Ginnie Springs Camping Trip

I posted early last week that we (Me, James, Angela and John Wesley) were going camping this past weekend. Our original plan was to go to Silver Glen Springs, but apparently you have to book 4 days in advance, and I didn't get it done in time. So we decided to go to Ginnie Springs instead. It turned out to be a great trip and we decided we would just go to Silver Glen when Amber comes down instead.

We left Saturday morning, and it didn't take long for John Wesley to fall asleep. I thought this would have been a great "after camping" photo, but wouldn't you know he didn't sleep one little bit on the way back?

We arrived at Ginnie Springs around 10:30 or so Saturday morning; it is only about 2 hours away from Jacksonville. It was kinda of interesting because, usually when James and I go camping, you reserve a camp site. Their campsites are all on a first come first serve basis. So you just pay and go find your self a campsite. We ended up with a great site. Very large, not surrounded by campsites, across from the Devil's Eye and Devil's Ear springs, and right near a bath house. It was the perfect location I thought. So we got there and setup camp, had lunch and were ready to play by 1 or 2:00.

James had never been snorkeling before, so last week we picked up some snorkel gear. We chose to go snorkeling right across from where we were camped. There is big yellow sign that says "DANGEROUS CAVE Divers have died here", which was very comforting. It turned out to be so beautiful! If you click on the picture to the right of James and I snorkling, you can see a dark spot on the right hand side of the picture. That is one of the caves. There were tons of divers there all weekend, looking at all of the caves. James got the hang of snorkeling quickly, and was able to go under and get a closer look. The water is so clear and pretty and you can see so much detail. They have a total of 6 or 8 springs there, and they each have their own caves. It really makes you want to go get your divers certification and go diving.

Wesley wasn't too excited about the water. The water there is 72 degrees year round for those of you that are not familiar with springs. The first day didn't go so well for him, so we went back to camp after a few hours and started on dinner. We brought Wesley's shovels and buckets, and he had a great time with that. As you can see he got very dirty, and stayed that way the majority of the weekend. We snorkeled a few more holes later that day and relaxed at camp.

The next day we wanted to tube down the Santa Fe River. So we got our tubes and off we went. We were a little nervous about Wesley, since he didn't do well the day before. But, I carried him on my tube and he had alot of fun before he fell asleep. In his defense, it was hard not to. It was so relaxing. Angela swam and James snorkeled down the river. John and I hung out on the rafts and enjoyed ourselves. They say it takes about 1 hour and 15 minutes to go down the river, but we got hungry after about 2 hours and didn't end up completing the whole thing. We stopped at springs along the way and snorkeled around. We weren't in any hurry at all.

We got back to camp and had lunch and hit a couple more springs, and then headed home around 5:30 or so. All in all it was a very relaxing weekend. We didn't see any alligators, and we only saw one snake. I look forward to our next trip, as I am sure everyone else in our party does!

We all agreed that it would be alot of fun if we got a larger group of the family together and went. I think we are planning our next big trip in July, and there are cabins almost anywhere we go, if people do not want to sleep in a tent. If anyone has any interest on going, or any suggestions on the location, please either leave a comment here, or send me an email.