spring break

Apr

08

Cedar Key, Florida

I started Thursday off with a true vacation breakfast: S’mores Oatmeal. Yessss. With peanut butter and banana, of course.

There was a forecast for rain on Thursday, so instead of checking out another spring we headed to the little fishing village of Cedar Key.

We went to lunch at “The Pickled Pelican”. I chatted with a lady on the street and she recommended it, saying the food was fantastic. She told no lies.

I ordered a Caesar salad with grilled shrimp. I almost tried their house special, a heart of palm salad with dates, fruits, a whole bunch of other stuff and to top it off: Peanut butter and ice cream dressing. I decided to play it safe (and I guessed much healthier) by ordering the Caesar.

I tried some of my mom’s Grouper, which I had never had before. So delicious.

Christian claimed he “HATED SEAFOOD” and ordered a burger. After he actually tried some of our seafood he recalled his former opinion. A gal I talked to in a store we went to told us about this Osprey nest you could go see.

Baby crabs!!

The rain ended up holding off until late that night, so we got to go swimming one last time at “our spring” after we came back to the cabin. Friday morning we got up at 4:15 and headed for home. We arrived yesterday afternoon to chilly Michigan. I’m ready to go back south. For good.

Apr

06

Manatee, Fanning, and Hart Springs

Blog Posts / Personal / she loves to travel / 1 comments

Tuesday morning we spent relaxing at our hotel on the beach, and I took a walk with my camera on the beach. After packing everything up, we were on the road to Fanning Springs by noon. We arrived a couple hours later to our state park cabin, which was GREAT. We stayed at Fanning Springs State Park, and loved the cabin there. It was nice and roomy, with a full kitchen, living/dining room, screened in porch and two bedrooms.

Our Cabin

Fanning Spring

Look at that clear, aqua-blue water! It’s about 15′ deep here.

They have a diving platform over the deepest spot.

After swimming in Fanning Spring, which was just a couple minutes’ walk from our cabin, we went about 15 minutes away to Manatee Spring, which is much deeper but about the same size. What great snorkeling! The water is crystal clear, and a refreshing 72° (22° C) degrees. I will update with some photos from the underwater camera when we get home, but I don’t have a card reader with me for that memory card :(

On Wednesday we visited Hart Spring (pictured above) to swim, and stopped at Otter Spring, but didn’t swim there. They are both much smaller, private springs that you have to pay to enter. ($12/car load) I wasn’t that impressed with Hart Spring after snorkeling the gorgeous Manatee and Fanning Springs. They were also doing some construction and the sprinklers were on, which didn’t add to the atmosphere. We talked to some people who were also swimming there, and they said the spring is drying up, and didn’t used to be this shallow. There was also a lot of alge that occupied area that could have been good for swimming.

While we were at Hart Spring, we did get to see three divers surface. It was pretty cool to see them come up! There is an underground cave in the deepest part of the spring-fed pool, which leads to an extensive cave system, they told us. You can see the cave snorkeling, the entrance is only about 11 feet under…. Kinda creepy looking down into the blackness if you ask me!

Otter Spring was really small, but would have been a better place to swim than Hart, I thought. It had a deeper, larger pool where the spring came out of the ground, and was surrounded by grass and live oaks.

There are lots more springs in this area, but the ones close to our cabin were “blacked out”, or flooded while we were there. There were a couple about an hour away from our cabin, but after all the driving we had already done we decided to stick around Fanning Spring and swim there instead of trekking around more. If you go here, don’t miss Fanning and Manatee Springs!

Read about the springs…

Another great resource, here. “Underwater Florida”

Fanning Spring’s State Park Website.

Manatee Springs

Apr

03

Saint Augustine, Florida

Blog Posts / Personal / she loves to travel / 0 comments

It’s been a glorious two days of sunshine and sand. We’ve been hanging out in Saint Augustine, Florida and have a condo on the beach :D We got here Sunday afternoon, we split up Monday walking around Historic Saint Augustine, shopping, and the beach. I have lots of “real” photos, but we are checking out this morning and going further south to the fresh water springs and instagram will have to suffice.

Jacksonville

Essential beach playlist. New favorite band: The Black Keys.

The beach in front of our condo.

Bottom left: Agatha Christie’s Mystery of the Blue Train
Bottom, Middle: Our Condo “Beacher’s Lodge”

Apr

01

Hocking Hills, Ohio. Conkle’s Hollow

Blog Posts / Personal / she loves to travel / 3 comments

Last Ohio post, promise! ;) Our final stop for the day was Conkel’s Hollow.

Dogwood Blossoms.

Loved these little daffodils!

We took the Rim Trail first, which brings you full circle back to the Gorge Trail.

We were so. high. up. This is looking out and away from the gorge.

Looking into the Gorge.

After the rim hike, we took the 1/2 miles trail into the gorge.

Oh my goodness. It was like something out of Lord of the Rings.

Pictures do not do it justice.

Read about Conkle’s Hollow Here.

Mar

31

Hocking Hills, Day 2. Ash Cave and Old Man’s Cave

Blog Posts / Personal / she loves to travel / 1 comments

After the long car ride and hikes the day before, we slept in and had a relaxing morning at the cabin. The cabin had a full kitchen, so we cooked up bacon and eggs for breakfast. After heading down to the ranger’s station to officially check in, we set out to hike #1, Ash Cave.

Mom, don’t look at this next photo.

La familia.

Next stop: Ash Cave Lookout Tower.

Excited brother #1.

Excited brother #2!

The view from up top.

Dad made it up….a few flights… then high-tailed it to solid ground at the bottom;)

After we got our feet back on solid ground (and my mom’s heart back in her chest), we drove to Cedar Falls.

After looking at the falls from down below, we climbed up to the mouth (?) of the falls.

Amazing. I was laying on my stomach holding my camera over the edge (it was on it’s last fraction of battery juice, I had forgotten the spare in the car, and I barely got these shots!)– you can’t tell the depth in the photos very well but we were up there!

The view from up top. The shots of the falls from the lower level were taken from down there.

We hiked back to the parking lot, then loaded into the van and drove to Old Man’s Cave. There is a loop you can take that covers multiple sites, check out the State Park website, but we still had to get over to Conkell’s Hollow.

Old Man’s caved in named for an old trapper who used to live in this area, and is said to be buried under a rock ledge here. You can read the whole story here.Check out that staircase! It lead to a long tunnel that was bored through the cliff. It was spectacular, and it seemed like around every corner there was something new and amazing to see.

The Upper Falls on the Old Man’s Cave trail loop.

Below are the Lower Falls on the Old Man’s Cave trail. Probably my favorite. But the Upper Falls were soooo pretty too.

I already have so much in this post, (39 pictures, eep!) I’m going to write a whole new one up on Conkle’s Hollow. You can check out information on the sites in this post in the links below….

Old Man’s Cave
Ash Cave
Map of the Area with tower! (listed as Ash Cave Lookout Tower along 374)