Thursday, March 25, 2021

First Days at Silver Springs State Park

February 19 – February 22, 2021                          Most Recent Posts:
Silver Springs State Park                      On the Prairie in the Middle of Florida
Silver Springs, Florida           Those Low Down No Count Reservation Blues



I pulled out of my site at Kissimmee Prairie Preserve and drove down the LONG entrance road and the LONGER county road from there to civilization and headed west.  It was 179 miles to Silver Springs State Park Campground, a good portion of it on the Florida Turnpike for which I have a Sunpass.  I topped the pass up yesterday.  It was a long , for me, but relatively easy drive.

IMG_4110Last year reservations were more difficult than in previous years but not as impossible as this year and I was able to get my favorite pull through site starting today. 

The campground has a mix of back ins and pull throughs.  A few of the latter have FHUs.  I have tried a couple of those but they are more unlevel so I’m happy enough to use the dump station to avoid the leveling complexity.



IMG_3939The park has 4 small campground loops and a cabin loop.  I think it would be fun for Carrie and her family to come rent a cabin for a week some time while I”m here when the kids (2 & 4 now) are older.  But I know they want any Florida trip to include Disneyworld.  As I recall all too well, it’s hard to get much time off from work in this country.  We really are workaholics compared to the rest of the developed western world where six weeks “holiday” is standard.

Because of the wonderful Silver River and its attractions - gators, manatee, wood ducks, monkeys and possibly but rarely the River Otter, the park is one of my favorites and I know it very well.  In addition to kayaking every morning which gives me more than half of my 10K steps goal, just going to and from the dock, I hike the rest of my steps daily on the other trails


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This map shows the two trails I take most often, the river trail and the swamp trail.  Together they are about 3.5 miles.  From the campground to the trail heads and back adds enough to round out my 10K step – 4 to 5 mile - daily goal.  Of course they both lead to the river.

The morning after I arrive, I head out for my first paddle.  You can just barely see the campground with the tent symbol in the lower middleish section of the map.  The launch is on the map where the blue River Trail meets the river (boat symbol).   I drive Ruby up to the parking lot P at the head of the blue trail, put the wheels on with some difficulty and pull the kayak (Tootsie) down to the put in where I kayak for the morning, come back and lock her up against the fence.   From then on, until the day I leave, all I have to do is walk down with paddle, water and camera.  I do this every morning unless it is raining.  It is my hands down favorite thing about this park.  I can hike to my kayak.  No putting it on and off the car every time I want to use it.

This is a short cut to the river trail at the head of the parking lot.  Not a lot of people know about it so don’t tell.  It is not the “official” trail head.

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It’s a beautiful walk through a live oak forest.

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As with most trails to any river, it is down hill on the way there and UP hill on the way back.  I try not to think about pulling Tootsie back up especially over this very large, much of it fist sized gravel they have spread in 7 or 8 areas to try to deal with the erosion Florida's frequent summer rains cause the trail.

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IMG_4081Just as you get to the dock are the wildlife warning signs for both the alligators and the wild monkeys that reside here.  For the story and history of the monkeys, go to https://www.directionofourdreams.blogspot.com and use the upper left search bar to search for Silver River/Silver Springs or monkeys.  I’ve written about them numerous times before.  You can also find a description of the kayaking day we had with Nancy and Bill Mills when we returned to this dock to find it had been taken over by the monkeys and they kept us in our kayaks for 20 minutes or so I believe.  It was too funny.  But, they are wild and not to be mistaken for pets.

The boat launch is very nice and there is an port-a-potty nearby for those who stop for lunch.   Notice the buoys on some small islands just off shore.

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This little blue heron was there.

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Here’s where Tootsie sits and waits for me.  She’s locked to the fence and has a cockpit cover on with my PFD inside.  The park has a couple of canoes nearby that I believe they used to rent when this was the Silver River State Park.  But now that the state has bought the old Silver Springs tourist attraction, the whole thing is called Silver Springs State Park and the rentals are done at the head spring.

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This map of the river is also at the head of the launch.  It shows that the park encloses all 5 miles of the Silver River from its headsprings until it empties into the Oklawaha River.  So wonderful that it is completely protected on both sides.  I wish all of Florida’s many spring runs were.   They should be.

There are two choices for kayaking the river from the park.  You can drive, or hike (2.5 miles one way)  up to the headsprings park and put your boat in or rent a kayak or canoe by the hour or day.  Then you float down/paddle back or arrange for a shuttle at the end of the 5 miles of river at the Ray Wayside.   

I put in at the State Park Launch and paddle 2 miles up and float 2 miles down.  Sometimes I float down to “the Island” turn around paddle back for about 2.5 miles total.  But I prefer my work up front and the float at the end rather than vice versa.

Enough of the logistics.  As you can imagine, I have a LOT of pictures from all those mornings of paddling the river.


IMG_3972Most days I head up stream to the head spring but on this particular day, I headed down toward the Oklawaha.  I didn’t go all the way there since I didn’t want to have to paddle back up stream all that way.

The Silver River banks are mostly still in their winter attire.

It was a tad windy as you can see from the water in the picture above and in this video I took of “cruising down the river” as the male anhinga made his presence known.  Hope you feel like you are with me when you watch it despite my inability to hold the camera still in the kayak.

The trees on the left are Bald Cypress which are wonderful with their broad bases and multiple “knees”.  They had just started to show their feathery green at the end of my two weeks at Silver Springs.

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Even as they decay, they are homes for shelf mushrooms.  So many!

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The flowers along the river’s edge don’t stand out as much in these pictures as their yellow, purple, white and red colors do among the green leaves.





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These are my favorites.

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I only went a short way down the river before turning back since I wasn’t seeing any wild life.   Not too long after passing the park put in, the wildlife picked up


I took this video of a Little Blue Heron fishing.  Take a look.

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If I could come back as a bird, I might choose an Anhinga or a Cormorant.  They can both fly and swim and of course walk on land even with these webbed feet.

I’m afraid you can’t see this cormorant’s strikingly blue eyes.  He’d just gotten out of the water and his feathers were wet.


He’s a bird with webbed feet.  Pretty cool.  He can hold on to branches with them when he flies up in the trees.  Nature is so amazing.

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Today was my lucky day.  I saw the manatee.  My pictures aren’t great since manatee are hard to photograph under water unless they break the surface.  But they are just so wonderful I could follow them around all day if it didn’t feel like harassment.  It always makes my day when I see them.


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Sometimes I don’t see them at all until I hear them breathing near by when they break the water with their noses.  They are mammals and can’t breathe under water.


I am really enjoying the park and the routine I have of going out early to Kayak before others are on the river and heading back about 10am. That gets me about 2.5 miles of walking. It’s often only in the upper 40’s or low 50’s which is cooler than I like for kayaking but I’m here and so is the river.   Gotta take advantage of its closeness while I can.

In the afternoon, I go out on one of the other trails.  Most often on the Swamp Trail which also leads to the River.  Out and back there gets me another 2.5 miles.  I’ll show some pictures of it in an upcoming post.

In between I read, I finished Writing Wild which I talked about in my “blues” post (see link above) and very much enjoyed it.  It gave me a number of other ideas of things I’d like to read by women nature writers.  I do yoga with Adrienne on YouTube when my signal is strong enough.  Her sessions are a bit slow and too easy for me but I like her gentle way.

Of course I cook though mostly on the week-ends and then I warm things up back and forth for the rest of the week.  Things like mushroom stroganoff or various soups, or beans and rice.

Still trying daily to fill in that month campground gap from mid February to Mid March for next year.  So far, no luck.

More wildlife pictures including some of the monkeys coming up in my next post which I hope won’t take me as long to get ready.   Leave a comment and let me know what you are doing as spring approaches.

Thanks again for reading.

30 comments:

  1. Good to hear things are moving ahead.

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  2. I'm sorry to have missed you the couple days we were there. It's the first time we've camped there and it's just lovely. No kayaking though as Al had a knee replacement this winter and it still wasn't kayak ready. Good luck with filling in your spots for next winter. With your persistence, I'm sure you will!

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    1. Yes I'm sorry I didn't know you were there. Hope Al's knee mends quickly. Thanks for your reservation wishes

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  3. Loved reading this one, of course, as much as I love that area. Silver River State Park was my first introduction to Florida in 2000, when I visited Bel for the first time. The cabins were fairly new then, and we walked that trail to the river. I watched a kayaker come downstream from the springs area and told Bel, "Someday I am going to own a kayak and paddle this river". In 2005 I got the kayak, and in 2007 I paddled it for the last time, again in 2014, and probably for the last time in 2019. Reading about it again brings back so many happy memories and nostalgia for me. Now I have to go look at all my old photos of Silver Springs. Hope you do get a space for next year for that month. Have you tried over on the Gulf side farther north? We loved the area near Appalachicola, LOTS of good kayaking there, even though it is a bit colder than what you are used it, it was still wonderful for us in February and March.

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    1. Good for you for making your dream come true Sue. I would love to see you here again. I do love Florida in the winter though it gets a tad cold for me in the Northern areas but global warming may fix that.

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  4. I love how the Oaks arc over that lovely not-a-trail. Not sure about FL, but in South Africa the monkeys can be mean. I love to kayak with you. The videos put me there. Even with wind, so lovely and serene.

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    1. The Oaks really are lovely and yes the Monkees here can be mean to which is why only fools go up anywhere near them. I'm glad you enjoyed the videos. I hope others do too. If so I'll include more of them in the future

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  5. Renting a cabin sounds fun. We've already been talking about a disney trip - maybe when the kids are 6 and 8 or 7 and 9. Pretty park there both on and off the water. Fingers crossed for next year's reservations. xoxo

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    1. Thanks sweetheart. I appreciate your crossed fingers. There's so many fun things we could do if in the middle of our Lives we didn't have to work so much. Missing you.

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  6. Beautiful park, sounds like you're enjoying one of your happy places. Wish we could have paddled with the manatees but couldn't get into the parks I wanted the winter we were there. Good luck finding reservations where you have blank spots. I've been working on our AZ winter reservations already.

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    1. Thanks Faye. I'd love to know your favorite spots in Arizona. I need to try somewhere other than Florida.

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    2. Thanks Faye. I'd love to know your favorite spots in Arizona. I need to try that one winter.

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  7. What a great post. So very relaxing. Great videos. Used to kayak but switch to a pack canoe a few years ago. My kayak just got to heavy for me to handle. The weight of the canoe is only 18lbs., I can carry it on one shoulder.

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    1. Really glad you liked the videos Doris and I'm quite interested in your 18 lb canoe. I can see the kayak eventually becoming too heavy mostly for getting it on the car since the wheels allow me to pull it anywhere I want to take it.

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  8. Your time on the Silver River sounds perfect! We love that park, too. My favorite campgrounds are where I can walk out the door and hit the trails. What a good idea to leave your kayak at the launch and walk to it for your glorious morning paddle. Other than the monkeys (they give me the creeps, lol) the wildlife on the river is wonderful. Great photos and videos!

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    1. Thanks Laurel for the compliments. It's funny that the monkeys give you the creeps. I think they're a riot.

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  9. If I could come back as a bird, it would be a pelican. I look silly enough as a human so a leap to a pelican would not be too far. :cD

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    1. I think you'd make a great pelican Paul. They are the one bird that I don't see much on the rivers of Florida only in ocean waters.

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  10. Looks so peaceful and getting to spend some Manatee time is the best!! The blue herons are beautiful - and soooo blue this time. That site is wonderful with the trees and nice space. Glad you got some time in a favorite spot.

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  11. Manatee time is the best Jodee and they are so peaceful. Starting my day on the river just is the best. If I ever leave the road I hope it will be to live on a river where I can kayak every morning. I wonder if I would ever get tired of it?

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  12. We think of Silver Springs fondly even though we didn't see the monkey population. I'm glad you give us pictures to remember our time there.
    As far as our spring activities, we planted more in our garden. I need to do a post!

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    1. Having fresh organic produce out of my own garden is one of the things I miss most about being on the road. I know your garden will be beautiful Laurie.

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  13. Loved the video. What an amazing bird!

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  14. Oh those manatee! I really do want to see them some day. How wonderful to be able to get out and about - we have been in full lockdown since before Christmas. The live oaks look as if they are mighty trees, I do love a good tree!

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  15. I love reading about your adventures, you have such a way with words and weaving your story (along with the pictures)that makes it so interesting! Can't wait to read more...

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  16. Sherry, as usual your pics are incredible! Lynn, Dave and Duke are home in Michigan now and spring has sprung here. We both have gotten our shots as I hope you have too. Michigan is having quite a surge again tho so still being carefull! Happy trails!

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