Florida's Silver Springs

After lunch we drove over to Florida's Silver Springs. We had downloaded and printed a coupon from their website that was a "Buy 1, Get 1 Free" for an adult daily ticket - so it cost us $31.79 for the both of us.

We headed over to get on a glass bottom boat for a tour, but just missed one that was leaving. Since we had a little time to kill, we looked through the gift shop and the display showing all of the movies and television shows that had been filmed at Silver Springs.

From Florida's Silver Springs

Before boarding the glass bottom boat, we talked for a few minutes with the Captain of the boat, Capt. Oscar. He told us that he has been working at Silver Springs for over 40 years!

From Florida's Silver Springs

There were only 3 other couples with us on the boat tour. We saw a mother wood duck with a LOT of ducklings, we stopped over the different springs, and learned about some of the

movies and television shows that had been filmed in Silver Springs. There were 3 statues that were left underwater from the 007 Thunderball movie that was filmed here.

Afterwards, we walked over to the "Honeymoon" or "Lucky Tree".

From Florida's Silver Springs

Our next boat ride was on the Lost River Voyage that departs from area where the TV series "Sea Hunt" was filmed. On this tour we saw cormorants sunning themselves, turtles and alligators.

From Florida's Silver Springs

Our next stop was at the Wilderness Trail, which is a tram ride pulled by a Wrangler Jeep. We were warned before going that the ride was REAL ROUGH and they were not wrong!! There was an adorable 4 year old little girl and her father sitting in front of us and she knew all of the animals that we would see on our ride. We drove through an enclosure that had emus, llamas, cattle, horses, and monkeys. We were warned to not smile at the monkeys or look them in the eye, as they took that as challenge.

We next headed over to the World of Bears where we saw some Florida black bears and a HUGE Kodiak bear. It was so hot this afternoon, that we felt sorry for the Kodiak bear. There was a large pool and waterfall in his enclosure and he finally climbed in to the water to cool off.

From Florida's Silver Springs

By the time we got back to the entrance, there was only about 15 minutes left before closing. So we didn't get to go on the Fort King River Cruise, see the animal exhibits or go to Ross Allen Island. For 50 years Ross Allen owned and operated Ross Allen Reptile Institute at Silver Springs.

A sad note - when we checked our email after we returned from Silver Springs, we learned that Mike's cousin, Dick, in Tallahassee died today. He had been ill for several months and we visited with him and his family last month when we were staying at Lake Seminole. We had planned on going to the FamCamp at Patrick Air Force Base when we left here on Thursday. But we will head north to Tallahassee on Thursday in order to attend his funeral.