Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Florida: A destination for 29 million visitors each winter

This year in Florida there were 29 million and 2 visitors. We arrived in Northern Florida in November and our first stop was in Lake City. We had never heard of it and probably never would have had it not been on our way. But I am glad we stopped because if we hadn't we would never have seen, Ichetucknee State Park. Ichetucknee (itch-tuck-knee) State Park has a natural spring, unfortunately not a warm spring that you could get in and soak but it was very pretty. The water was crystal clear and the actual hole where the spring water flows in from was large enough that people could actually scuba dive down into it. At the beginning of the ¼ mile walk that let to spring there was a picture that showed someone in the opening of the spring from below, it was pretty cool. Picture watching National Geographic and seeing a diver from underneath looking up towards the sky. That is what it looked like but instead of a vast openness above there is a hole in the ceiling of the spring that is maybe 10' X 10'. If you don’t scuba dive you can still snorkel around in the pool or just swim. We didn't go there with that intention and it wasn't that warm anyway. Once we got to the pool we stood around and enjoyed it's beauty. While watched an older woman feeding the fish, she stopped and pointed out that she was also feeding turtles. She and her son used to live in the area and he told us as a kid he used to go there all the time to swim. We did get to see some small Leather Neck Turtles and even got a couple pictures. They were all pretty small but you could see them perfectly through the clear blue water. Leather Neck Turtle Ichetucknee Spring More on Florida next time!!

No comments:

Post a Comment