We packed up and hit the road again from the Clearwater area and headed to Silver Springs State Park in Ocala, FL. We hiked the through the park, peered into the clear river water from the spring, and saw an alligator. We unfortunately did not get to see monkeys though… This is where many of the Tarzan movies were filmed and some of the Rhesus monkeys escaped (were released?) from the film crew and have taken up residence in that area!
Then we headed to our Harvest Host location at a drive-in movie theater! It turned out that the movies weren’t a hit for most of our family (I watched the romantic flick), so Matt put a movie on in the camper for the rest of them to enjoy!
The next morning we left for the Okefenokee Swamp! We had read a book last year that was set in the Okefenokee Swamp, and we said we were going to visit it. And we did!
It’s one of the largest freshwater swamps in the world. And is a completely different landscape than we see on the regular.
We did a scenic drive through the swamp that took us to the Chesser Island Homestead. It was built in the mid-1800s and people lived there until the mid-1900s. After walking through a bit of the swamp (on a boardwalk), it was impressive that anyone lived out there.
Then we drove to a hike on a boardwalk with an overlook.
We saw a family (a mom and 4 babies) of raccoons foraging through the swamp and several bright green anoles. The overlook tower had tons of spiders and mud daubers flying around on it. And we found out the nubs of tree roots all over the swamp were cypress knees.
It’s interesting hiking in unfamiliar landscapes – we get uneasy about potentially coming across alligators and other animals – just like others get uneasy about coming across bears and mountain lions in Colorado. And even though it’s a real concern to be aware of, we know that we rarely see those animals in Colorado. Just like they’re probably not often seen by hikers in other places. Well alligators, we did see alligators, but they were pretty docile (not hungry?) when we saw them. Or not alive.
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