Back on eastern time now. Headed east/south to continue on Hwy 98. This area (imagine if Florida was an arm, this is the armpit) was a lot of flat and straight roads, mostly surrounded by nature preserves. Not sure exciting. We hadn't booked a campground for tonight, so I spent some time trying to find a place to stay for the night.
We stopped at Homosassa Springs Park before lunch. We are spoiled in Ohio - state parks are free. Here, though, it's $5 to get to pretty much anywhere, even if it's just a parking lot of access to the water. I'm sure there are lots of free places that you would know about if you were local, but we are travelers, so here we are. This place was $13 each to get in, but totally worth it. We got there just before the manatee talk. In the winter (November-March) the manatees come up in the rivers to stay warm. The Park has 3 that live in captivity - none of them would be able to survive in the wild due to reasons. The volunteers fed them head after head of romaine lettuce. They are vegetarians. In addition to the 3 that live here full time, the rivers are home to many more. We saw 8 or so, but during certain times there can be 80!
We went into this underwater viewing area in the river, kind of fishbowl where we were the fish. Thousands of fish hanging around this, fun to watch them up close. The park also has key & white tailed deer, a bear, a fox, alligators, a panther, birds and more birds (bald eagles, hawks, pink flamingos, pelicans, turkey, etc), and best of all a super duper old hippo named Lu, oldest one in captivity. I normally am not a huge fan of zoos, but they told us several times that everyone here would not make it in the wild, most of them due to injury or not raised to hunt/survive properly.
After leaving the park I started calling campgrounds to find a site for the night. Finally on park #5 got a yes and headed towards Fort de Soto Park, just south of St. Petersburg. Before we found our site we decided to check out the fort, which is pretty much non-existent now. They gave us a map for a self-guided tour, and it was confusing me because I couldn't find any of the buildings on the map. Once we figured out that we were just looking at where things "used to" be it was a nice walk around the park.
Back at the campground for the night, we have an awesome spot tucked in the woods. We were able to walk to the water to watch the sunset.
Grilling some burgers for dinner, one just fell on the ground. Someone is eating a sand burger tonight. I bet it is Joe.
254 miles
148.53 spent
26 Homosassa Springs State Park
30.62 Grocery
1.75 tolls
37.86 Fort de Soto Park
We stopped at Homosassa Springs Park before lunch. We are spoiled in Ohio - state parks are free. Here, though, it's $5 to get to pretty much anywhere, even if it's just a parking lot of access to the water. I'm sure there are lots of free places that you would know about if you were local, but we are travelers, so here we are. This place was $13 each to get in, but totally worth it. We got there just before the manatee talk. In the winter (November-March) the manatees come up in the rivers to stay warm. The Park has 3 that live in captivity - none of them would be able to survive in the wild due to reasons. The volunteers fed them head after head of romaine lettuce. They are vegetarians. In addition to the 3 that live here full time, the rivers are home to many more. We saw 8 or so, but during certain times there can be 80!
We went into this underwater viewing area in the river, kind of fishbowl where we were the fish. Thousands of fish hanging around this, fun to watch them up close. The park also has key & white tailed deer, a bear, a fox, alligators, a panther, birds and more birds (bald eagles, hawks, pink flamingos, pelicans, turkey, etc), and best of all a super duper old hippo named Lu, oldest one in captivity. I normally am not a huge fan of zoos, but they told us several times that everyone here would not make it in the wild, most of them due to injury or not raised to hunt/survive properly.
After leaving the park I started calling campgrounds to find a site for the night. Finally on park #5 got a yes and headed towards Fort de Soto Park, just south of St. Petersburg. Before we found our site we decided to check out the fort, which is pretty much non-existent now. They gave us a map for a self-guided tour, and it was confusing me because I couldn't find any of the buildings on the map. Once we figured out that we were just looking at where things "used to" be it was a nice walk around the park.
Back at the campground for the night, we have an awesome spot tucked in the woods. We were able to walk to the water to watch the sunset.
Grilling some burgers for dinner, one just fell on the ground. Someone is eating a sand burger tonight. I bet it is Joe.
254 miles
148.53 spent
26 Homosassa Springs State Park
30.62 Grocery
1.75 tolls
37.86 Fort de Soto Park
Wow the zoo, manatees, and fish sound awesome! Hope Joe enjoyed his sand burger!! Lol.
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