We headed to De Leon Springs, which is a state park with a natural spring and a fantastic restaurant in an old sugar mill. The restaurant has do-it-yourself pancakes that you cook on griddles built into each table. It's like mixing The Melting Pot with breakfast in a rustic old building. This is a seriously happenin' park ... the wait for breakfast was 2+ hours! We had a good time enjoying the natural beauty of the area while killing time. We took a walk around a nature trail and watched baby S playing in the park.
The pancakes really were worth the wait! Each table gets two pitchers of pancake batter; one with white flour batter and one with a mix of 5 whole grains. You also can order any of several toppings to add to your pancakes ... we chose peanut butter and chocolate chips. After making several different combinations of batters and toppings, Tracie found her new favorite: peanut butter with honey instead of maple syrup!
After finishing a VERY filling breakfast, we headed to Blue Spring State Park, which has another natural spring and is the winter home of many manatees. If you've never seen a manatee, they're difficult to describe, but Floridians call them sea cows. They're quite large animals, but enjoy the shallow, warm water that flows out of the springs and into the St. Johns River. It's a great place for them to go to calve. Another thing that we found amazing was that the manatees stayed under water for 8 minutes, and then popped up for merely a split second for a breath...then it's down again.
After some fun observation and picture time, we headed back to our respective "homes" for a little rest. We met back at Casa de Eggert that evening for dinner. They have an absolutely beautiful home that, looks out on to a lake...for you Phoenicians, it's an honest-to-goodness lake, with water, and not man-made....I know, we were shocked too!
We had a great night...pizza, beer and lots of laughter!
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