Jimmy started a custom to take Genora away to a state park or hiking for her birthday when they started dating. Thus far, they've been to Torreya State Park, Wakulla Springs and Stephen Foster State Park. Genora thought it only right to continue the custom and include Eli.
We headed out to Fanning Springs early Friday afternoon. Along the way we stopped at Satchel's Pizza in Gainesville
http://www.satchelspizza.com
Eli's heard so much about where Uncle John works
and about how amazed Jimmy is that Steve (Satchel) has been so successful with a pizza place in a business park in Gainesville. He LOVED his tour of Lightning Salvage, especially the wind chimes, and surrounding sites (like the green house).
We got to Fanning Springs later that afternoon and hiked about 1/3 mile from the cabin to the spring head. Along the way we saw several native trees and palms, buckeyes, butterweed and lots of birds and squirrels.
Eli saw his first manatee at the spring, well, kind of... he was asleep. The butterweed was in full bloom in the wetlands around the spring and it looked very pretty against the bright green of new growth on the cypress and other trees.
We headed back to the cabin and enjoyed the traditional chicken and dumplings with veg-all from the Dollar Store (dad will explain to Eli later why he treats mom so well). Eli got to lay in the middle of the living room floor on a pallet stark naked after a shower with Jimmy...he LOVES being naked! Jimmy and Genora had fun later that evening with a tick check. Ever find a seed tick (or any tick for that matter) on you?! It's frightening and will make you search frantically to make sure there are no more.
The next morning, we packed up and headed to Manatee Springs to check things out. The spring head there was much larger and the spring run out to the Suwannee was beautiful! We saw 6 manatees and some stained, dingy underwear on our way along the spring run.
Eli even got to ride a manatee... well, kind of:
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