May 30, 2010 – Day Twenty-three

We’re going to hobnob with manatees today.

The Homosassa Springs Wildlife State Park is one of the highest rated state parks in the nation, and after having visited it, I’m going to have to agree.

First off, the price was very reasonable, less than $25 for both Marianne and I. Next they have a large variety of animals native to this part of Florida and one can get close up and personal to most of them.

This park was originally a private animal preserve complete with lions, tigers, bears, and hippopotamuses; at one time it was part of the Ivan Tors Animal Actors, where their animals were housed when they weren’t appearing on TV or film. One of their most famous stars was the stand-in bear on the TV series Gentle Ben. But the State of Florida bought the park about 25 years ago, and now one of its main purposes is the rehabilitation of sick and injured manatees.

Because the State bought the park, they decided all the non-native animals had to go. So out went the lions, tigers, and bears. But when they got to the last very huge, hippopotamus named Lucifer, or Lu for short, the area residents begged to allow him to stay. No, was the official response, since a hippo is not native to Florida. The residents appealed all the way up to the governor, who used his powers to make Lu an honorary citizen of Florida. Lu celebrated his 50^th birthday earlier this year, probably one of the oldest hippos on record.

 

And in the pre-state days, the alligators used to come leaping out of the water to grab a chicken carcass on a stick, one of the inspirations for chicken-nuggets-on-a-stick. That wasn’t a proper behavior for a proper resident of the State of Florida, so these freak shows are now relegated solely to the manatees, but they really don’t jump very high, heck they don’t even jump at all. So instead, the State throws hundreds of pounds of lettuce into the manatee area, and they just swim underneath it and grab a bunch. Visitors can view this proper behavior from above and under the water.

Unlike the alligators we saw at Wakulla Springs, which were puny, these guys (and probably gals, too), were very large. They must still be sneaking their chicken-nuggets-on-a-stick from sympathetic trainers held over from the previous eras.

They had a large variety of snakes, all different kinds of birds, including a pair of bald eagles, and all sorts of really big birds like herons and flamingoes.  But the star attractions here are the manatees. In the wild large manatees weigh 1800 pounds, but here their big girl is 3100 pounds – that’s a lot of lettuce!

Later that afternoon it was time to was our clothes again, as our clothes spent 30 minutes in the washers, we took a quick trip to the grocery store to pick up more supplies. I find that we’re getting more supplies about every other day or so. And since it’s so darn Africa hot down here, always above 90°, we’re going through our favorite beverage, Coke Zero, like it’s water – which it is, just flavored sparkling water with a host of chemicals to make it so appealing to our palates.

When we got back to the RV park laundry facility, the clouds were beginning to look ominous again. Within minutes it was raining again. Our record is now perfect: every day we’ve been in Florida, it’s rained. That should make California jealous.

Marianne and I now have a new pastime: dueling cameras, where we try to out-photograph each other. I’ll try to shoot something at an angle she doesn’t see, and she does the same. It’s more fun if we aren’t following in each other’s footsteps. When we get to some place where we can take an intermission, we show each other the images we’ve captured on the small screens of our digital cameras, teasing each other before we get back to the trailer and edit our trophies. I don’t know who’s currently winning, but we’re having a great time.

Marianne is uploading her photos to Google for all to see, but I’ll probably hold off until I have a complete travelogue or maybe not, if Marianne gets too many ooh’s and ahh’s for her shots.