Our wildlife cup runneth over - a leisurely boat trip on the Wakulla River

Last week we visited the Museum of Florida History and one of the tourists there with us urged us to visit Wakulla Springs before we left Tallahassee. So today, with the weather looking beautiful we headed out to Wakulla State Park.

About 16 miles south of Tallahassee we arrived there about five minutes before the next scheduled boat trip on the river. We literally purchased our tickets and walked aboard the small pontoon boat as it was preparing to leave.

Christy, our park ranger/boat captain slowly made her way down the first 1 1/2-miles of the Wakulla River. Wakulla Springs is one of the largest and deepest freshwater springs in the world. The limestone caverns carved out by the water from the spring reach depths of 100s of feet.

With special permission they allow experienced scuba divers to explore the caves, but our guide said it is only for the very skilled diver.

Millions of gallons of pristine fresh water flow from the spring every day. With its constant temperature of 68 degrees the river is also home to some faithful Manatees who now make the park a year round home.

Inside the park no hunting or fishing is allowed and the wildlife is plentiful and safe from human predators. We saw, in addition to Manatees, turtles and alligators, the following birds some in great quantity: Great Blue Heron; Great Egret; Merganser ducks; Green Heron; Little Blue Heron; Anhinga; Cormorants; Osprey; White Ibis; Coots; Moorhen; Vultures; and one Pileated Woodpecker (think Woody Woodpecker).

The park was the brainchild of Edward Ball, a 1920s industrialist and conservationist, who preserved the area for more than 40 years before it was turned over to the State of Florida for a park.

Mr. Ball did dredge part of the river to successfully entice Hollywood to come and shoot movies and parts of movies along the river. Scenes from at least two Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan movies and "The Creature from the Black Lagoon" were filmed on the part of the river dredged by Ball.

The alligator were so plentiful I stopped taking photos after awhile. You've seen one alligator, you've seen them all, that kind of thing.

But there was one 10-foot monster - they call him Joe Jr. after an 11-foot alligator killed by poachers that was called Joe - that I took lots of photos of.

Joan loves her birds and we saw plenty of them today. Cost of the boat ride is only $8 a person and entry to the park was another $6. A great value all the way around.

Our ranger and guide seemed to enjoy the trip as much as we did and the scheduled 55-minute tour actually lasted 1 hour and 20 minutes. The next boat passengers were waiting on the dock for their 2 p.m. trip when we arrived back.

Joan and I had a picnic lunch (a Dr. Seigal's cookie and a diet soft drink) and then we took a short nature walk along an improved trail.

The weather today was picture perfect and if you want to see more photos from today, scroll down below the ad and see a few more that I put up there.

More photos from Wakulla Springs

Joan on our nature walk.

Another Manatee with evidence on his tail of a boat encounter.

Me at the Wakulla Springs sign.

An Anhinga (male).
Some of the beautiful scenery on the river.
Joe Jr. - the largest alligator on the river.

Great Egret.
The Great Joan.

Osprey attending to its nest.

White Ibis.

A nice visit to the Tallahassee Museum

Sometimes you can tell from a website whether or not a particular attraction will be something of interest to us. We assumed from the description of the Tallahassee Museum (not the history one we saw last week) that this would be something we would enjoy.

The website didn't really do the place justice. We had a really enjoyable afternoon at the Museum - and not just because the temperatures rose into the mid-70s.

The "Museum" which was really kind of misnomer as half the exhibits were living animals, but whatever the name the three sections of the place had things we were interested in.

Bellevue, which is an 1800s Florida plantation that was moved to this site many years ago had some educational information on the life of slaves on the plantation both before and after the Civil War.

I was pleasantly surprised at the straight forward and honest look at slavery. There were written artifacts and recreations that helped me learn something even at my advanced age.

The one-room schoolhouse, which had been a school for African-American students up to and even after the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court decision that outlawed "separate, but equal" schools explained how Florida had written laws after the decision to try and keep the practice in place.

It wasn't until well into the 1960s that black children were integrated into Florida schools.

A church that was started by a former slave was also on the property with the interesting side note that the stain glass windows for the church were donated by a white church in 1937.

Joan especially appreciated the Florida animal exhibits which were nicely done in a wide-open setting with plenty of room for the animals. We really don't like seeing animals in cramped cages.
One exception to the Florida animal exhibits was a Coatimundi exhibit that included two female Coatis, a relative of the red panda, were on loan from a Florida zoo.

Always the bird lover, Joan especially enjoyed seeing the large birds of prey up close in the exhibit for those critters.

Bashful today were the river otters - never even caught a glimpse - and the white tail deer, which is no big deal because they live in our backyard in Michigan.

Didn't know Florida had black bears, but they had a pretty healthy one who was enjoying a nap out in the open.

We had the park pretty much to ourselves and spent nearly four hours there. The price was right too, only $9 each.

I liked the sign that warned people not to swim in places where there are alligators. If people are that dumb, let them swim, it will improve the gene pool eventually. Sorry but some things should be obvious.

With temperatures still up there we sat outside until dinner time reading. Joan made great bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwiches for dinner.

If you would like to see more photos of our visit, scroll down to the next entry (below the ad) and you will see more photos from today.

More photos from today's adventure at Tallahassee Museum

Really Joan, a goat?

This is not real.

Neither is this.

A Cypress Swamp

A Florida Panther.


A couple red foxes.

The National Symbol.

Joan meet turkey.

Bellevue - a Florida pre-Civil War plantation.



We never pass up a train exhibit.

Worship, hockey and a couple things to never, ever do

We had a pretty quiet day today, well quiet in the sense we didn’t wander very far. It was not so quiet in the trailer as I watched the Detroit Red Wings scratch out a hard fought win over the Boston Bruins this afternoon.

This is only the second game I have been able to watch since we left Michigan on Jan. 12 and the Wings have won both of them.

This morning we went to worship service at the All Saints Anglican Church almost next door to our campsite. This small work had about 50 people and played the more contemporary music that we are used to at our home church in Flint.

The priest had us introduce ourselves and everyone was very welcoming and nice to us. If we lived here this would likely be where we would go. If we’re in this area again, we’ll be back. I forgot to take a picture this morning so we came back this afternoon and I snapped a photo from the parking lot.

I’m going to pass along some advice about some things you should never do on the night before a Monday Valentine’s Day.

Never, ever go to Olive Garden after 5 p.m. on a Valentine’s celebration night. Everyone, and their brother, was at the Tallahassee Olive Garden and the wait was long. But we finally got a table and had a great waiter so it turned out OK.

If that wasn’t enough we stopped on the way back to the campsite to shop at Walmart. Everyone, and their brother, must have left the Olive Garden and headed to Walmart to do last minute Valentine’s Day shopping. It was crazy.

I’ve mentioned this before but the traffic in Tallahassee is terrible. It doesn’t seem to matter what time of day or evening there are always lines of traffic driving on US 27.

We have seen an unusual coupling of businesses along US 27 and took time to stop and take a photo tonight on the way home. No further comment is necessary from me on the sign.

Happy Valentine’s Day everyone.

Post script: Temperatures finally reached back into the 70s today, the first time in week we have been out of the high 50s and low 60s. A very welcome improvement. I also finished reading Book 6 of the Master and Commander series today.

Sidewalk sales and wine tasting on a bright sunny day

With temperatures finally flirting with the 60s here and the sun completely out we expanded our plans from going to a sidewalk sale in a nearby city to a trip to a nearby winery.

In the middle we had what can only be described as an OnStar adventure, one of the few errors we have experienced with that service.

First stop was to Havana, Florida, which is about 12 miles north of us on US 27, the same road our campground is on. Joan spotted a television ad for the 2-day sidewalk sales in the town and suggested we go check it out.

It is a cute little town, one of those one stoplight cities, that you see in rural areas. Much of the downtown is made up of antique stores and specialty shops and we enjoyed looking through all the stores.

Joan was very impressed with the layout of the stores and how attractive the antique wares were presented. For me, it was just shopping and that's not my favorite thing to do.

After a three hour stay we bought one small gift for one of our granddaughters and Joan picked up a couple doo-dads for herself. I just got a case of the glazed over too-much-shopping look.

Following that we punched up OnStar and asked them to give us directions to the Monticello Vineyard and Winery in Monticello, Florida. I had looked briefly at a map before we left and the directions sounded close to what I remembered from the map.

The Winery is also a certified organic farm and so no chemicals or additives are used in the processing of the wine.

Once off I-10, the main east-west freeway through the Panhandle I immediately began to get nervous that we were headed in the wrong direction for the winery. But, OnStar has rarely let us down so I pressed on. That is until they told us we had reached our destination and we were in the middle of nowhere.

So I called them up again and after a few minutes the OnStar advisor apologized and said the previous advisor had sent us to Waukeenah Road, instead of Waukeenah Highway, which as it turned out was about 15-mile error.

Armed with new directions we made our way to the winery and arrived at 3:35 p.m. The vintner met us in the driveway and promptly discovered we were not the people she had been expecting. In fact, we didn't call ahead just took a chance someone would be there. So she started the tour with us and continued on as the others arrived.

I noticed a tall good-looking young man holding his 6-month old daughter at the tasting. He was wearing a U.S. Marines hat with the name "Okinawa" on it. So I asked him if he had been stationed there and he had.

My ship once made a brief stop on the island of Okinawa so we struck up a conversation and I learned he was a Marine Corps pilot, an officer, and was currently a flight instructor at the Naval Air Station in Pensacola, which is our destination next week.

We swapped war stories and I thanked him for his service. Later we gave the couple a fresh bottle of water which they needed to dilute the baby's formula. He offered to pay for the bottle and I told him there was no way he was going to pay for that water. (For my father: He formerly flew the C-130)

We learned a lot about the type of grape that grows in Florida and the kind of wine that can be made from it.

Monticello Vineyard and Winery is one of only 15 wineries in Florida and we have now visited three of them, with three or four more on the itinerary in Pensacola next week.

Joan, as she always does, found a couple wines she couldn't live without and as is our custom we purchased an extra bottle for the Family Literacy Center auction.

After our winery visit we headed downtown to Monticello so I could take a picture of the beautiful, historic courthouse that is also the logo on the label of the Monticello wine.

Tonight we enjoyed Part II of our KFC dinner from last night.

Some bonus photos from today

In addition to the post below about today's tour of the Florida Capitol here are a few additional photos:

A memorial to fallen Florida law enforcement officers.The new Florida Capitol and entrance.

A reproduction of the flag that flew over the Capitol at the end of the Civil War.

A Park Avenue church.

A view from the 22nd floor of the new Capitol building. b.Joan all gussied up.

Civil War memorial. (Not me, the stone marker)

Me looking like Teddy Roosevelt or Dave Graham. You pick.