May 5th we are at Silver River State Park

Today was our second day at Silver River State Park. There is a lot of hiking here, but more famous is the river. I remember hearing from my Mom and Dad that they had visited Silver Springs and went on the glass bottom boats and at the time I thought I wanted to visit someday. Little did I know it would be 55 years later. Today we rented a canoe and paddled two and half miles upstream to Silver Springs and it was fantastic. The following pics will give you an idea of that trip and the park.

This is a restored glass bottom boat used in the 30's.

The park has a historical area that is run by the county schools. This is a cracker village.

If you look closely you can see the gopher tortoise coming out of its hole

This is the start of our canoe journey. Hope we do not fall in the current is swift and there are a lot of alligators. Actually the boat was very stable.

Turtles, turtles everywhere. There is no fishing or catching of any wildlife. So there is a lot to see.

You can see the beauty of the river, but also notice the current.

We had to paddle hard to get to the head waters. It is hard to believe how much water is coming out of the ground.

This is one of the glass bottom boats in Silver Springs.

You can see where the boat dock on the left. They were busy no this nice Sunday afternoon.

We were able to paddle up to the docks, but could not get off.

This is the view under the boat. It does not do it justice

If you follow the stick up the picture and look close you can see an alligator that was about 5 feet away.

This couple of wood ducks posed for us.

 I would suggest anyone that likes the wild outdoors to stop at the park and rent a canoe. They have a weird method of renting, you need to rent as you come into the park at the rangers station. They only have 12 boats and it is first come first served. The boats are at the end of a half mile trail from where you park your car and the ranger station is about a mile form there. That being said, it only cost us 22 dollars for our trip, not bad.