22 - They're like living sofas!
When we left Orlando we were moving from one extreme to another again.
Swapping the lights, noise and crowds of the theme parks for the peace and
quiet of the Everglades National Park, which covers much of the southern end
of the state's mainland. However, we were not headed straight down to the
park. Instead we were planning to reach the park after three days, even
though the distance was only 269 miles (a mere trifle for us hardened
travellers). There were a few things, people, and animals we wanted to see
first.
First stop on leaving Turkey Lake Park was breakfast, no real surprise given
our track record. In our defence the sign said 'all you care to eat breakfast
buffet - $3.99' – very hard to resist. The food was very good and filled us up
until the evening, the only drawback was that the man at the next table kept
talking to us. He was with his adult son and used us as an (unwilling)
audience for his thoughts on married life. Although irritating he was always
polite, giving us no real reason to shut him up. We could have left I suppose,
but we had not eaten all that we cared to by that stage.
Homosassa Springs Wildlife State Park was our destination for the day, or
what was left of the day once we reached it via slow roads. The park is on the
west coast of Florida and made it onto our itinerary late in the day when I
happened to notice in our guidebook that it is home to manatees.
Emma and I fell in love with these massive marine mammals the year