Wekiwa Springs

Sunday we went to Wekiwa Springs, not to be confused with the nearby city Wekvia Springs or the Wekvia river which have similiar spelling. I have to say that I was really surprised about the hills in this area. Florida's highest point, Mount Britton,  is only 345 feet above sea level making Florida the flattest state. In Broward county the highest point is something like 25 feet so there are no hills down south unless you're talking about Mt. Trashmore. But driving through Seminole and Volusia county we actually drove up and down some pretty decent hills and you get nice views of the rivers, lakes, and bluffs.  Around this spring there are hills probably close to 100 feet tall so you can look out over the river and the spring and a lot of people setup their day camps on the hill above the spring. I know it sounds crazy talking about these little hills but for anyone that has lived in Florida it's a real shocker. Not a big deal if you grew up in California where you have mountains and hills everywhere. Where you can walk a mile and gain more elevation than you would if you crossed the entire state of Florida.

The weather was a little better here than the previous day at DeLeon Springs but still not as good as the nearly 90 degree weather at home. It took a few seconds to adjust to getting in the water but once we were in it was quite refreshing. Adri didn't seem to mind at all.

This park has a nature center with a baby alligator and other animals, 13 miles of trails, bike rentals, canoe rentals, camping etc, so there's enough stuff there to keep you busy for a couple days. There is also epic Redneck/Cholo watching in all these springs. It's almost like going to the local Walmart. Almost everyone at this spring had a tattoo and I wish I would have taken pictures and started a website "tattoos of the Florida springs". Some of the most epic include the guy with Elmo tattooed on his boob, the guy with angel wings on his back, and the girl with two lines with who knows what going across both of her huge thighs. There was also a girl with hoop earings big enough for me to put my leg through. Yes people watching is quite fun at this park.

The first thing Adri said when she saw the water was "go swimming at the beach". I had to teach her to say spring instead of beach. We had to wait a little while before getting in the water and it wasn't easy to control this kid once she saw the water. I was able to distract her though by having her chase a broad headed skink we found.

Once she finally got in the water she had a blast. As you can see I put on her life jacket and was throwing her, one of her favorite games. I taught her to say "throw the baby 1,2,3". One of her other favorite games is telling me "eyes 1,2,3" and then pushing my head under the water (picture below). When I do come up for air I tried to come up as fast as I can and throw her up in the air.. It makes her laugh everytime. After a good swim we took Adri out and let her warm up in the sun. I decided to take her for one last swim before we left so I could wash all the dirt off her. By this time she was so tired she just put her head down on me.

After swimming we decided to get food and I took Adri in the nature center. They have a small Florida black bear and Adri was kissing the glass. You can see by the size of this thing why Florida has never had a bear attack. These bears are tiny compared to the bears up north or back west.

I don't know which spring I liked better, DeLeon or Wekiwa. They both have a lot of activities to offer. I think my favorite though is still Blue Spring, just a few miles away from DeLeon Springs.

After a 3 hour drive home I went out back and found that Adri's butterflies had come out of their cocoons. We opened up the cage and let 8 of them go. I thought we recorded it but Natalie is still learning how to use the video camera so we found out later it didn't get recorded.

There were a lot of these Broad-headed Skinks in the park.