Crystal River and Homosassa, Florida

We both slept well last night and woke later than usual.  After eating a quick breakfast in our room at the Bayview Plaza Waterfront Resort we drove north toward Crystal River.  We drove through a lot of small towns and had stop and go traffic most of the way. When we arrived at the town of Homosassa we were ready for lunch and stopped at a roadside vendor cooking peanuts.  We bought a large cup of regular and Cajun flavored peanuts for our lunch.  We were both pleased with the nuts.  They were boiled in the shell and had a enough salt to be good and the Cajun had a little spice kick.  The peanuts had a flavor very much like a type of cooked dried beans which isn’t surprising since peanuts are actually a legume bean. 

We continued our drive a short distance to the Crystal River Preserve State Park.  There wasn’t much to see there but we chatted with a couple from Eastern Kentucky.  Not far from there was the Crystal River Archeological State Park that had a nice walk around some of the many burial and ceremonial mounds.  The temperatures were in the low 70s and there were periods of sprinkles of rain.  However, the rain was not hard enough to interfere with our walk.  The visitor center had displays of artifacts found in the area from cultures dating back as far as 500 BC.  It was an interesting stop and a nice way to get out and walk around.  A ranger we met there told us that the Homosassa Springs Wildlife Park was worth visiting so we headed that direction.

When we arrived at the Ellie Schiller Homosassa Springs Wildlife State Park we spent some time in the nice displays at the visitor center.  The large springs in the area pump millions of gallons of warm fresh water into streams that empty into the Gulf of Mexico.    When water in the gulf cools down in winter the manatees come up into the river for the warm springs.  To access the park from the visitor center, we rode in a boat with an informative volunteer guide. 

The center had nice displays of Florida wildlife somewhat like the French Creek Game Farm back home.  The displays included Florida panther, bobcat, river otters, bald eagles, several species of owls, flamingos, whooping cranes, black bears, alligators and of course manatees.  The displays were large enclosures giving the animals a lot of room.  We also enjoyed the many animals in the park that are just “freeloaders” that are wild birds and mammals coming to the park for an easy meal.  The wild animals have become very tame.  I just couldn’t resist coming up behind a squirrel and pulling a hair on its tail.  Needless to say the squirrel wasn’t very happy with me and turned around and gave me a dirty look.

We stayed at the park until 3:30 then took the short boat ride back to the visitor center and our rental car.  The people on the boat were mostly retired people from the Northeastern US.  Some of them were permanent Florida residents who moved south in retirement while others are snowbirds who are here for a few months in the winter.

We drove back down US 19 to St. Pete Beach and walked over to the beach to take some snapshots of the sunset on our last night here.  Several people were walking along the beach and enjoying the end of a beautiful day.  The temperature was still in the low 70s at sundown and the clouds made the sky look beautiful.

For dinner, we decided to go back to Crabby Bill’s since they have stone crab claws.  Stone crab claws can be harvested from mid October through mid May.  The harvest is a very sustainable practice since fishermen remove the edible claws from the crabs and return them to their habitat so the claws can be regenerated without killing the crabs.  While we enjoy crab claws, eating them is a lot of work and expense for not much meat.  Breaking the claws always spatters me so badly that I have to go straight to a shower after eating them.  Having crab claws once every few years in fine but we usually prefer other items at seafood restaurants.

After dinner we went to an interesting ice cream place.  They have a variety of hard scooped ice cream flavors available.  They also have soft serve yogurt, fat free, sugar free and regular ice cream.  You pick your size, cone or cup type and add-in flavor.  They portion out the vanilla base then mix in the flavoring and put it in the cone or cup.  Mary had hard scoop pumpkin ice cream that she reported was very good and had a lot of cinnamon and spice flavors.  I had soft serve yogurt with coffee crunch flavor.  Both of us enjoyed our desserts.

We returned to our room to prepare for our departure in the morning.  We have enjoyed our visit to the Tampa area and are already considering where we may want to come on our next Florida trip.  We are thinking that we may fly Allegiant to Sanford then drive over to St. Augustine or down to the Space Coast. 

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