cross country ride Recovery Day at Wakulla Springs FL

parts of the painted ceiling in the lobby of the lodge.

The painter was from Germany, and all the scenes shown are related to Florida's history except for the very subtle European royal crests hiden along some of the side beams.

several of the small river waterways entering the spring pool were used as movie sets for some of the Tarzan movies,while the spring itself served as the setting for "the Creature from the Black Lagoon."

one of the bigger gators

a yellow neck slider on a cypress stump


the anhinga trying to dislodge the fish

a great white egret and her chick

There had been some agitation about a group jump off the diving platform at dawn in honor of Michelle, the guide who started us out on the trip. After the talent show last night, the dawn idea was firmly vetoed and a more acceptable 11:30 was chosen. Everybody slept in and had leisurely breakfasts while contemplating the days' possibilities.

My sister in law Susie and her husband Dale had offered to drive down from Tallahassee to take me out to lunch or wherever I needed to go so I decided to skip jumping in the water and

By the time I had walked back up to the lodge, gotten the key to the conference room, unlocked it, gotten to my bike bag, obtained the spare battery, returned the key to the front desk etc. the photo options were long gone, but Sue and Dale had arrived.

We drove down to the coast to a town called Panacea and had a lovely lunch on the deck out over the water. It was warm enough but pretty windy so part of the lunch was occupied in keeping things from blowing off the plate. I had charbroiled grouper, a fish I have never had before. It was fresh and delicious.

We drove back up to the springs and took a riverboat tour of the Wakulla river and spring basin. They had some very heavy rains a couple of weeks ago, and both the river and the spring basin are about two feet higher than normal. The spring water is cloudy and brown with overflow and tannic acid, although we could see fish swimming along the bottom of the more shallow parts of the river. The entire area is a protected wildlife sanctuary so there were numerous water birds and lots of alligators, all the way from a big old 10 footer up on the bank, to some barely foot long babies swimming in among the bullrushes with the birds. There were several great white egret nests with babies in them, and an osprey nest with a bird on it, a lot of picturesque bald cypress with yellow neck slider turtles sunning on the logs, deer back among the trees and a lot of anhingas and limpkins with perched on any available branch with their wings spread out to dry. We saw one anhinga who looked like he was hittting his head repeatedly against the base of a cypress tree, but what he was really doing was trying to shake loose the fish he had speared on his beak. We sat and watched for several minutes as he banged harder and faster. Apparently, they don't know how to or won't use a foot to pull the fish off. This would seem to be sort of counter survival to me but there were enough anhingas around to prove that somehow the system works. We pulled off as he finally got it off his beak and was flinging it up in the air to align it to go down his throat. It seemed to me that the size of the fishes head was going to present a whole new set of problems, since it was about as large as the anhinga's head. The guide made some comment about how now it was "personal, and that fish will go down one way or another."

After the boat tour, Susie and Dale took off to drive back up to Tallahassee and I took my bike out to the trailer for a final clean, lube and tweaking. The rear wheel still ticks a bit but at this point, as long as it is rideable, I am not going to worry too much.

Tomorrow starts back at 7:00 even though it is a fairly short ride, they want to get us back on schedule for the two upcoming long days before the end.

Tomorrow's ride is another two cue cue sheet and only about 50 miles so it should be short and sweet.