We took a day trip on Thursday, May 20, to Blue Spring State Park, located in Orange City, Florida. Carolyn went with us and we left at 10:00 am. The drive took about an hour and 15 minutes or so and we arrived at our first destination, Dustin's BBQ in Orange City just in time for lunch. We decided to eat first on this trip so that we could walk off the calories afterward.
The barbeque was not the best I've had, in fact, wasn't too good. However, the salad bar was stocked with most everything you could want and it was enough for a meal.
So, with full bellies, off we go to the park.
Blue Spring is the largest spring on the St. John's River. The park encompasses 2,600 acres and is just amazingly beautiful. The Timucuan Indians lived on this land for hundreds of years. They settled by the river in part because of the abundance of a type of snail, which was a staple in their diet. When Louis Thursby brought his wife to live on this spot on the river in 1856, about all that was left of the Indian settlement was a mound of the snail shells the Indians left behind.
The house was constructed in 1872 and is still in it's original form. It was built on top of the shell mound in order to protect the house from flood waters of the St. John's.
Do we look anything like the women of that time period? Can't you just see us awaiting the riverboat to take us to the big city? Holy cow, can you imagine having to wear all those clothes in the middle of a Florida summer?
Anyway, Blue Spring became a bustling river depot and the Thursby's served as dockmasters and handled most everything that went on. Mrs. Thursby was the postmistress for the area and the family was apparently well-thought of in the community. They had nine children, three of whom died young. Two died in infancy and the oldest boy died from a rattlesnake bite. Medical care was only wishful thinking out in the "wilderness".
The house is within a stone's throw from the spring stream and closer to the river than to the spring. We walked along a boardwalk back toward the spring itself, stopping often to look at the water and the trees and taking in the beauty. We reached the halfway point where there is a gift shop and snackbar and the location of one of the "swimming holes". This is the spot where you "disembark" after a tube ride.
Blue Spring is a designated manatee refuge. The manatees are only present during November through March, while the water in the river is too cold. The spring is a constant 72 degrees and the manatees can winter near the spring and stay warm. There is no swimming during this time but the rest of the year you can swim, snorkel, scuba dive, and tube. Lifeguard or not, I was ready to get in that water!
About halfway down the boardwalk toward the spring is the spot where you get into the water to either float/swim back toward the getting-out spot or where you can swim up to the spring itself. The water is so crystal clear, not at all green as it looks in the pictures. It's impossible to gauge how deep the water is at any given place, and it ranges from probably waist high to way over your head. As you can see, the environs apart from the man-made objects are totally wild and native. The fish are so numerous as to make any fisherman drool, but NO FISHING ALLOWED!
A little farther is the spring. You can see the boil (where the water actually comes out of the ground). It's the dark area in the picture. We talked to a group of scuba divers who had been down into the cave. It's quite a ways and they said they had not been to the end. Cave diving is a dangerous sport and no one is allowed to go alone. No thanks, I'll stay up here. I DID, however, wish I could jump in and paddle around. I don't know why the pictures show up green and I wish you could see just how clear the water really is.
On the way back toward the river we just took our time and some pictures. I love this tree - it has seen a lot in its lifetime. Where can there be a more peaceful setting than this stream on its way to the St. John's?
This is a grass carp, a fish considered invasive but specially brought in to keep the river vegetation under control. Grass carp can grow up to four feet, weigh up to forty pounds, and eat three times its body weight each day.
I'm going to try and impress upon you just how many gars there were....literally hundreds!! From small to quite large, most of the time quite motionless in the water. I don't know what all these fish eat because there are just so many of them. I guess there are lots of bugs. We saw bass, bream, and talapia and lots of others that we didn't know.
The trees adapt when they need to in order to grow. This one was very determined!
Time for a little rest. It's not so much hot as humid and it's quite a walk from beginning to end.
Moving closer and closer to the river now. The water starts to darken a little with all the tannin from the vegetation. In only a few hundred feet the water goes from clear to dark green.
Finally, unfortunately, we reach the beautiful St. John's River. There are tour boat rides but we save that for another time. Here the water is just like any other river, black and seemingly bottomless, timeless and forever.
When school lets out for the summer, these parks become crowded and will sometimes close their gates until it clears out some. It's no fun to fight the crowds of grumpy grownups and screaming, crying tots, so this might be the last of these trips til next fall. I would like to come back when the manatees are here.
This is a must-see: beautiful Blue Spring!
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