Manatee Mindfulness.

FINALLY........... summer!! Flip flops and tee shirt, sun and warmer weather. And I am in manatee land. Middle of the state north of Orlando is Blue Springs State Park. Had a fabulous two days there. Gorgeous sites, with a spanking clean heated bathroom area and HOT HOT showers. LUXURY!!!

Trying to recover from a broken water bottle in the back seat with a half gallon of water in it. I always seem to have a flood along the way. I almost didn't bring my ice scraper on this trip but  thought better of it and I have not only used it to scrape ice off my car, I squeegeed the rug with it. 

It was peaceful and quiet no one was burning campfires and I could smell the local flora and it was heaven. 

This is one of my pet peeves with paid campsites. The fires, to me, are air pollution. They burn my lungs and sting my eyes. They drown out the flowers and the fresh air. So last year I had to avoid state parks mostly. That's harder to do in Florida if you want to see beautiful things .At Blue Springs, I ran into my car and rolled my windows up at night. SO STUPID! I come to the beach or to a lovely forest and have to breath crappy smokey air.

A helicopter started to hover around for a LONG time not long after I arrived. Which was getting annoying. So I asked the campground host what was happening. "Oh, they're having a controlled burn in the next field." Really? 

I look up and see this...........HUGE yellow belching huge cloud of smoke. OMG. 

(That's the bathroom structure in the foreground.)

So we explored and found this wasteland about two blocks  from our campsite.

But miraculously, none of the smoke came our way.

So we took a stroll down to see the lovely manatee beings in the lagoon.

These are the most amazing creatures. They live in a state of permanent flotation tank consciousness. 

The water is emerald green and crystal clear. This little guy was lying on his back.

Beautiful park with lovely boardwalks. Everyone is very quiet and respectful.

I'm intrigued with the way the palms live and die together in beautiful grace.

I headed off to bed around 8:30 when I camp, mostly to get out of the smoke. Thought I felt an earthquake tremor while in the car.........but then discovered the next day it was a raccoon jumping on my cargo rack. He apparently wasn't too interested in liquid calcium, iodine and silica but he managed to drag it across the campsite into the woods. 

But he ripped the heck out of my reflectix covering for me cooler.

But all's well.

The next day we booked a two hour cruise on the St. John's River.

The tannin stains on the cypress trees show the water lever of hurricane Irma.

Gorgeous wild river. Breathtaking. Good naturalist on board. Nice friendly folks all around.

 Lots of gaters.

Too many birds to mention. So many. The start of the Audubon Society had it's roots in trying to protect one particular bird species here in Florida that all the women wanted in their hat feathers. So the power of two women brought that to an end AND created a force of nature themselves!

1896 Harriet Hemenway and Mina Hall organize a series of afternoon teas to convince Boston society ladies to eschew hats with bird feathers. These meetings culminate in the founding of the Massachusetts Audubon Society.

 Amazing multi-level cloud formations at the end of the day.

I feel more "in the groove" after our time here. When you are in an amazing place, there is kind of an enebriation that you feel......so I'm very grateful to the manatees and to Blue Springs and the folks who run the park.

Tomorrow I swim with manatees at Crystal River!!!

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