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Silver Springs State Park, Florida

2026-05-07 by Martin

We stayed at the Silver Springs State Park campground in April 2026. While we were there, we took a kayak and paddleboard trip as well as a 90-minute glass bottom boat tour on the Silver River. The Silver Springs Park is based around the beautifully clear Silver River with its various natural springs providing millions of gallons of crystal clear fresh water per day from underground aquifers.

The park has an interesting modern development history dating to 1924 when entrepreneurs acquired rights to the Springs and soon started the famous Glass Bottom Boat tours that operate to this day. Other attractions on the property followed, including zoological displays and demonstrations, notably those by famed herpetologist Ross Allen, for whom a central island that we paddled around is named.

In the 1930s, Hollywood discovered Silver Springs and over the years, scenes from at least 20 movies were filmed here, including Rebel Without a Cause starring James Dean, Distant Drums starring Gary Cooper, the James Bond movie Moonraker, Creature from the Black Lagoon, and six Tarzan flicks. Episodes of television shows such as Sea Hunt were filmed at Silver Springs as well. In fact, legend has it that Sea Hunt star Lloyd Bridges learned to SCUBA dive at Silver Springs!

ABC Paramount purchased Silver Springs from Davidson and Ray in 1962, and Silver Springs prospered as an attraction. But beginning in the 1970s, new entrants in the Florida attractions marketplace just south in Orlando, behemoths such as Disney, SeaWorld and later, Universal Studios, led to a steady decline in Silver Springs’ attendance. And with that, the resources to properly care for the attraction and its precious natural resources. Exacerbating the dilemma, the Springs began to exhibit problems associated with modern development affecting many springs in Florida – fertilizer runoff and septic outflow. These contain nitrates, which resulted in an overgrowth of brown algae.

In 2013, the Florida Park Service took control of the property, merging it with the adjacent Silver River State Park, forming our present Silver Springs State Park. The Florida Park Service has worked tirelessly to restore and preserve both the cultural and environmental resources of the 4,000 acres encompassing the Springs and the Silver River.

We spent a couple of hours paddling our kayak and paddleboard along the Silver Springs River loop around Ross Allen Island. We were able to launch our own kayak and paddleboard from the dedicated kayak launch area for a nominal fee. Various canoes, kayaks and paddle boards are available for rent from this location. We saw lots of birds and turtles along the way, but surprisingly we didn’t see any of the many alligators that we later saw during our glass bottom boat tour. This paddling loop is a couple of miles in length and heads out along the Fort King Waterway, a beautiful shady, tree lined meandering water way that only allows non-powered watercraft. As we rounded the end of Ross Allen Island, we joined the larger main Silver River section that took us around the other side of the Island and back to our launch point.

On a different day during our visit, we opted to take the extended (90-minute) Glass Bottom Boat tour that took us along the Silver River where we had lots of opportunities to for wildlife viewing. We were lucky to see a Manatee during our trip as this was quite late in the season and most of the Manatees have moved on from their winter areas such as Silver Springs.

During our trip we saw lots of alligators along the river and also a few of the rhesus monkeys that call the area home. The monkeys were introduced to an Island in the Silver River in the 1930s by Colonel Tooey, a concessionaire who operated the “Jungle Cruise” boat ride. He planned to use the attraction of the colony as one of the sights on his Jungle Cruise but did not know that the rhesus monkeys were excellent swimmers. They quickly escaped the island, forming their own feral troops along the river where they live to this day.

The glass bottom boat tour was entertainingly narrated by the boat Captain who provided interesting facts on the history of the area, and the wildlife that we encountered along the way. We were glad we opted for the extended 90-minute boat tour over the 30-minute standard tour as we got to explore much more of the river and see lots of wildlife.

We enjoyed our stay as the Silver Springs State Park campground and our activities on the Silver River. The State Park system seems to do an excellent job of maintaining the natural environment while running the commercial activities within the park.

Photos of our visit are included below. Please click on the thumbnails for the full size images.

Everglades National Park & Big Cypress National Preserve

2026-04-30 by Martin

While spending the winter in Florida, we visited the two contiguous parks of Everglades National Park and Big Cypress National Preserve during the second half of March 2026. We spent a week at the Midway Campground within Big Cypress National Preserve, and a week at Collier Seminole State Park Campground just to the west of the parks. Both of these campgrounds are located along the Tamiami Trail, otherwise known as U.S. Highway Route 41, which is a 284 mile stretch of road connecting Tampa to Miami via Naples. Running parallel and to the south of Interstate 75, the historic Tamiami Trail offers a spectacular, scenic drive through Big Cypress National Preserve and Everglades National Park.

Established in 1947 as the first national park created for its biodiversity, Everglades National Park protects 1.5 million acres of wetland, forest, and marine habitats and the native plants and animals that call it home. With several international designations, the park provides a major source of drinking water for local residents of South Florida and recreational opportunities for all. Everglades National Park focuses on preserving the natural water flow. Conservation efforts aim to protect the park’s unique ecosystem and endangered species.

The freshwaters of the Big Cypress Swamp, essential to the health of the neighboring Everglades, support the rich marine estuaries along Florida’s southwest coast. Conserving over 729,000 acres of this vast swamp, Big Cypress National Preserve contains a mixture of tropical and temperate plant communities that are home to diverse wildlife, including the Endangered Florida panther. Big Cypress got its name from the large cypress trees that grow there. These trees create a unique swamp ecosystem. The preserve was set up in 1974. It’s different from a national park because it allows some activities like hunting and fishing. Big Cypress National Preserve works to maintain the freshwater supply for the surrounding areas. It also manages recreational activities to minimize impact on the environment.

Shark Valley Visitor Center, Everglades National Park

The Shark Valley Visitor Center offers access to one of the most popular and accessible areas of Everglades National Park. There is a 15 mile loop trail, with an observation tower at the end of the loop as well as two shorter walking trails near the visitor center. This area is known for excellent wildlife viewing, including alligators, wading birds, and other native species along the trail. The 15-mile loop trail can be taken on foot, on bicycle or on an open air tram that runs regularly during the day.

We took the two short walking trails known as the Bobcat Boardwalk, an accessible boardwalk about 0.2 miles long and the Ottercave Trail, and unpaved trail about 0.3 miles. From the visitor center we took the Bobcat Boardwalk, a short accessible trail that winds through a sawgrass slough and tropical hardwood forest. From there we walked about half a mile along the main loop trail to the Ottercave Trail. Along the way we saw lots of alligators relaxing in the creek that ran parallel to the loop trail, and a variety of birds including the ubiquitous Anhinga with its wings fanned out in the sun. The Ottercave Trail is a short trail that travels over a rough limestone surface. This hammock provides an up-close view of the sinkholes that permeate the floor of the Everglades. The trail wanders through a beautiful tropical hardwood forest with plenty of views along the way.

The photos below are from our visit to Shark Valley.

Oasis Visitor Center and Loop Road Scenic Drive, Big Cypress National Preserve

Built in the 1960s, the Oasis Visitor Center building was once a private airport with a hanger and restaurant. It was rather eye-catching from the road due to the passenger plane mounted to its roof as decoration. Later it was a service station. The building was eventually purchased by the National Park Service in the 1980s to be used as a visitor center. Outside, there is an accessible boardwalk that takes you along a canal that was absolutely chock full of alligators and afforded some great photo ops.

From the visitor center we took the Big Cypress loop road scenic drive, a which is 24 miles long and runs south of the current path of Tamiami Trail. It spans three counties: Collier to the west, Monroe in the center, and Miami-Dade to the east. Along the way we passed through mostly cypress swamp habitat, which was quite dry as we visited in the dry season (November through April). The cypress swamps are apparently considerably more flooded in the summer wet season (May through October). A couple of miles into the drive we stopped at the Gator Hook Trail and walked about half a mile along the trail before returning to continue on the loop road. This trail, a five-mile swamp walk, goes east along one of the historic tram roads, originally built by loggers for small trains to transport cypress trees out of the swamp. Some of the original cypress logs laid down for the tram rails can still be seen, as the wood is very resistant to decay. The logging industry of South Florida dwindled by the 1950s, when most of the marketable wood was harvested. Any large cypress seen today is second growth, few of the original giants remain.

We were a bit disappointed with the loop drive as there really wasn’t much to see from the road most of the way, and not many places to stop along the way. As we reached the end of the loop road, we passed some canals and creeks were there we quite a few alligators to be seen.

The photos below are from our visit to the Oasis Valley Visitor Center and the Scenic Loop Drive.

Marjory Stoneman Douglas Visitor Center and Ten Thousand Islands Boat Tour, Everglades National Park

One of the highlights of our stay in the area was the Ten Thousand Islands Boat Tour that we took from the Marjory Stoneman Douglas Visitor Center in Everglades City. This was a 90 minute boat tour through a vast chain of Islands known as The Ten Thousand Islands with a maze of waterways and stunning mangroves on the coastal region of Southwest Florida in Everglades National Park. This area of the Everglades hosts a vibrant array of wildlife, including dolphins, manatees, sea turtles, osprey and shore birds. During our tour we got to see several dolphins, turtles, and various birds including ospreys. We were a little too late in the year to see any manatees who had already moved on from their winter waters. The tour guides highlighted the area’s natural resources and cultural history, which dates back thousands of years to when Native Americans lived there. Of particular interest were the shell islands that were created around the mangroves by Native Americans hundreds and even thousands of years earlier.

The new Marjory Stoneman Douglas Visitor Center had just opened a few weeks earlier. It is a very impressive hurricane proof building that reportedly cost over $70 million to build, and replaced an earlier building destroyed by hurricanes. Marjory Stoneman Douglas (April 7, 1890 – May 14, 1998) was an American journalist, author, women’s suffrage advocate, and conservationist known for her staunch defense of the Everglades against efforts to drain it and reclaim land for development. Moving to Miami as a young woman to work for The Miami Herald, she became a freelance writer, producing over one hundred short stories that were published in popular magazines. Her most influential work was the book The Everglades: River of Grass (1947), which redefined the popular conception of the Everglades as a treasured river instead of a worthless swamp.

As a young woman, Douglas was outspoken and politically conscious of the women’s suffrage and civil rights movements. She was called upon to take a central role in the protection of the Everglades when she was 79 years old. For the remaining 29 years of her life, she was “a relentless reporter and fearless crusader” for the natural preservation and restoration of South Florida. Her tireless efforts earned her several variations of the nickname “Grande Dame of the Everglades” as well as the hostility of agricultural and business interests looking to benefit from land development in Florida. She received numerous awards, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and was inducted into several halls of fame.

Douglas lived to 108, working until nearly the end of her life for Everglades restoration. Upon her death, an obituary in The Independent in London stated, “In the history of the American environmental movement, there have been few more remarkable figures than Marjory Stoneman Douglas.”

The photos below are from our visit to the Marjory Stoneman Douglas Visitor Center and Ten Thousand Islands Boat Tour.

We really enjoyed our two weeks in the Everglades and Big Cypress area. It is a unique ecosystem with come iconic plants, trees, and animals. The parks cover a vast area and there are lots of things to do in the area, and several parts of the park and visitor centers that we didn’t get to during our visits.

Florida Keys

2026-04-07 by Martin

We spent 10-days in the Florida Keys during March 2026, staying at the Sugarloaf Key RV Resort about 20 miles north of Key West. This was the high-season for staying in the Keys, and we had booked a long way in advance to secure the 10-day stay.

We traveled to the Keys from the Encore Miami Everglades RV Resort, and enjoyed the trip down the US-1 Highway which is known as the Overseas Highway once it starts its journey through the Keys. The highway follows a series of causeways and bridges as it makes its way through the Keys. The most famous bridge being the “7-mile Bridge” about half-way along the Overseas Highway. The current highway parallels an earlier section of highway for most of the way. Various sections of the old highway have been converted into bike and pedestrian trails, and fishing piers. Partway along the 7-mile Bridge we passed Fred the Tree, a wild-growing celebrity Casuarina tree. Fred the Tree is often referred to as a sign of hope and the resilience of the people in the Florida Keys due to its ability to thrive in such harsh conditions on a concrete bridge, while surviving a number of hurricanes and extreme weather events.

The Sugarloaf Key RV Resort is a very nice (and expensive!) RV park with a pool, cafe, bar, boat launch, marina, and sandy beach. During our stay we launched our inflatable paddle board and kayak from the boat launch and enjoyed a few hours paddling through the mangroves islands along the coast of Sugarloaf Key. We also spent some time relaxing on the sandy beach, and Allen enjoyed swimming in the Ocean.

During our stay we made two visits to Key West using the Lower Keys Transit public bus that only cost $1 each way and saved us from having to find and pay for expensive parking had we driven. There was a bus stop on the Overseas Highway just outside the RV park. On our first bus trip we found that the buses don’t really follow the posted time-table, and we waited a long time for the next bus. After this we discovered the Lower Keys Transit app that shows actual bus locations and estimated arrival times at each stop and made our subsequent bus trips easier to plan. The ride into Key West took about an hour because the bus stops at the Key West transit depot along the way for the drivers to take a break while the passengers wait for the trip to continue. The trip back from Key West was about 40-minutes as the bus travels direct without the transit depot stop.

On our first visit to Key West, we walked from downtown Key West to the Fort Zachary Taylor Historic State Park. Along the way we walked past the Truman Little White House. The Harry S. Truman Little White House was the winter White House for President Harry S. Truman for 175 days during 11 visit and was used for various federal government purposes until its conversion into a museum in 1987.

Construction of Fort Zachary Taylor began in 1845 as part of a mid-19th century plan to defend the southeast coast of the United States through a series of forts after the War of 1812. During the Civil War it became a key outpost for threatening blockade runners during the Union blockade. The fort was heavily used again during the Spanish–American War (1898), World War I (1917–1918), World War II (1941–1945), and the Cuban Missile Crisis (1962). In 1976, Fort Zachery Taylor was donated to the State of Florida and opened up to the public in 1985. We enjoyed wandering through the Fort and up onto the ramparts. We particularly enjoyed walking through the red-brick arches and corridors housing the cannons and gun ports.

For our second visit to Key West, we decided to take the Old Town Trolley tour of the city. This is a hop-on hop-off narrated tour bus that travels all around the city with the driver providing interesting facts and history throughout the trip. The entire trip lasted 90-minutes and we learned a lot along the way from our driver Karl. After the Trolley tour we enjoyed lunch at the Two Friends Patio Restaurant on Front Street near Mallory Square on the north end of Key West before traveling back to our RV Park on the bus.

Our 10-day visit to the Keys was an ideal amount of time to enjoy the area and make a couple of visits to Key West. The weather was very good during our visit with temperatures on the high side for the time of year. There is something for everyone in Key West with a variety of historical sites as well as a good number of restaurants, bars, and stores throughout the town.

Below is a selection of photos from our trip to the Keys. Click on the thumbnails for the full size pictures.

Kennedy Space Center

2026-02-19 by Martin

There was so much to see at the Kennedy Space Center that we bought a two day pass and visited twice in early February 2026 during the week we were staying at the nearby Space Coast Encore RV Resort in Rockledge, Florida.

On entering the complex, you are met with the Rocket Garden with its collection of rockets from various eras of space exploration. There were lots of photo ops in front of the various rockets that were mostly mounted in the launch orientation, as well as a Saturn V rocket that was mounted horizontally.

On our first visit we took the bus tour that was included as part of the general admission. The tour had two main stops. Stop one was “The Gantry at LC-39”. This was primarily a viewing tower with 360° views of iconic launch pads just 1.5 miles away, surrounded by the enchanting wildlife of Merritt Island. The viewing tour also had a simulated engine test fire of a reproduction rocket engine every 30 minutes with appropriate sound effects. We were interested to see the Artemis II, NASA’s Space Launch System rocket on the launch pad before it carries four astronauts to the Moon’s orbit, scheduled for launch sometime in March.

Stop two was the Apollo / Saturn V Center, with its Saturn V rocket suspended above the viewing gallery. This is the rocket that made the Moon landings possible. The tour started with a video presentation in a recreation of Mission Control Center with some of the original computer terminals. After the video presentation we were given a short guided tour along the length of the Saturn V rocket which had been separated into its main stages for display purposes. The guided tour was very informative and helped with understanding how the entire Saturn V rocket system worked. This building also had a theater presentation of the first moon landing in July 1969, complete with a movie with original NASA footage and a full size moon lander that descended onto the stage in front of us.

The highlight of our second day visiting the Space Center was the Space Shuttle Atlantis Experience which displayed the real Atlantis orbiter that flew 33 missions and also celebrated the entire Space Shuttle program. After watching a couple of introductory movie presentations in a lobby area we entered the main display hall with its Atlantis Shuttle mounted in its orbiting configuration with its payload doors open and robot arm deployed. This was a very spectacular display that allowed the shuttle to be viewed from all angles. On our arrival in the display hall, we were given a very informative guided tour around the space shuttle before exploring the display on our own. After looking at the Atlantis we visited the Tribute to the Crews of Challenger and Columbia shuttles. This tribute memorializes the 14 brave astronauts who perished during the loss of orbiters Challenger and Columbia. The exhibit displays personal items from each astronaut and recovered hardware from both orbiters, including a section of Challenger’s left fuselage with American flag and the framework of Columbia’s cockpit windows.

As part of the Atlantis Experience, we also rode the Shuttle Launch Experience, a dramatic simulation ride of the space shuttle’s eight-and-a-half-minute ascent into orbit. The entire simulation ride moved and vibrated to simulate the extreme experience of the solid rocket boosters during the initial launch sequence.

We visited the Heroes and Legends display which gave a great insight into the history of space exploration and some of the key figures involved. It covered the early days of space travel in depth and the astronauts who made it possible. We also enjoyed a movie called Deep Sky in the IMAX theater that told the story of the Webb Telescope and presented some amazing images captured the Webb.

We really enjoyed the two days we spent at the Kennedy Space Center. This allowed us enough time to see all of main displays that were of interest to us. For those interested in seeing even more, there are additional displays that we did not get to, and also opportunities available for more in depth tours and experiences that can be purchased.

There are more photos from our visit below. Click on the thumbnails to see the full size images.

St. Augustine, Florida

2026-02-09 by Martin

Founded in 1565 by Spanish settlers, St. Augustine it is the oldest continuously inhabited European-established settlement in what is now the contiguous United States. The city served as the capital of Spanish Florida for over 200 years. It became the capital of British East Florida in 1763 and continued as the capital after the 1783 Treaty of Versailles in the Second Spanish Period. Spain ceded Florida to the United States in 1819, and St. Augustine was designated one of the two alternating capitals of the Florida Territory, the other being Pensacola, upon ratification of the Adams–Onís Treaty in 1821. The territorial government moved and made Tallahassee the permanent capital of Florida in 1824.

We visited St. Augustine, Florida on New Years Day 2026 while staying at the Encore Bulow RV Resort near Flagler Beach about an hour away. It was busy in Saint Augustine that day, and we were happy that we had booked the hop-on-hop-off Old Town Trolley tour which allowed us to park remotely and take the shuttle around town at our own pace. The St. Augustine trolley tour has over 20 stops, is 8.5 miles long, and takes about 90 minutes from start to finish if you were just to stay on the trolley bus. Another benefit of the Trolley tour is that the drivers provide commentary and historical information on the city as you travel around.

Our first stop was to visit Castillo de San Marcos, the oldest masonry fort in the continental United States. The fort has been operated by the National Park Service since 1933 as the Castillo de San Marcos National Monument. It was designed by the Spanish engineer Ignacio Daza, with construction beginning in 1672, 107 years after the city’s founding while the city was still under Spanish control.

Castillo de San Marcos was attacked several times and twice besieged. Possession of the fort has changed five times, all peaceful, among four different governments: Spain, 1695–1763 and 1783–1821, Kingdom of Great Britain, 1763–1783, and the United States, 1821–date (during 1861–1865, under control of the Confederate States of America). Owing to its strategic cannon placement and star-shaped design, the fort was never breached or taken by force throughout its various stages of sovereign ownership.

The Castillo is a masonry star fort made of a stone called coquina (Spanish for “small shells”), which consists of ancient shells that have bonded together to form a sedimentary rock similar to limestone. Native Americans from Spain’s nearby missions did most of the labor, with additional skilled workers brought in from Havana, Cuba. Construction began on October 2, 1672, and lasted twenty-three years, with completion in 1695.

After visiting the Castillo, we walked along St. George Street which is one of the most recognizable and visited areas in St. Augustine. It’s a pedestrian-only route through Historic Downtown, lined with colonial-era buildings, courtyards, and a mix of museums, restaurants, shops, and historic landmarks. St. George Street follows a colonial roadbed first laid out in the 1700s. Many of its buildings are original structures or faithful reconstructions on historic foundations. Part way along St. George Street we stopped for a good lunch at the Burrito Works Taco Shop, and then a little further down the road we had dessert at the Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream Store.

After getting back on the Trolley shuttle we toured around some more areas of the city and saw some of the original historic St. Augustine homes before hopping off to walk around the outside of the original Hotel Ponce de Leon, and now Flagler College. Originally a luxury hotel built by millionaire developer and Standard Oil co-founder Henry M. Flagler, built between 1885–1887, the winter resort opened in January 1888. The hotel was designed in the Spanish Colonial Revival style and is the first of its kind constructed entirely of poured concrete, using the local coquina stone as aggregate. The hotel was one of the first buildings in the country wired for electricity from the onset, with the power being supplied by DC generators installed by Flagler’s friend, Thomas Edison. Since 1968, with the founding of Flagler College, the original building and grounds of the hotel serve as the centerpiece of the campus of Flagler College.

We also walked around the Hotel Alcazar across the street from Flagler College that was also constructed by Flagler using the same poured concrete method. Both hotels appealed to wealthy tourists who traveled south for the winter on his railroad, the Florida East Coast Railway. The Alcazar had a steam room, massage parlor, sulfur baths, gymnasium, a three-story ballroom, and the world’s largest indoor swimming pool; however, after years as an elegant winter resort for wealthy patrons, the hotel closed in 1932. In 1947 Chicago publisher Otto C. Lightner purchased the building to convert the old hotel into a hobbies museum. He used the space to house several collections, including his own extensive collection of Victorian era art. He then turned it over to the city of St. Augustine and the museum opened to the public in 1948 and operates to this day as the Lightner Museum.

Rather than take the trolley shuttle back to our parking spot we walked back along the Matanzas River which is part of the Intracoastal Waterway. We passed the pair of copies of the marble Medici lions that guard the entrance to the Bridge of Lions, a double-leaf bascule bridge that spans the Intracoastal Waterway and connects downtown St. Augustine to Anastasia Island across Matanzas Bay.

There was a lot to see in St. Augustine, and our one day visit took us around the highlights. The most interesting part of the visit for us was the Castillo de San Marcos. One could certainly spend several days exploring the city and looking at the historic buildings and neighborhoods in more depth. Photos from our visit are included below. Click on the thumbnails for full size images.