Crystal River, Florida (12/25/2005) (We visit Busch Gardens)

This week we spent Monday evening at the Christmas light display at the Homosassa Springs Wildlife State Park. It was lovely. In addition to the lights we saw the some of the 5 female manatees who live at the park. On Tuesday, we drove to Busch Gardens in Tampa. We had a great day. We first took the train around the Serengeti to see the animals. The animals run free so at one point the train had to wait for a giraffe to move off the tracks. I rode on 2 of the roller coasters: Sheikra and Montu. They were great, very smooth. SheiKra goes up 200 ft, comes to the edge of the drop, pauses, then drops 90°. I was in the front row, awesome. Montu has great corkscrews and circles. I was in the back row for this one. The park had lots of animals, especially birds. All 4 of us (Rich and Sue, Bob and Connie) went on the Rhino Rally (a fun and unexpected bus ride) and Congo River Rapids (a river raft water ride where Bob and Connie got soaked). We also saw R L Stine’s Haunted Lighthouse (a 4D theater presentation), and Katanga (a very nice live theater presentation) All in all a very nice day.

On Friday, we went back to Homosassa Springs Wildlife State Park to see the manatees during daylight. We started with a 20 minute ride on a boat up Pepper Creek. Then we walked around the park. We listened to a volunteer talk about the manatees while he fed some of the resident manatees. We also saw the manatees from the underwater viewing area. Then we continued walking around the park including the gate separating the park from the wild river. The park also has lots of birds (many free), a hippo, alligators, turtles, black bears, fox, and otters. etc. The weather was very nice so we had another nice day.

Saturday night we had dinner with Bob and Connie and then went to a Christmas eve campfire with some nearby RV’rs. We spent the evening sharing stories of our travels and learning the best places to stay as we travel up the east coast. We had a great time.