July 14-15, 2024
It is about 150 miles north from the KOA to Manatee Springs State Park. I had a reservation for a pull through handicap accessible site. I felt a little guilty when I made the reservation for a handicap site but it was the last available and no other nearby state parks had any availability. The notes on the reservation page stated to leave the site for handicapped unless no other sites were available.
I arrived around 2PM not realizing that check-in time is 3PM. It was brutally hot and even more brutally humid. I waited in the parking area for 45 minutes. Here’s the site. It’s quite nice not having to worry about reversing the trailer (that will come soon enough) and leveling. Here I am all set up.
Notice I do not have the sewer hooked up. Truth is I have yet to dump tanks – the facilities at the KOA and here at Manatee Springs are really quite nice so I am delaying the inevitable. I have used the RV toilet but black tank still reads 0% and although I took a quick shower and used other “grey” water that tank is reading only 6%.
I walked down to the spring to have a look. It’s Sunday afternoon and there’s a bit of crowd but I managed a few pictures void of the peeps. Speaking of pictures – so far all pictures are from cell phone although I am lugging my DSLR, lenses, and tripod which I hope to make use of later in the adventure.
These next few pictures were taken towards dusk after the park had closed to the public. There were a few campers in the water but really quite peaceful.
The next morning, July 15, I walked back to the spring and took a few more pictures:
Did I swim? Of course. The spring water temperature is 72 degrees year round. It’s brisk but also refreshing anytime of day during Florida’s hot and humid summers.
Although mostly known for the spring and water activities there are also trails to walk including an 8.5 mile self guided nature walk. That would be a great winter activity but not in this heat. I did walk the short 0.6 mile Sink Hole Trail. No pictures taken but what I thought interesting – there are many underground rivers (or conduits) that feed the Manatee Spring. The park (naturalists, environmentalists, not sure) have drilled down ~80 feet in several places to monitor the water quality and flow in these deep conduits. At least one of these monitoring stations was along this easy trail.
One last comment – I walked all of the campground loops, there are something like 80 sites. I was surprised to see so many unoccupied sites considering when I tried to make my reservation the only available site was the handicapped site.
Tomorrow I head about 150 miles north into Georgia.