“There’s one!” I pointed.

The rest of the passengers on our glass bottom boat swiveled their heads to the rear of the craft, where a large mass floated beneath the surface: a manatee!

The guide gently reversed and drifted over the creature, and we could see him (her?) grazing on the grasses at the bottom of the river.

Those two blobs are manatees

My heart lifted, as we looked down into the crystal water, or up to the cobalt sky dusted with puff-ball clouds, or to the river’s banks where cypress trees dipped their toes into the turquoise water. Anhingas dried their wings and alligators lounged in the sun. For 90 minutes, we moved slowly up and down the Silver River on a glass bottom boat, while our guide told us about the springs, the wildlife, and the history of the park.  After a year of pandemic precautions, stress, and upheaval, it felt so good to be out exploring in the world.

Sometimes conditions combine to create a situation that is more than the sum of its parts. My recent visit to Silver Springs State Park was one of these experiences.

Anhinga

It started when my friend Kerri, a teacher from Washington State declared she was coming to Florida for her spring break following completion of her Covid-19 vaccinations. We’ve made it a habit to try to see each other once a year, often on her spring breaks, when we meander around the country exploring (and, of course, catching up on what’s been happening in our lives). Because of Covid and other factors, we hadn’t seen each other in three years! That’s a lot of catching up.

We decided this year to meander up central Florida and into the panhandle, where she planned to meet some friends she’d known since high school. I was game, so we set out. Our first destination is the subject of today’s Field Trip Friday.

Silver Springs

Silver Springs was one of the first tourist attractions in Florida—glass bottom boats have plied the 5.4-mile river since the 1870s and the story goes that they were invented here. But once Disney, Sea World and Universal Studios opened theme parks in the Orlando area, visitors began to drop off. The river also suffered from environmental problems associated with fertilizer runoff and septic outflow (eww). In 2013, the Florida Park Service took over control of the attraction, and merged it with the adjacent Silver River State Park, creating the current Silver Springs State Park. The Park Service seems to have done a great job restoring and preserving the river. Hiking, mountain biking, equestrian trails, camping, and various educational exhibits complete the state park complex.

A glass bottom boat tour is a great way to explore the river (choose from 30- and 90-minute options), but if you prefer, you can rent a canoe, kayak, or paddleboard. No swimming is allowed. Thirty springs make up the Silver Springs group, and the largest one, Mammoth Spring, provides about 45 percent of the flow of water.

Glass bottom boat

But we didn’t come to Silver Springs to look at water. We were hoping to see the animal “trifecta”: alligators, manatees, and believe it or not, monkeys.

We knew there’d be no problem seeing alligators. Here’s one for your viewing pleasure:

Say “cheese”

And as you know from the intro, we were lucky enough to see manatees, too. But monkeys? Why are there even monkeys at the park? Well, it seems that in 1938, entrepreneur Colonel Tooey decided to bring monkeys to Silver Springs to enliven his Jungle Cruise boat ride. He placed his primates on an island in the river, not realizing that the monkeys could swim (apparently he thought he was buying non-swimming squirrel monkeys rather than the rhesus macaques he wound up with). All the monkeys escaped the island, and their descendants swing through the trees along the Silver River, as well as spreading out into the Ocala National Forest and other areas. (The monkeys can be aggressive and some carry a virus harmful to people, so we weren’t tempted to get close to them. This photo was taken with a long camera lens!)

Silver Springs on the silver screen

You may have caught glimpses of Silver Springs on the silver screen. Scenes from Rebel Without a Cause, Moonraker, Creature From the Black Lagoon, six Tarzan movies, and Sea Hunt were all shot here. In fact, you can still see props from several shows in the clear water, including sunken statues used in the 1960s Bill Cosby/Robert Culp show I Spy.

“Nothing is so personal as happiness; each soul is fitted for a joy entirely individual; often a whole life is required to discover it.”

—Jeanne de Vietinghoff, The Understanding of Good

What are some things that make you happy? 

One thing that makes me happy—travel/road trips! I just returned from a quick road trip with my friend Kerri (she’s fully vaccinated and I’m halfway there), and there would have been a Field Trip Friday today except that I’ve been wrestling with my computer much of last night and today. First it hid my photos, then it ate my blog post. Twice. So stay tuned—trip adventures and photos to follow. (I took the one above on Panama City beach.)

Javier Allegue Barros on Unsplash

It’s been about a year since the COVID-19 pandemic upended our lives. And it’s also been a year, if you know what I mean. In addition to a pandemic, so many other awful things happened—or were revealed—during 2020. I’ve been trying to come up with some thoughts to mark the occasion, but the document for this post has been open on my computer for two weeks! The Year That Must Not Be Named has left me speechless.

Well, almost. Here are a few thoughts…

Surviving, not thriving

Most of us have experienced a year of isolation, confusion, frustration, fear, and sorrow. But if we’ve been lucky, it’s also been a year of small pleasures, slowing down, and deep thankfulness. Pretty much the same as any year, but much more intense. Anyone who lived through 2020 has likely been changed forever in some way. Think about what you were looking forward to at the start of last year, the things that took up much of your attention. How have they changed? What has become more important to you, or less so?

I’m disappointed that I didn’t produce any brilliant work, make sourdough bread, or learn a new skill (I did complete a year of French practice on Duolingo. Je regrette to say I’m nowhere near being skillful, let alone fluent). But I did keep our household stocked with food and other essentials (including toilet paper) and we all survived, even my husband who actually had COVID. For me, 2020 was about surviving. Some seasons of life are just about surviving, and perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised by that. 2021 has not been much different yet, but there are signs that things are slowly changing.

A shot in the arm

Last week I got my first dose of vaccine against COVID. My planner is starting to fill up again, with a haircut here, and an outdoors coffee date there. I’m taking a Florida road trip with my friend Kerri. And while I haven’t reserved the ticket yet, I’m tentatively planning a trip to visit my mom in California sometime later this year. Provided it seems relatively safe to do so.

And while last year was mostly a long, slow nightmare, no experience is wasted—even the pandemic ones. As we stumble toward a new normal (should we call it “nermal” with apologies to Garfield cartoonist Jim Davis?), ask yourself, “What have I learned about myself this past year? How has it changed me? Have I made changes I want to bring forward into the future? 

I still feel like I’m picking up the pieces of my life and trying to fit them into a new pattern. Nothing gets put back in without scrutiny. Does it belong here? Or here? Or maybe it doesn’t fit at all anymore. This is going to take some time.

Szilvia Basso on Unsplash

“Belief in happiness is not an illusion of youth, as is often assumed, but the experience of a force that grows and triumphs over reality. The more our feeble hope is flung and broken against the deceptions of life, the more surely will it rise powerful and transformed.”

—Jeanne de Vietinghoff, The Understanding of Good