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Florida Adventures – Just a Drive Away!

Date: June 3, 2021
Category: Blog

Blue Spring Adventures!

Welcome back to our Florida road trip! Natalie and I are headed to Blue Spring Adventures at Blue Spring State Park, where we know adventure awaits. We heard that you might see up to 485 manatees in the springs during manatee season, how wild is that!? Unfortunately, we are visiting in their off-season, but we plan to come back during the winter months to come to see them. Our drive from the Everglades is just under five hours, so we left early and will be getting lunch from The Canteen Store once we arrive.

Upon arriving in Blue Spring State Park, we headed to The Camp Store to pick up lunch and a few things for our stay. They had plenty of deli options, and we were even able to pick up the camping essentials: s’mores ingredients! We ate our lunch in the gazebo and decided the first thing we would do was the St. Johns River Nature Cruise in hopes to see as much wildlife as possible. To our surprise, the cruise was amazingly priced for two full hours of touring!

The Cruise is perfect for casual wildlife viewing for both newbies like us, and the expert animal watcher. We got to see so many amazing creatures, which made up for the lack of manatees! Our guide pointed out all kinds of species that call Blue Spring home, like the Florida Scrub-Jay, ospreys, eagles, and more. The tour was the perfect way to explore the area while relaxing under the shade of the covered tour boat.

We had so much fun on the water we were hoping to get an even closer look, so we rented kayaks for the afternoon to explore on our own time. The Park has other great rentals too, like Segway tours, tubing, and canoes. Natalie suggested we save some of the activities for our next visit, that way we have even more to look forward to. We spent most of our day on the water, and there’s no better way to end a day of adventuring than sitting by the fire enjoying s’mores together and telling each other our favorite part of the day by the campsite.

We both agreed we will have to come back to Blue Spring State Park and spend an entire day at Hontoon Island State Park, which you can only reach from the park ferry or private boat and is not accessible at the time being. Follow us along our journey to see us back here again when the ferry is back up and running!

Thanks for following Joe and Natalie on their road trip journey through Florida. Join them next time when they visit Weeki Wachee Springs State Park, two hours West towards the Gulf Coast!