Rainbow Springs State Park, Dunnellon, Florida

Rainbow Springs is a very nice park!  If you're trying to find the campground, use the Dunnellon High School on SW 180th for GPS reference.  The Rainbow Springs Headsprings State Park is located several miles away from the campground.  Our campsite was a nice concrete pad with full hookups.  The Headsprings looked similar to Salt Springs however this is a 500 million gallon per day of fresh (not salt) water spring:

The park had several nice waterfalls to check out:

While we were staying in Rainbow Springs, Charlie & Janet joined us to check out nearby "The Villages" - which looks like a nice place to retire, a 2nd visit to Salt Springs and Rainbow Springs park where we were staying:

The river here offers tubing, kayaking, diving, swimming and small boating activities.  We were able to put our kayak in at the campground and paddle upstream to the headsprings and then float back to camp (1.5-2hr round trip).  Along the way we saw hundreds of turtles - some sunning with their feathered friends:

This otter followed us up stream for a ways:

We saw many turtle parties along the river banks working on perfecting the turtle pyramid:

Here's a look at the headsprings area from the water:



We saw several ducks along the way but none as colorful as these woodducks:

And these snake-like creeping birds would slither along the surface with their heads only above water before diving for small fish:

If you looked closely as you passed by the clumps of grass that just reached the waters surface you would see lots of little turtle heads sticking up:

We also saw a huge turtle (logger-head we believe) which reminded us both of a certain Bickford family member (we won't mention any names but we nick-named the turtle Teddy):

To give you some idea of how clear the water is from our kayak, here's a little video:

And what looked like a lot of fun (except perhaps for the fact there were gators around) were the people cruising the river with scuba gear (water is always 72 degrees):

This Anhinga hung out on the same boat ramp water hazard every day . . . this day it did a little dance for us:

Rainbow Springs campground had several armadillos throughout the area:

 And when we hit Salt Springs with Charlie & Janet we may not of seen as much wildlife as our 1st visit (perhaps they've migrated south to warmer weather) but we did still see the fish jumping:

along with some exotic birds that we've yet to identify:

and several manatee kicking around, hundreds of different fish in the springs and not as many as last visit but still many different birds.  Still a good take in February!!! 

On our way back from Salt Springs to Rainbow Springs, we stopped at Alexander Springs.  Similar springhead area as the others.  Some wildlife to see - mostly birds including this hawk:

This looked like a nice place to kayak.  They do allow you to bring your own or rent from them.  We decided to pass on kayaking today but would recommend checking it out!

Another day we took a short trip to Crystal River State Preserve to do there 9 mile bike trail.  We saw 2 deer, an opossum and several winged creatures while in the park.  There was a nice ramp for kayaking here too.  The 1st 5 miles of the bike trail were hard packed sand and grass but after that the ground softened up and it felt like you were riding with 2 flat tires.  Great work out!

We're now off to Amelia Island and St. Augustine in the Jacksonville, FL area for the next 10 days . . . more to come