Homosassa Springs State Park, FL

February 3-6, 2010 We took a boat to "The Fish Bowl", the biggest fish bowl we've ever seen. In the underwater observatory, we were the fish in the bowl. :)

These gentle, vegetarian giants wander from snack to snack in the fishbowl.

This 10-footer spun and spun and spun around the viewing station.

Caretakers supplement the manatees's diet of sea greens with vegetables, like lettuce, and vegetable pellets. Each manatee eats about 10% of it's body weight each day: 200 pounds of lettuce! That's a lot of salad...

It seems they have three modes: eat mode, play mode and relax mode.

This 6+ footer swam to the shallows until its belly could rest on the sand so they could sun their back.

Because it's been unseasonably cold in Florida for the past few months, Florida is experiencing their largest "manatee kill" ever. The placid mammals just can't handle the cold. Sad.

These ominous gators fare better:

A boardwalk trails through the park by a large waterfowl pond as well as birds of prey, native mammal and reptile exhibits and more, including an obviously not native hippopotamus left over from a circus. Florida residents balked at the plan to euthanize the hippo when the circus closed. Now it's a naturalized Floridian citizen.

Flamingos:

Egrets:

Sandhill crane:

The one redeeming quality of Nature's Resort RV Park (there's nothing "resort" about it) is across the street: Marguerita Grill which features margaritas as big as our heads and interesting eats.

And that's our Homosassa experience.

-P