Silver Springs

Many years ago when we were on vacation, my family used to frequently visit Silver Springs in Ocala Florida.  (Above, sitting at the entrance to Silver Springs in 1982, are my brother Jason, my dad, and my grandmother and uncle who both passed away this year.)  So it was a treat for me to visit Silver Springs again while we were in Florida this past week...

Silver Springs is no longer a theme attraction like it once was.  It has recently become a state park, and Tim and I - who love a good state park - think it has great potential for that!  Of course, the reason Silver Springs is world famous is because of its glass-bottom boats that have toured the silver river for 70 years.  Our captain, seen in the background of the picture below, has been driving these glass-bottom boats for 57 years!

  The water in the Silver River was SO CLEAR!  You could see to it all the way to the bottom.  The black hole in the picture below was an 80' cavern.

Since Florida was being settled as early as the 1500's, there are all kinds of cool artifacts in the Silver River.  In the videos below you can see the remains of an Indian canoe and a Spanish boat that are hundreds of years old.  Amazing!

Unfortunately, the fish didn't show-up very well in my videos.  

But there were all kinds of them down there.

Silver Springs also has many pop culture ties.  Because the water is so clear, 20 movies and countless tv shows have been filmed in Silver Springs, including The Creature from the Black Lagoon, Rebel Without A Cause, Distant Drums with Gary Cooper, and numerous James Bond films such as Moon Raker and Never Say Never Again (in which statues still remain from its filming in 1983, seen below).  Cool!

The whole time we were at Silver Springs, there was a misty fog across the water.  This mist is common due to the constant 75 degree temperature of the warm water hitting the cool air.  The reason the water stays a constant temperature is because it is fed by an underground spring.  On misty days like this, we could see why Silver Springs made a great backdrop as a "Black Lagoon." 

 But the fog didn't scare-away the many kayakers we saw.

Once we got off the boats, we headed for the hikes.

We had hoped to catch a glimpse of an alligator while we hiked, but we found none.  

What we DID find, however, was much more surprising!

Below is a mama monkey with her baby.  How sweet!    

Although I have no recollection of them, my dad tells me that the wild  monkeys at Silver Springs have been there a long time - and that I saw them when I was a little girl.  Tim and I did a little research and discovered two possible origins of the monkeys: some folklore says that they escaped while one of the many movies at Silver Springs was being filmed; another legend is that they were placed there strategically by Silver Springs decades ago when they had a "jungle cruise" that went down the river to make it look more authentic.  What you have to understand is that Silver Springs is in no way enclosed:  it opens-up to the other wild areas of central Florida. So it's astounding that the monkeys have stayed in that area all those years.

But the monkeys were only ONE of our big surprises.  Perhaps the greatest wild photos I have ever taken on any hike happened that day at Silver Springs.  We found a wild American Bald Eagle!

 At first we thought, "There's no way there are Bald Eagles here.  That must be some kind of hawk or something."  But once I zoomed-in on that pointed beak and those huge, orange claws, there was no mistaking that he was wet and might have been molting, but he was certainly our national bird.  And after looking into it we found that Bald Eagles are frequently spotted in the Silver Springs area.  He stood there patiently while I went through shot after shot trying to get the perfect one through the fog.  What a blessing and a thrill for our family that day!
Thank you, Lord!

Another couple on the trail had spotted and played with an armadillo, but we were never able to find him.  We did, however, get to end our day with a sweet little deer who wasn't the least bit afraid of us. He probably would have come over and eaten out of our hands if we had anything to feed him!

Awesome end to an awesome vacation.