Silver Springs

This past week was our school system's Spring Break (hooray!). I kept the kids home with me all week and we had several "adventures". Our first adventure was to Silver Springs Park in Ocala, Florida. This is a nature park where the main attraction is- as the name suggests- a natural spring. According to our tour guide, the water that "springs" out of the ground here is 98% pure. I believe it- you could see straight to the bottom. There were several things to do at the park. The kids' favorite was the glass bottom boat tour of the springs. Their eyes were glued to the glass window for the duration of the tour. They would get so excited whenever they spotted fish or turtles. The weather was beautiful during our visit, and so there were several people kayaking in the springs.

Silver Springs offers a variety of activities including a jeep safari ride. For this activity, we loaded into a little trailer pulled by a jeep and ventured into "wild" florida to see various animals. The animals weren't that great, but the jeep ride was fun. The road was good and bumpy, and the kids liked getting bounced around in their seats. After the safari, we visited some of the other animal exhibits. We walked up to the giraffe pen during a designated snack time, and Owen was able to feed some crackers to the giraffe. Olivia wouldn't go near the giraffe. We also were able to see the alligator show. At the end of the show, the kids were able to touch an small alligator.