Tag: #USroadTrip

COPING WITH CORONA, PART 2 (LIFE THROUGH A LENS)

With Covid-19 positive cases cropping up here in Florida, combined with the CDC recommendations not to visit places with greater than fifty people, I am strolling down memory lane to visit Silver Springs State Park, which was extremely popular within Florida’s tourist industry, until the early 1970’s when some of the large theme parks opened in Orlando. This park was so popular that a tour boat operator released rhesus monkeys there in an effort to make a Tarzan-like attraction. Now, visitors can spot an occasional wild monkey roaming about the park. If you see a monkey, though, don’t get too close. Many are infected with herpes B virus, which can be transmitted to humans through contact with the monkeys if they bite. Sometimes the monkeys are aggressive, so it is better to stay away from them and live life through your lens with photographs.

Sign at Silver Springs State Park, describing the wild monkeys and advising you to stay away from them
Turquoise blue spring waters from ancient limestone formations

I spent the day, with my daughter, “Traveling Teen” hiking through the trails, enjoying the moments as they unfolded before our eyes……..

Temperature is 72 degrees Fahrenheit year round, but swimming is not permitted

Although swimming is not permitted at Silver Springs State Park, you can take a glass bottom boat ride for only $12.oo for a half hour. You can even see some statues from one of the underwater scenes from a James Bond movie filmed there.

Like Alice at the looking glass, you can see a whole new world through the glass bottom boat floor at Silver Springs

Many movies were filmed at Silver Springs:

The Seven Swans

Never Say Never Again

Thunderball

Legend

Moon Over Miami

The Yearling

Distant Drums

Underwater!

Creature From The Black Lagoon

Don’t Give Up The Ship

Blindfold

Tarzan And His Mate

Tarzan The Ape Man

Smokey And The Bandit, Part 3

Rebel Without A Cause

The Frogmen

SeaHunt (Series)

Spanish Moss hanging from trees everywhere

While coping with Covid-19, you can always take a road trip to Silver Springs to create a memory with someone you love as you get some fresh air. If you want to avoid a crowded boat, you can rent kayaks, stand up paddleboards, and canoes there, too.

Life is good; get out to enjoy it whenever you can. Silver Springs is located in Marion County, Florida, north central Florida, just east of Ocala. The blue waters and this park is “old Florida” at its best. Enjoy today; carpe diem……….

“The best way to explain it is to do it.” 

-Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

Alice: “How Long is Forever?”

White Rabbit: “Sometimes, just one second.”

-Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

https://www.floridastateparks.org/silversprings

A trip to soothe my soul……..

This week end, I traveled with my thirteen year old daughter in order to experience life together away from the noise of school, homework, daily life, etc…When I first read about the synchronous fireflies at Congaree National Park, I just knew we HAD to go. Evidently, these male fireflies that light up at the same time as other males in the woods to attract female attention as part of their mating habits is pretty rare. There are only a few places in the world to see these, and one of the lesser known places is Congaree National Park. We traveled by car for about 6 and a half hours to see these beautiful creatures along a small trail in the woods that is known as the “Redwoods of the East” because of the many tall trees there. While I was there, I was thinking of my  experience as a summer camp counselor as a teen at a camp in the woods that had a beautiful causeway road where we used to lie in the middle and just listen……there was that magical moment when you could see the stars and hear the bullfrogs calling that always took my breath away.  That moment of excitement combined somehow with peace and solitude at the same time.  A sense of wonder and excitement that there was a whole life happening around us at the very same moment in time, even though that moment felt somehow frozen in time for us.  I felt almost like that somehow with the fireflies, especially when I closed my eyes and could hear the wood pecker and the birds sing earlier in the same forest around twilight during our two and a half mile hike.  It was one of those moments that take your breath away all over again, even in my 50’s.  Life IS good. It has been said that it is “the little” things that make life rich and full. These fireflies is one of those very “little things” that at the same time is a once-in-a-lifetime experience.