This year has been going by so fast I didn’t realize I hadn’t made a blog post yet! I honestly didn’t realize it had been so long and it kind of caught me off guard yesterday.
Since I hadn’t made a blog post all year, I decided to post about Homosassa Springs Wildlife State Park first because right now the weather is absolutely perfect to enjoy a day there. The park is located in Homosassa, Florida which is just a short drive from Crystal River.
Homosassa Springs Zoo is also home to the world’s oldest hippopotamus in captivity! His name is Lu and he was born at the San Diego Zoo in 1960. He has also been in a couple of movies. Unfortunately, Lu wasn’t in the most photogenic of moods the day we went and I was unable to get a decent photo of him. We were warned about his “splash zone” when arriving at the park so we must have caught him on an off day. That’s okay Lu, we all have them.
There were so many different animals and birds here, it’s hard to choose a favorite. The manatees weren’t showing themselves on the day we went because it was just a little too hot for them, but we have seen manatees before so I wasn’t broken hearted about it. If I absolutely had to pick it would probably be the one eyed otter that was bravely swimming in the same area as a gigantic alligator and didn’t seem to have a care in the world. If only I were that brave.
There are a couple of different places inside the park to get food, but we also saw a couple of people eating a picnic lunch so one would assume bringing your own food would be all right as well. There are plenty of restrooms also. Some places you have to hunt for a bathroom but not here.
One thing that I do really want to stress is to please drink plenty of water! It wasn’t even 90 degrees the day we went and we saw someone have heat exhaustion and an ambulance had to be called. This is Florida. It’s okay to take things slow and drink more water. In fact, it’s necessary in many instances.
The underwater observatory was the thing I was looking forward to the most, and I have to admit it was a bit underwhelming with no manatees in the springs that day. Still a cool experience to be under the water. I will add that the observatory is probably not the place for a claustrophobic.
All in all though, 10 out of 10. The fees to get in the park are very reasonable at only $13 per adult and $5 for kids 6-12. Kids 5 and under are free. It’s also only an additional $3 a person to ride the boat ferry over and I highly recommend shelling out the extra dough for it because it really was a neat experience and you get to learn a lot about the park. The boat also goes VERY slow and is not scary at all.
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