Swimming with the manatees without getting wet...

The day we were packing up to leave Cape San Blas and begin (resume) our wandering was quite the stormy one...

I usually enjoy a good storm, but this one had me just a tad concerned.  The green sky and the really dark clouds were a bit scary even for me.  These pictures were taken at around 9am and it looked like night outside...

When the storm finally passed, we got the car loaded up and we were on our way - south!  Yep, we decided to see more of our home state of Florida since we were already here.

I had scored some awesome deals on Groupon to swim with the manatees in Crystal River, so that was to be our first destination.  None of us had ever even seen a manatee (being from Florida, that's a shame), so we were pretty excited :)!

Well, as we were driving towards Crystal River, Tristan started complaining of not feeling well.  He said he felt weak and his throat hurt.  Uh oh...  We are for the most part a very healthy bunch, thankfully, so I was thinking maybe (hopefully) he was just really tired.  I gave him some extra vitamin C, rubbed some EO's on his throat (which he said made it feel better), and we continued on our way.  The next morning, the morning of our manatee swim, Tris woke up with a 104 fever and his throat hurt so bad he could barely swallow water.  UH OH...  I called the tour & dive co. and they graciously let us cancel our swim.  Instead, we loaded up and headed to the nearest ER to get little man checked out.  The Dr. was worried it was strep, so they did a test and fortunately it came back negative.  He was diagnosed with tonsillitis (which compared to strep was a relief), given a couple popsicles, some prescriptions, and 3 hours later we were on our way.

With our manatee swim a no-go, I had some pretty disappointed kiddos on my hands.  So, on the advice of the sweet girl at the dive center, we headed to Homosassa Springs State Park.

I had no idea what to expect with this being a total last minute stop...but happily, we all had a great time there :).  And there were manatees!  Yay!

The manatees that we saw are ones that for various reasons have to live at Homosassa full time, they can't survive on their own in the wild.  In the winter, wild manatees come to the spring, too, but right now it is just the "locals".

At set times throughout the day, the park feeds the manatees.  We just happened to get there a few minutes before feeding time and the manatees were ready.  They all swam up to the dock waiting for their romaine lettuce feast.  It was funny how insistent they were, they kept splashing the water with their tails and sticking their faces out until the food was tossed down.

We listened to an educational talk out on the deck, then we were invited to go down into an underwater viewing room to get a different view of the manatees...

Tristan was happy...he said it was just like getting to swim with the manatees, only without getting wet ;).

When we had our fill of watching the manatees, we took a stroll around the rest of the park.  The gators were snoozing on the bank of their habitat...

...and just across from them was a hippo!  He was HUGE!  He had his eyes sticking out of the water and every time I'd lift up my camera, he'd duck under.  Funny thing...

Well, we were standing there watching him and he started swimming around his pool.  He got to the far side and put his rear up to the outflow and pooped!  (Yeh, I know, I'm talking about poop...get over it ;).)  It is crazy that he knew to go to that spot to do his business, but he did.  Anyway, that's not really what I wanted to tell you.  The REALLY crazy part was what he did next.  A park ranger was walking by and she yelled out at him, "LU, YOU STINK!".  That hippo pulled his whole head up out of the water sending a big spray out of his nostrils...

...and LAUGHED!  Seriously!  He had the deepest, rumbling laugh I have ever heard and he said "HA HA HA HA HA...".  A hippo.  Named Lu.  Laughed! 

And now you know how immature I am ;), hehehe...

Moving on...

The flamingos were stunning, so bright pink!

The eagle posed for us...how nice of him ;).

We got to see roseate spoonbills, so cool!

The bears, wolves, big cats, etc. were all off exhibit because of the weather.  There was a storm rolling in and the park moves the animals to an enclosed area to keep them calm.  So we didn't see any of those.  That's ok though, we came for the manatees and the rest was just a bonus anyway.

We ended our tour back at the springs, hoping to get one more look at the manatees.  They were gone, but the water was beautiful...