Blue Springs Park

Yesterday Kevin's brother Steven, his wife Janice and their sons Stevie and Shane arrived from Pennsylvania for a short visit during Spring break.  We had a chance to visit for a few hours then, but  today planned an outing to a park near here we'd been wanting to visit but haven't had a chance.

After Steven called the park and found out there were still Manatee there we headed over to Blue Springs park.  It's the winter hangout for a lot of Manatee because of the warm water that comes from the hot springs that feed into this watery inlet off the St. John River.  When we arrived at the parks gate the sign read there were 121 manatee there today.

Walking along the hiking trail

They have a wonderful hiking trail that runs the length of the inlet.  I was amazed at how clear the water was. You could see the Florida Gar fish in there, and then when we spotted the manatee it was really something to see them so clearly.  There were large mouth bass closer to the St John end of the springs and Tilapia as well.  We saw a couple large alligators sunning themselves on the other side of the springs, though my pictures of these didn't turn out that great.

The grey shapes in the water are all manatee

Better view of this group

Mother and baby manatee

This sign is classic!!

Florida gar fish

Large mouth bass

Tilapia "nesting".

Steven at dock at the mouth of the St John River and the Blue Springs inlet

There is an old house that was owned by the Thursby family.  They bought 300 acres in 1856 for $400.00 and eventually built the house and a boat landing used by boats that stopped there as they travelled on the St. John river.  It was a really pretty location and was probably incredible in it's day to live in.

Thursby House

The crew walking toward entrance

Kitchen, love this stove!!

Cameron and Janice by entrance on front porch

The girls enjoying the rockers out front

Steven taking a break in one of the rockers

Stevie and Shane

Kevin didn't make it today with us.  He was home since the contractor who is working to replace our not so functional screen porch with an enclosed sunroom arrived today to do the tear down and initial installations of support posts and basic structure.  They will order the windows and complete in a little over a week once the windows arrive.  The change will make for a really functional space and a much safer one for kids and animals as we'll have doors and windows to seperate the space from the pool area.  I'll post pictures of this in a later post.

Take care.

Lynda