Bezabor: Rainbow River, Homosassa Springs, Crystal River (posted from the Wal-Mart parking lot in Homosassa Springs, FL)
Saturday, March 25-
Today it was once again too windy for kayaking in open water so we decided to bicycle the South Loop bicycle trail in the Crystal River Preserve State Park (very close to the Archeological State Park). The trail was a dirt-and-sand nine mile loop through dense Florida scrub--- you wouldn’t want to have to get off the path for it was all swamp and sawgrass and palm and palmetto and pine and a few big Spanish-moss-strewn live oaks. For the first few miles we stopped a couple of times at likely-looking swampy areas but didn’t see any wildlife or even a decent set of tracks or gator-trails. Then we got lucky; as we passed a small body of water on our right, there was a river otter—and he hadn’t seen us. We stopped and Labashi made a mad dash to unload the camera. In the meantime I got a good look at him (or her, come to think of it) chasing minnows, I think, within fifteen feet of us. But he spotted us and took a good look, then seemed to. dive under to continue chasing the minnows. But that was it, we never saw him again. He was in a pool of water that wasn’t 20 feet across and started right at our feet. There was no way out without us seeing him. But we never saw him again, even after waiting what seemed a long, long time for a breath-hold.
We re-mounted the bikes and took off again and hadn’t gone more than 50 yards or so when Labashi made a sound of surprise and came to a quick halt. I was ahead on my side of the two-track path and yelled back to see what it was and she said there was a snake. And there on her side of the two-track was a spectacular multi-color banded snake. It was black, yellow, and red. It had halted but as I approached (and Labashi raised her camera), it eased off the road but stopped in some shade. Labashi shot a few pictures but wasn’t very happy with the mottled background the snake was in, knowing it wouldn’t show up very well in the picture. We knew that there are both poisonous and non-poisonous variants of this snake so looked closely… the key was the color of the nose. This one had a black nose and the black was followed by a wonderfully-perfect yellow band, then a red one… that should be enough to identify it when we got back.
Continuing down the path, we came, at about Mile 3.5 to rough road. For the next mile and a half we couldn’t ride the bikes, we had to walk them. We almost turned around but decided to press on, hoping the rough road would end. For some reason the state had used a field rake towed behind a tractor to rake the path when it was somewhat wet and now the furrows were awful for riding a bicycle. Just before the five mile mark we came to a very pretty little pond and we parked our bikes to walk to the edge. As we neared, we heard two splashes and Labashi saw two baby alligators. We looked closely around us to be sure Mom wasn’t nearby and then moved around along the pond’s edge a few yards to get a better view. As we stood there, a large bird shadow passed over us, approaching from behind. We looked up to see what at first looked like an oddly-colored whitish tail on a large brown bird but in a moment he turned and there it was—a bald eagle. The eagle circled a time or two and we thought we might see him go after one of the baby alligators but he moved on. Now we turned our attention back to the alligators and noticed there were not two, but four of them. No, there are more of them coming from the other side and there are six of them--- no, there were eight of them—eight baby alligators, each about twenty inches long to the tip of their long tails and no mother in sight. So we named the lake “Eight Alligator Lake” and here-ever-after shall it be so called (at least by us!).
The trail improved after Mile 5 and we finally worked our way back around to our parked van near the visitor’s center. We went in to see the ranger and identify the snake. He said there’s a saying to tell the non-poisonous from the poisonous but he couldn’t remember the saying and we had probably seen a scarlet king snake. He was talking to someone but let us borrow his book to look it up. We looked it up but the scarlet king snake had the wrong color head--- its head was red. Then we turned the page and there was ‘our’ snake, it was a coral snake, the poisonous one! The ranger told us we really weren’t in any danger (and we hadn’t felt we were in any danger according to the snake’s body language). The coral snake is not a pit viper so it does not have fangs. It has teeth and must chew to pass the poison. And the coral snake is not, as we saw, a mean-tempered snake—it will get out of your way if at all possible. So seeing the coral snake was a great privilege for us. And when we showed the picture of the coral snake to the ranger , it jogged his memory and he said, "Oh, yeah, 'black before yellow will kill a good fellow'." Very cool!
After our adventurous bike ride we drove over to a local park and relaxed and read, figuring out where to go next. Then we drove to the local Chili’s and ordered fajitas to go and took them back to the Homosassa Springs Wal-Mart parking lot to enjoy.
Friday, March 24-
Today was a recovery day from yesterday. We drove from Rainbow River (at Dunnellon) to Crystal River and visited the Crystal River Archeological State Park. We learned about the native American culture that lived in the area from 500 BC to 900 AD and about their ceremonial and burial mounds and village along the Crystal River. On the way into town we had stopped at a kayak shop (Aardvaark’s Florida Kayaks) and they were kind enough to give us a good map of the area showing launch ramps and local parks. It was too windy to kayak this afternoon so we drove around checking out the launch ramps which gave us quite a tour of the area. Late in the day we stopped at the Yulee Sugar Mill Ruins Historical State Park for a brief look around. We spent the night at the Homosassa Springs Wal-Mart which was very noisy. The parking area where RVers are supposed to park is right beside a fruit stand which uses a refrigerated trailer for storage and the reefer unit was very loud. We were also entertained until the wee hours by the Floridiots-in-training, dozens of local guys with their muffler-less pickups and extra-loud rice-burners and boom-boxes zooming through the parking lot and gathering within a few car-lengths of us. It’s also amazing to me how many vehicles need to stop in the parking lot of the closed-for-the-night Wal-Mart and gun the engine a few times at three or four in the morning. Given it was a Friday night I figured it was going to be noisy so I thought I’d try a trick I read about somewhere for noisy conditions. I had a small sports radio with earbuds and tuned between stations to provide a white-noise cover for all the racket. That worked somewhat but the earbuds allowed in too much of the racket so I reverted to soft ear plugs and that worked better. Labashi says the earplugs work fine for her and she seems able to get a good night’s sleep even when we are being entertained by the locals.
Thursday, March 23-
It’s been a busy day today. Our night was a very comfortable 55 degrees and today dawned cloudy. We offloaded the kayaks at the campground put-in and paddled upriver for about an hour to the state park. The river was spectacular in this area— ultra-clear, some sandy bottom, some grassy areas, lots of fish, turtles, and cormorants to be seen. The turtles were comical. We would see their heads sticking out of the water as we approached and then they’d take a panic dive. The water was so clear we could easily follow their movements. The current appeared pretty strong and I thought it might be a struggle to paddle against the current but it was fine— it was even possible to rest a little and still maintain some forward momentum.
We were surprised to see the headsprings is now in the state park and in fact has a swimming area roped off. In the eighties we had taken a scuba diving trip up the Rainbow River with a dive shop out of Crystal River. We boarded a pontoon boat with our dive gear and were taken upstream a few miles to the headsprings. There we rolled in and were surprised to have 300-plus foot visibility. We could see the whole way across the spring and were mesmerized by the ultra-white bubbling sands on the bottom. Back then our group was all alone at the headspring and it was wilderness area. Today, it’s a state park--- a very nice state park but it’s not the same. The west bank of the river is now lined with vacation homes but the east bank is still pristine. And it was on the pristine eastern bank that we had a highlight of the day. Labashi saw some beautiful flowers (which we later learned are ‘spider lillies’) and wanted to get in close to take pictures. As she nosed her kayak into the weeds, something moved in the bushes on the bank--- river otters! We’ve not seen otters in the wild since the late nineties when we saw a small group of them as we crossed a bridge in British Columbia. But these five were up close. They moved upstream along the bank, ducking in and out of the weeds, then they started out into the river. They thought better of it, though, and headed back, right towards us. In attempting to slow them down a little and give Labashi more time to get the camera ready, I got a little too close and two of them snorted air at me (a little puff through their nostrils) when they surfaced a few feet in front of my kayak. It wasn’t a very forceful gesture but it did make me realize I might be stressing them unnecessarily so I backed off. Hopefully Labashi’s pictures will come out.
We got back to the put-in after about two hours of paddling, much harder upstream than down, of course. We took a lunch break and then headed downstream for another half-hour and then back up to our starting point in about 45 minutes.
We then did our chores, taking care of the porta-potty, getting our showers, getting ice, etc. before heading to the other part of the park. We were staying at the campground which is about seven miles away from the day-use park. On the day-use side, we visited the headsprings by foot this time, and took some very nice paved trails to several waterfalls and the native-plants garden. Then we took a two-mile hike on the nature trail. We enjoyed the remote feeling of the nature trail but the only animal we saw was an armadillo. Unfortunately, we spooked him before we could get a picture.
By that time is was supper time so we went to Dunnellon and got take-out barbeque at a very crowded little place called “Skeets’ Bar-B-Q” and took it back to the Wal-mart parking lot and had a feast of pulled-pork and wine-in-a-box (the good stuff!).
Once again we ran into something new at the Wal-Mart. This time it was the sprinkler system coming on at midnight to water the grass and spraying loudly against the back of the van. We looked out and noticed an area where the sprinkler system was not spraying onto the parking lot and moved Mocha Joe over there.
Wednesday, March 22-
We reluctantly said goodbye to Mark and Sue last night and took off this morning after a restful sleep in the driveway (in Mocha Joe, that is!). We went to West Marine looking for a replacement cooler but they didn’t have any with the features we wanted. We also went back to Mazzaro’s Italian Market to get some of their good bread and a bit of gelato. Then we went to Haslam’s Book Store hoping to find some of the titles we have learned about from our new acquaintances of the last few weeks as well as some recommendations Sue made to Labashi… but, alas, no luck. Those visits got us a late start out of town and then we decided to avoid the interstate and just take US19 north toward Crystal River. Along the way we stopped at a county park in New Port Ritchey for lunch and a walk on their nature trail. By the time we got to Crystal River it was getting late in the day so we decided to press on to Rainbow River State Park and hit Crystal River later. We got in to Rainbow River around 1630 and were given a nice site near the river. We took a walk to the far end of the park and got back just before dark. After supper we took another walk around the campground and picked up a local newspaper to see what’s going on in the world and headed back to the van for the night.
Saturday, March 25-
Today it was once again too windy for kayaking in open water so we decided to bicycle the South Loop bicycle trail in the Crystal River Preserve State Park (very close to the Archeological State Park). The trail was a dirt-and-sand nine mile loop through dense Florida scrub--- you wouldn’t want to have to get off the path for it was all swamp and sawgrass and palm and palmetto and pine and a few big Spanish-moss-strewn live oaks. For the first few miles we stopped a couple of times at likely-looking swampy areas but didn’t see any wildlife or even a decent set of tracks or gator-trails. Then we got lucky; as we passed a small body of water on our right, there was a river otter—and he hadn’t seen us. We stopped and Labashi made a mad dash to unload the camera. In the meantime I got a good look at him (or her, come to think of it) chasing minnows, I think, within fifteen feet of us. But he spotted us and took a good look, then seemed to. dive under to continue chasing the minnows. But that was it, we never saw him again. He was in a pool of water that wasn’t 20 feet across and started right at our feet. There was no way out without us seeing him. But we never saw him again, even after waiting what seemed a long, long time for a breath-hold.
We re-mounted the bikes and took off again and hadn’t gone more than 50 yards or so when Labashi made a sound of surprise and came to a quick halt. I was ahead on my side of the two-track path and yelled back to see what it was and she said there was a snake. And there on her side of the two-track was a spectacular multi-color banded snake. It was black, yellow, and red. It had halted but as I approached (and Labashi raised her camera), it eased off the road but stopped in some shade. Labashi shot a few pictures but wasn’t very happy with the mottled background the snake was in, knowing it wouldn’t show up very well in the picture. We knew that there are both poisonous and non-poisonous variants of this snake so looked closely… the key was the color of the nose. This one had a black nose and the black was followed by a wonderfully-perfect yellow band, then a red one… that should be enough to identify it when we got back.
Continuing down the path, we came, at about Mile 3.5 to rough road. For the next mile and a half we couldn’t ride the bikes, we had to walk them. We almost turned around but decided to press on, hoping the rough road would end. For some reason the state had used a field rake towed behind a tractor to rake the path when it was somewhat wet and now the furrows were awful for riding a bicycle. Just before the five mile mark we came to a very pretty little pond and we parked our bikes to walk to the edge. As we neared, we heard two splashes and Labashi saw two baby alligators. We looked closely around us to be sure Mom wasn’t nearby and then moved around along the pond’s edge a few yards to get a better view. As we stood there, a large bird shadow passed over us, approaching from behind. We looked up to see what at first looked like an oddly-colored whitish tail on a large brown bird but in a moment he turned and there it was—a bald eagle. The eagle circled a time or two and we thought we might see him go after one of the baby alligators but he moved on. Now we turned our attention back to the alligators and noticed there were not two, but four of them. No, there are more of them coming from the other side and there are six of them--- no, there were eight of them—eight baby alligators, each about twenty inches long to the tip of their long tails and no mother in sight. So we named the lake “Eight Alligator Lake” and here-ever-after shall it be so called (at least by us!).
The trail improved after Mile 5 and we finally worked our way back around to our parked van near the visitor’s center. We went in to see the ranger and identify the snake. He said there’s a saying to tell the non-poisonous from the poisonous but he couldn’t remember the saying and we had probably seen a scarlet king snake. He was talking to someone but let us borrow his book to look it up. We looked it up but the scarlet king snake had the wrong color head--- its head was red. Then we turned the page and there was ‘our’ snake, it was a coral snake, the poisonous one! The ranger told us we really weren’t in any danger (and we hadn’t felt we were in any danger according to the snake’s body language). The coral snake is not a pit viper so it does not have fangs. It has teeth and must chew to pass the poison. And the coral snake is not, as we saw, a mean-tempered snake—it will get out of your way if at all possible. So seeing the coral snake was a great privilege for us. And when we showed the picture of the coral snake to the ranger , it jogged his memory and he said, "Oh, yeah, 'black before yellow will kill a good fellow'." Very cool!
After our adventurous bike ride we drove over to a local park and relaxed and read, figuring out where to go next. Then we drove to the local Chili’s and ordered fajitas to go and took them back to the Homosassa Springs Wal-Mart parking lot to enjoy.
Friday, March 24-
Today was a recovery day from yesterday. We drove from Rainbow River (at Dunnellon) to Crystal River and visited the Crystal River Archeological State Park. We learned about the native American culture that lived in the area from 500 BC to 900 AD and about their ceremonial and burial mounds and village along the Crystal River. On the way into town we had stopped at a kayak shop (Aardvaark’s Florida Kayaks) and they were kind enough to give us a good map of the area showing launch ramps and local parks. It was too windy to kayak this afternoon so we drove around checking out the launch ramps which gave us quite a tour of the area. Late in the day we stopped at the Yulee Sugar Mill Ruins Historical State Park for a brief look around. We spent the night at the Homosassa Springs Wal-Mart which was very noisy. The parking area where RVers are supposed to park is right beside a fruit stand which uses a refrigerated trailer for storage and the reefer unit was very loud. We were also entertained until the wee hours by the Floridiots-in-training, dozens of local guys with their muffler-less pickups and extra-loud rice-burners and boom-boxes zooming through the parking lot and gathering within a few car-lengths of us. It’s also amazing to me how many vehicles need to stop in the parking lot of the closed-for-the-night Wal-Mart and gun the engine a few times at three or four in the morning. Given it was a Friday night I figured it was going to be noisy so I thought I’d try a trick I read about somewhere for noisy conditions. I had a small sports radio with earbuds and tuned between stations to provide a white-noise cover for all the racket. That worked somewhat but the earbuds allowed in too much of the racket so I reverted to soft ear plugs and that worked better. Labashi says the earplugs work fine for her and she seems able to get a good night’s sleep even when we are being entertained by the locals.
Thursday, March 23-
It’s been a busy day today. Our night was a very comfortable 55 degrees and today dawned cloudy. We offloaded the kayaks at the campground put-in and paddled upriver for about an hour to the state park. The river was spectacular in this area— ultra-clear, some sandy bottom, some grassy areas, lots of fish, turtles, and cormorants to be seen. The turtles were comical. We would see their heads sticking out of the water as we approached and then they’d take a panic dive. The water was so clear we could easily follow their movements. The current appeared pretty strong and I thought it might be a struggle to paddle against the current but it was fine— it was even possible to rest a little and still maintain some forward momentum.
We were surprised to see the headsprings is now in the state park and in fact has a swimming area roped off. In the eighties we had taken a scuba diving trip up the Rainbow River with a dive shop out of Crystal River. We boarded a pontoon boat with our dive gear and were taken upstream a few miles to the headsprings. There we rolled in and were surprised to have 300-plus foot visibility. We could see the whole way across the spring and were mesmerized by the ultra-white bubbling sands on the bottom. Back then our group was all alone at the headspring and it was wilderness area. Today, it’s a state park--- a very nice state park but it’s not the same. The west bank of the river is now lined with vacation homes but the east bank is still pristine. And it was on the pristine eastern bank that we had a highlight of the day. Labashi saw some beautiful flowers (which we later learned are ‘spider lillies’) and wanted to get in close to take pictures. As she nosed her kayak into the weeds, something moved in the bushes on the bank--- river otters! We’ve not seen otters in the wild since the late nineties when we saw a small group of them as we crossed a bridge in British Columbia. But these five were up close. They moved upstream along the bank, ducking in and out of the weeds, then they started out into the river. They thought better of it, though, and headed back, right towards us. In attempting to slow them down a little and give Labashi more time to get the camera ready, I got a little too close and two of them snorted air at me (a little puff through their nostrils) when they surfaced a few feet in front of my kayak. It wasn’t a very forceful gesture but it did make me realize I might be stressing them unnecessarily so I backed off. Hopefully Labashi’s pictures will come out.
We got back to the put-in after about two hours of paddling, much harder upstream than down, of course. We took a lunch break and then headed downstream for another half-hour and then back up to our starting point in about 45 minutes.
We then did our chores, taking care of the porta-potty, getting our showers, getting ice, etc. before heading to the other part of the park. We were staying at the campground which is about seven miles away from the day-use park. On the day-use side, we visited the headsprings by foot this time, and took some very nice paved trails to several waterfalls and the native-plants garden. Then we took a two-mile hike on the nature trail. We enjoyed the remote feeling of the nature trail but the only animal we saw was an armadillo. Unfortunately, we spooked him before we could get a picture.
By that time is was supper time so we went to Dunnellon and got take-out barbeque at a very crowded little place called “Skeets’ Bar-B-Q” and took it back to the Wal-mart parking lot and had a feast of pulled-pork and wine-in-a-box (the good stuff!).
Once again we ran into something new at the Wal-Mart. This time it was the sprinkler system coming on at midnight to water the grass and spraying loudly against the back of the van. We looked out and noticed an area where the sprinkler system was not spraying onto the parking lot and moved Mocha Joe over there.
Wednesday, March 22-
We reluctantly said goodbye to Mark and Sue last night and took off this morning after a restful sleep in the driveway (in Mocha Joe, that is!). We went to West Marine looking for a replacement cooler but they didn’t have any with the features we wanted. We also went back to Mazzaro’s Italian Market to get some of their good bread and a bit of gelato. Then we went to Haslam’s Book Store hoping to find some of the titles we have learned about from our new acquaintances of the last few weeks as well as some recommendations Sue made to Labashi… but, alas, no luck. Those visits got us a late start out of town and then we decided to avoid the interstate and just take US19 north toward Crystal River. Along the way we stopped at a county park in New Port Ritchey for lunch and a walk on their nature trail. By the time we got to Crystal River it was getting late in the day so we decided to press on to Rainbow River State Park and hit Crystal River later. We got in to Rainbow River around 1630 and were given a nice site near the river. We took a walk to the far end of the park and got back just before dark. After supper we took another walk around the campground and picked up a local newspaper to see what’s going on in the world and headed back to the van for the night.
posted by Bezabor&Labashi | 21:11
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