, but some of them can, and they got off the island. Despite all attempts to capture them, some are still around today and on our last day at the park, we saw several dozen of them up in the trees. 

Manatees under Glass Bottom Boat

Lots of Monkeys

 We also discovered the Marjorie Harris Carr Cross Country Greenway and took two very nice bike rides from different area trailheads. Up until 1971 they were building a canal across Florida and then were forced to quit, so they put the land to a good use. You have probably heard of rails to trails in this case the proposed canal property across Florida has turned into trails. 

 We visited Rainbow Springs State Park one day and on another occasion visited the Fort King National Historic Landmark. It is a replica of a wooden fort in the Ocala area. It played a prominent part in the Seminole Wars in Florida on and off from 1817 - 1858. 

Gardens at Rainbow Springs StatePark

 We next spent 6 nights at Manatee Springs State Park near Chiefland Florida on what is known as the Nature Coast. It’s kind of in the middle of nowhere and it was nice to get away from all the traffic of Southern Florida and the Orlando area. We hiked, and biked and swam in spring. Mark kayaked. We also visited the nearby Fanning Springs State Park and saw a sign on the river saying : Caution Sturgeon Jumping! 

Fanning Springs

Manatee Springs

 My sister Ginger, her husband Chuck and son David came down to Florida from South Carolina and we spent a very nice two days with them. Ginger especially wanted to see manatees, so we visited Three Sisters Spring at Crystal River National Wildlife Refuge. The springs are really beautiful and clear and we were very lucky to see about a dozen manatees there since the weather has been quite warm and the manatees are moving out of the springs. We also visited the Crystal River Archaeological State Park. Native people built the mounds between AD 50 to AD 1050. Some were used as burial mounds and some were used for ceremonial purposes. It was quite a beautiful site on the Crystal River. 

Crystal River Mounds

David, Ginger and Chuck Reese

Manatee getting a breath

Momma Manatee with two Calves

Hiking at Three Sisters Spring

 We spent a day at Cedar Key arriving in time to have a nice brunch. We drove all over the cute little town and took a couple of short hikes on nature trails. We visited the Cedar Key Museum State Park. We wanted to take a boat tour around the area, but they were already booked up. Cedar Key reminded us a lot of the Florida Keys, but much more low key and charming. On the way back to our campground we took a scenic drive through the Lower Suwanee National Wildlife Refuge. On our final day at Manatee Springs State Park, we took a 10 mile bike ride on the Nature Coast State Trail. The two neatest things we saw on the ride was an old railroad trestle across the Suwanee River and 2 big gopher tortoises, one which was digging out his hole.

Cedar Key

Main Street Cedar Key

Nature Coast State Trail

 Our next stop was a 5 night stay at Paynes Prairie Preserve State Park just south of Gainesville. Paynes Prairie is a wetlands Prairie of 21,000 acres. They have wild horses and cattle from the time of the Spanish in Florida and have reintroduced bison which were there before the Spanish arrived. We tried, but never saw bison but saw wild horses and cattle and of course alligators. There were a lot of birds in the area also and one morning we took a birding walk led by an Audubon person at Sweetwater Wetlands Park and saw 52 different types of birds in 2 1/2 hours. We saw an indigo bunting, a Northern Harrier, Snail kites, white eyed vireos, northern paroles, Wilson Snipes and many more. It was a very nice walk. 

Glossy Ibis

 We also went to Devils Millhopper Geological State Park. It is a giant sinkhole 120 feet deep and 500 feet across. You can climb down 132 steps to the bottom and get a completely different perspective of it. It was very interesting. We also visited the Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Historic State Park. I thought we might visit here, so I read some of her books and a biography of Rawlings, so it was really neat to see her home and orchards as they were in the 30’s and 40’s. We also stopped in Micanopy Florida. It was the first town founded after Spain relinquished Florida to the United State in 1821. Now it is a small, charming town filled with antique shops, galleries and a few restaurants. 

Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Home

Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Porch

 We spent over two hours at Kanapaha Botanical Gardens. They were absolutely beautiful with azaleas, camellias, daffodils and trilliums in bloom really made us feel like spring had arrived. The bamboo gardens, children’s garden and native woodland garden were some of our favorites. We took a 12.4 mile bike ride on the Gainesville-Hawthorne State Trail which went partially through the state park. Florida has some really nice bike trails. We drove through the very nice campus of the University of Florida. 

Our first trilliums of the year

Boardwalk off Gainesville-Hawthorne State Trail

Gainesville-Hawthorne State Trail

Now we have moved west to the Panhandle of Florida - but more about that next time!