Manatee Springs
We took a walk around the campground this morning, visiting the head of Manatee Springs, the pool it collects in, and the river it flows into. There was a nice long boardwalk over swampy land to the river. When we reached the end of it, we noticed several people snorkeling in the water in spite of signs that warned against it. We asked another couple watching them and found out they were volunteers who gather turtles for tagging. There were a couple of people in a canoe who followed the snorkelers around, collecting the turtles. We also noticed strange looking stumps surrounding trees. We asked another walker if she knew what they were. She told us that they were part of the trees’ root system called lenticels . They actually emit oxygen for the trees, since the ground was so swampy. It reminded us of the roots of banyan trees in Hawaii a bit, although these don’t grow into new trees.
Looking toward the source of the springs
Counting and tagging turtles
Nice planked walkways
Whatcha doing down there?
Cypress Knees either help stabilize the tree or help release oxygen
Then we drove most of the day, stopping briefly for lunch and to buy some chicken for dinner. When we stopped for lunch, we noticed a man on the side of the road selling citrus fruit from his truck, so we bought some tangerines (huge) and some grapefruit (sweet!). Then we went on until we reached our destination of Koreshan State Historic Site. We haven’t explored this area yet, but the brochure says:
“Throughout its history, Florida has welcomed pioneers of all kinds. Cyrus Reed Teed was probably the most unusual, bringing followers to Estero in 1894 to build “New Jerusalem” for his new faith “Koreshanity”. The colony, known as the Koreshan Unity, believed that the entire universe existed within a giant, hollow sphere. The colony began fading after Teed’s death in 1908. Today visitors can fish, picnic, boat and hike where Teed’s visionaries once carried out survey experiments to “prove” the horizon on the beaches curves upward.
Can’t wait to visit the museum and see how they tried to prove that!
Buying some fresh fruit
Our campsite (#55) at Koreshan State Park
Total miles driven today=290
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