Hitting the parks circuit for summer

Our plan is to go to a different park each week this summer. We'll see some new ones and visit some favorites :) .

The first week of June we tried to go to a botanical park called Eureka Springs, but they were closed for repairs! They didn't have anything about it on their site so that was annoying to make a drive out for nothing. We ended up at a park called Veteran's Memorial park that we saw on the way. It wasn't really a hiking park, but we had lunch at the picnic tables and walked around looking at the old war vehicles, missles, helicopters, and memorial sites.

The second week we went to a hiking trail called Alafia Scrub. We went right passed it because the entrance just blends into the rest of the woods on the side of the road. We had to park right out on the side of the road because there is no parking (??). I called the parks service to confirm and yep, just park on the grass after driving over the sidewalk (check for people walking first). :) It was a nice little hike. We had lunch overlooking the river on a little lookout spot.

Last week we didn't make it to a park. We just got lazy. Although we did get to the beach (LOVE the beach). So this week we have to hit two parks to average out 1 per week for the summer.

Today we went to Homosassa Springs park. That was really fun. I actually have some pics from there. We saw manatees, alligators, panthers & bobcats, tons of birds and a hippopotamus. That was a cute story because the park used to be privately owned, then the state took it over. When they did they decided to make it a Florida animals only park. They were going to get rid of the hippo, but all of the kids in the area petitioned to keep him, and the governer (Chiles at that time) made him an honorary Floridian, so they kept him. The best part was...the otters! I could watch them all day.

Barred Owl

Alligator


Manatee eating a carrot

The Hippo

Then this Saturday to get to our second park we are going ziplining at a park. I'm so excited! I'll post about it later this weekend and hopefully have some pics.