February 15, 2014 - Wakulla Springs

I spent our last night at Mexico Beach on the computer trying to find a RV park near Wakulla Springs. The closest parks were north of Tallahassee.  The Passport America site showed one park in the general area, but when I read the driving directions, it was actually down on the coast.  Decisions, decisions. I decided to wait and call from the road.  This meant we were going to take the coach and trailer into a State Park that might not have much parking for rigs our size!

Our driving plan had us leaving by 10:00 and arriving at Wakulla Springs by noon.  I forgot about the changeover to Eastern Time, so we were running late almost immediately.  Then a quick (???) stop at Walmart and it was just after 2:00 by the time we got there.

 

Wakulla Springs State Park is a 6,000-acre wildlife sanctuary that was once developed as a retreat by Edward Ball in 1937.  Although the lodge is impressive and still open; it is the boat tour that is the major attractions. 

 

 The Wakulla River starts in a large pool or sink hole. The temperature is a constant 72 degrees.  It is one of the many springs that the West Indian manatees come to when other waters get too cold.  We saw several pods, but they were all underwater and I couldn't get a good picture. The spring produces 250-300 million gallons of water per day. 

 You look down stream and the river is huge, you look up stream and it’s just a pool surrounded by jungle.  And on a side note, two Johnny Weissmuller/Tarzan movies were filmed here as well as all three “Creature of the Black Lagoon” movies.

 

We were set for the 3:40 boat trip, so we used the extra time to take a walk on the nature path.

 

Captain Bob (top right)  took us out on the river

 

We saw lots of turtles sunning themselves

 

I have heard of Cypress Knees, this is what they look like. They are the above water root system for some Cypress trees.

We saw a bunch of alligators

 

And birds

 

Captain Bob called these Snow Birds.  Like the white haired winter visitors, these ducks come in November and leave in April.

 

Big birds

 

The springs are also home to a large group of Vultures

 

After our boat trip I took a chance and called the Econfina River Resort down on the coast.  They said they had space, and we’d fit.  So off we went to see if that was true.  We ended up only 88 miles east of our last stop at Mexico Beach, of course we drove 138 miles to get there!