Manatee Springs State Park

Friday morning we got an email from friends Karen and Krash, who are here for the winter - they were planning a trip to Manatee Springs State Park and wanted to know if we'd like to join them. The manatees like the cooler temps and when our friends, Clarke and Elaine went down there a few weeks ago to see them there were none around, but we had been having some cool days and Karen thought the manatees might have found there way back and boy was she right!

I have to say the best part of the trip was the ride there and back. Karen and Krash like to use technology as little as possible - they don't do facebook, have a blog or even text on their phone. They had looked up the directions on mapquest at home on their computer and we were following the directions that Karen and written down. They were a bit unsure of the route we were taking and it was all I could do to hold myself back and not bring up the navigation on my phone! At one point I did look at the map on my phone just to make sure we hadn't passed a turn off, but I did hold back the rest of the time. We went the back way, totally circumventing the not so pleasant drive through Chiefland and it was absolutely beautiful. We were paralleling the Suwanee River most of the way. We passed the signs for the Treasure Camp Restaurant which Karen and Krash had heard about and we thought it might be a good stop on the way back.

It was a chilly day but the sun was shining and we made our way out to the manatee viewing area and were delighted to see a group of about 15 of them out there coming up for a snout full of air every now and then. The trees were filled with black vultures and turkey vultures everywhere you looked, along with quite a few turtles that were quite obviously mating in the water. The roots of the cypress trees are called "knees" and project up from the ground, I've never seen anything like it before.

If you look closely you can see the vultures.

We hung out for awhile just taking in the beauty and snapping some photos. On our way home we decided we must stop at Treasure Camp and check it out and we were not disappointed. Bill and I have been toying with the idea of buying some property close to Cedar Key - this area is probably a little too far from Cedar Key for us, but boy did it get us thinking! Once a month the state park hosts a moonlight paddle here, we may check it out on Saturday.