Wakulla Springs

For our final day in Florida, we decided to drive northeast of Carrabelle towards Tallahassee to a state park I had read about, Wakulla Springs. It was an old 1920's resort that sits on top of a large deep aquafer spring. The resort still has a working lodge and restaurant, along with large spanish moss trees and some interesting rhododendrons:

The big feature of the park are the boat tours you can take along the Wakulla river, and the glass-bottom boat tours you can take directly over the spring itself. We decided to take the latter tour and it was a blast. Before hitting the springs, I saw fish jumping out of the water, a heron drying it's wings, and even a large gator taking a mid-afternoon nap along the shore.

Pictures didn't do justice to the views out the glass-bottom boat of the springs. There were various kinds of catfish, garr, and trout swimming underneath us. Even a manitee had been spotted, but unfortunately, not during our cruise.

There's a ledge at the edge of the aquafer where water levels drop from about 14 feet to over 200 feet deep. The water can sometimes appear crystal clear (as it did for us), or can be cloudy and dark if there's been excessive rains and groundwater drainage. In 2007, they were only able to run the glass-bottom boats for 2 days the entire year because of this. So, we felt extremely lucky to see it! A great way to end our trip.
On Saturday, we began our journey back to Chicago leaving the the upper 70's Florida just as a storm was approaching. By the time we got to Nashville that night, a big snowstorm was hitting southern Tennessee and Alabama. We were lucky to leave when we did!