Day 36: Wakulla Springs

We spent a long weekend in Tallahassee to have some more family-and-friend time before heading out west. On Friday afternoon we headed to Wakulla Springs State Park because, after all, once those Utah folks find out that we're from the south, they're going to be asking us when the last time we saw a gator was. We wanted it to be recent.

Our good friends Tim and Cassie came along with us to the Springs, and their daughter Lana joined us on a 3-mile boat ride down and up the river.

During the boat ride we saw about 6 alligators, 7 manatees, several turtles, various varieties of fish, and some really cool birds. A summary of the birds we saw, to the best of my recollection: a baby blue heron (they're not blue when they're babies, did you know that?), a "Water Turkey" (the Anhinga earned that nickname because it swims but doesn't have oil on its feathers to repel water, so it spreads its wings out to air-dry them), Common Moorehens (which our guide kept calling "the birds with the candy corn beaks"), an Osprey (and its nest - really big and on the highest limb of a tall tree on an island in the middle of the river so that it can see its prey), an egret, an ibis, lots of ducks, and a partridge in a pear tree. Okay, okay. We didn't actually see a partridge. Or a pear tree.



There are some really cool things about Wakulla Springs. It's huge, first of all (among the world's largest and deepest freshwater springs). The water flows up and out of an underground river at a rate of 40,000 gallons per minute. The underwater river and its caves and caverns may reach as far as Georgia, but its source remains a mystery. It is almost 200 feet deep at its deepest point and the depth in one cavern exceeds 300 feet. Multiple prehistoric animal remains have been found at the springs and in its caves, and fossilized mastadon remains can be seen near the spring when the water is clear. And last of all, several well-known movies were filmed there, including The Creature from the Black Lagoon, Airport 77, and several early Tarzan films. Most of them were filmed right around this part of the river:


Of course, since the water is flowing from an underground river, it is really cold. It stays around 70 degrees year-round. Chilly, Jack?


But that didn't stop the kids from having a good time in and around the water.


The girls even braved the cold long enough to swim out with Tim to a platform in the river so that they could get a closer look at some manatees hanging out up there.

It was a wonderful way to spend a hot July afternoon.