02-15-2019 Traveling to Rainbow Springs by way of Wakulla Springs and Saint Marks NWR

Current Location: Oleno State Park, High Springs, Florida

Cloudy, rainy day predicted and 59 degrees F at 6:30 AM

At the moment I have three bars of Verizon, and even 4G, but photo uploads are crawling along.  After awhile I lose interest and for the last few days have completely given up trying to get photos loaded to SmugMug so that I can continue writing the blog posts.  I do so much better if I write daily, but then no matter where you go, there you are, and life does get in the way of writing sometimes.

After our almost perfect Thursday at Indian Pass and with friends in Apalachicola, it was time to move on.  I made lots of reservations for this trip, many with the help of information from Sherry, and most of them were made 11 months ago, on the morning and the 8am moment eastern time when each campground date would become available to me.  It made for some complex maneuvering, since I had a bit of trouble trying to follow a nice route through the state from spring to spring.  Instead, we are meandering around and even doing a bit of backtracking.

I attempted some time at Paynes Prairie, and at Silver Springs, but each of those parks were unavailable for the weeks that I had open, and I had to settle for just three days at Rainbow Springs State Park.  There was much to see and do between Indian Pass and Rainbow Springs, but even with an entire month in this part of Florida we had to pick and choose. 

I did want to see Wakulla Springs, one of the first magnitude springs that has a wonderful history.  I had thought we might kayak the Wakulla River and some of the waters  in St Marks NWR from our location in Indian Pass.  With iffy days and sketchy weather, the 80 plus mile drive to St Marks wasn’t something we chose to do.  Instead, we decided to visit both locations on our traveling day.

It was a truly lovely day, with mostly sunshine and warm temperatures.  Traveling this portion of what is called the Hidden Coast on 2 lane highways is wonderful.  There were times when the roads were completely empty both in front of us and behind us.  I don’t remember roads that empty since we traveled the Alaska Highway back in 2011 and even then not very often.

The parking lot at Wakulla Springs was very nearly empty when we arrived mid-morning.  I had read about the problem with spring pollution in Florida.  One of the memos that I read said to be sure and see Wakulla Springs before it is too late.  Seems as though we waited too long.  Pollution from Tallahassee, only 30 miles away, has reached the spring, with the major contributor being nitrates from lawn fertilizers, and areas around the city that still have septic tanks that aren’t made to deal with the ground water and sandy soils that flow directly into the limestone aquifers that feed the springs in Florida.

The grounds were lovely, and reading about the history of Wakulla Springs was interesting. Archaeological finds at Wakulla Spring, including early stone blades and Clovis spear points, are evidence of humans using the spring an estimated 12,000 years ago. Fossilized remains of mastodon and other prehistoric animals demonstrate that the spring attracted plentiful game for early nomadic people.

Until around 1,000 AD  humans settled close to places like Wakulla Spring, which provided an abundance of water and fish and game. Middens, prehistoric refuse heaps, and other archaeological finds including shells, tools, spear and arrowhead points and other projectiles, are evidence that Wakulla Spring supported small settlements of people over thousands of years.

The history then follows much of our country’s story of Spanish and then English people building missions and eventually destroying the local people and their way of life with introduced diseases and conquests, and by the early 1800’s all the original native people were gone.  In the mid 1800’s, explorers once again “discovered” Wakulla Springs, and many were inclined to develop it as a resort, but that didn’t actually happen until the extremely wealthy Edward Ball purchased the spring and surrounding acreage and built the Wakulla Lodge which opened in 1937.  It wasn’t until 1986 that the State of Florida purchased the park and the spring and it became a state park.

As we walked around the spring, I was saddened by the dark waters.  Not a sign of the spring boil showed beneath the surface.  The area was lovely, but as I put my foot in the water, even at that shallow depth, the discoloration was obvious.   There was a nice swimming area roped off, but the spring run is off limits to boaters for several miles.  Kayaking the Wakulla River isn’t an actual spring run kayak, and with the dark staining of the water, we weren’t all that saddened to have no time do this particular river.

We did enjoy the beautiful classic lodge, with gorgeous craftsmanship, and the fragrance of some lovely seafood cooking wafted toward us from the quite formal looking restaurant.  The lobby was very inviting, with sofas and comfy chairs and a big fireplace and windows looking toward the spring.

I’m glad we stopped for a visit, but also sad that the spring has been degraded so much since the days when it was a location for filming some of the Tarzan movies in the 40’s, Creature from the Black Lagoon in the 50’s and even some scenes from Airport 77 in the 70’s.  Edward Ball resisted turning Wakulla Springs into the kind of tourist attraction that was developed at Silver Springs and Cypress Gardens, which kept the spring as a more natural destination until it eventually became part of the state park system.

We left the springs and continued south and east toward our destination, and within just a few miles we arrived at the entrance to the St Marks National Wildlife Refuge.  This beautiful destination could have been a good choice for us to spend some time, especially if we had chosen to bring along our bikes on this trip.  We took time to go to the beautiful Visitor Center, and enjoyed the ponds.  The trip out to St Marks lighthouse was several miles and we decided to let it go.  Right at the entrance to the refuge was a campground that looked half empty.  Newport Campground is a county campground and might have had a space for us if we had chosen to stay here.

But we had a destination in mind, and our days on the Rainbow River were limited.  I had to pick and choose when planning this trip, and the Rainbow River and Rainbow Springs were big on my list of choices.  We loved seeing what St Marks had to offer and would highly recommend a visit.  In fact, I would recommend a visit to St Marks before a visit to Wakulla Springs.

By mid afternoon we were once again on our way toward Rainbow Springs, traveling Florida’s infamous Highway 19.  The nice thing about 19 in this part of the state is that it is a quiet 2 lane road, with very little traffic and very few stop signs. 

We meandered through the charming small historic town of Dunnellon, fueled up the rig at only $2.20 per gallon.  The signs all say 2.15 for regular, but when you actually start to add fuel, the regular isn’t available.  Still, fuel on this entire trip has been less expensive than any MoHo trip we have enjoyed in the last ten years.

We arrived at the campground just before 5, and the gate was still open.  However, the ranger at the office had called us prior to our arrival to be sure we had the gate code in case we arrived late, a nice touch.  Our campsite number 4, was a bit open, no trees to speak of, and our sitting area was visible from just about everywhere.  What I hadn’t considered when making the reservation, was that we were arriving on the Friday of a 3 day President’s Day weekend, and I didn’t have much chance to be choosy about a site.  With only three days in the park, and with our plans to spend at least two of them on the river, it didn’t matter much at all.

We had power, water, and sewer, but just a mention that the sewer pipe was at the farthest backward extent of the site and required jockeying the rig around so we could dump using just our two connected sewer hoses.  I saw some rigs with very looooong sewer hoses hooked up.

Next up, two days on the gorgeous Rainbow River.