The Manatees at Homosassa Springs Wildlife Park

On Tuesday we departed the Orlando area, and drove the RV just 70 miles to the Inverness’ Elks lodge in Hernando, FL. We are Elks members and this affords us the ability to park at Elk lodges that offer RV parking across the nation for a small donation. Many lodges have either full or partial hook-ups and some only dry camping is allowed. Often while traveling we will take advantage of this parking opportunity, especially when we will only be in an area for just a night or two, like this day. The Inverness lodge is situated on a beautiful lake. This is the view from our RV window—pretty isn’t it?
We chose this lodge because of it’s close proximity to Homosassa Springs State Wildlife Park which we were interested in visiting. To see any photo morely clearly just click on the photo to enlarge it.
Elinore and Dave Barry joined us for the day. We had heard the park is one of the best places to see manatees in the wild and we weren’t disappointed. There is a floating observatory where we viewed the manatees munching on their meal of fresh vegetables. We also enjoyed an up close and personal view of their trainer interacting with them, as she educated us on the habits of these gentle giants. The manatees are huge some as large as 13 ft and 3,000 lbs, but incredibly docile. A 45 foot deep natural spring with a constant 72 degree temperature, is the centerpiece of the 210+ acre park. This is a perfect environment for the manatees which need warm water to survive. We started our visit with a leisurely pontoon boat ride down Pepper Creek to the wildlife park. Once there we strolled along an elevated boardwalk system providing us with a great view of the wildlife including deer, bear, bobcats, otters, alligators and cougars at close range, as well as many varieties of birds, from colorful wood ducks, and flamingos to birds of prey, herons and egrets.

Of course once we had seen & heard all that we wanted, we all decided a good dinner was next on the agenda. Stumpknockers in on the square in Inverness filled the bill quite nicely. This is a quirky local establishment, with all sorts of memorabilia on the walls & ceilings and a menu heavy on friend seafood. Since catfish is what they are famous for that was the choice for three of us, but for Elinore it was the sauteed frog legs. Apparently we couldn't lose--all were winners.