Posted on
May 20, 2011 19:09
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Vaughn
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Vaughn Anderson
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Lisa and I travelled to Tallahassee last weekend with the intention of visiting a pug breeder. She had a litter of puppies that were spoken for, but it would be a good opportunity to see the puppies, the parents, and the personalities of the dogs. Since it also happened to be the weekend after our anniversary, we made it an anniversary getaway weekend leaving Saturday and returning Sunday. Our plans were to meet with the breeder on Sunday so we had to find something to do on Saturday. Taking the suggestion of a co-worker, we headed to Wakulla Springs anticipating riding in the glass bottomed boat.
Let’s do the math, if the last glass bottom boat cruises leaves at 2 PM, and it takes close to four hours to get there, then you need to add an hourish for lunch, that means we should leave here at 9 PM, right? That’s exactly what we though but we forgot Pensacola is in the Central time zone and Tallahassee is in the Eastern time zone, so we lost an hour driving. Disappointed, we figured we would do something else, but after we checked into our hotel room and looked at our options, we figured Wakulla Springs was still the best option. Thankfully, the thunderstorms in the area stayed away and it ended up being a great trip.
We didn’t know they also had river trips in a more conventional boat. Since I hadn’t read anything about the spring, I wondered why they offered the option to take a boat trip down a spring fed river. Within 30 seconds of leaving the dock, I saw why. An alligator was sunning itself about 20’ from us. I couldn’t take enough pictures. Then we saw another…and birds I’ve never seen before…and huge turtles. Now I understand why they do river trips. In all, we saw several alligators, several species of birds including an Osprey, a manatee, turtles lined up on a log sunning themselves and some of the clearest water I’ve ever seen.
After the boat trip, Lisa and I decided to go swimming at the source of the spring. Because it’s a spring, the water is a constant 68 degrees. Thankfully, the air temperature was in the low 80s so we were plenty warm before jumping in. And jump in we did. They had a platform at least 10’ high to jump from. that Lisa suggested we jump from instead of wading in the since we knew the water would be cold. After Jumping in, we put our goggles on and could see all the way to the bottom, which was 120’ down. I’ve never experienced water that clear. We finished the evening by watching nature from one of the docks. Next time we visit, we will stay in the lodge so we don’t have to leave at sundown.
Sunday morning we visited a pug breeder. We spent four hours there playing with the dogs. I think the pictures will speak for themselves. We love pugs. Hopefully we will be coming home with a couple from the next litter.
Here are some pictures:
Wakulla Springs
Pug puppies