Ichetucknee Springs Camping Trip

I promised a post from Ichetucknee Springs this weekend, and here it is. We left Saturday morning and went to O'Leno State Park to camp. I knew rain was in our forecast, but Sunday looked promising so we took a chance. As it were, we set up camp in a slight mist. It wasn't too bad though, we had a great campsite and there were tons of trees to shield us from the elements. I think we all agreed it had been our favorite campsite thus far.

So, after we set up camp, we had some lunch. James taught John how to "properly eat an Oreo", which naturally is to separate the chocolate cookies, and lick the creamy center, then eat the cookie. John picked this up quick. The only part he seems to miss is "eat the chocolate cookie". Instead he likes to throw those on the ground for all of the critters that come along. The rain started to pick up so we decided to take a nap and sleep off the rain, and hopefully when we woke up, we could find something to do. Angie didn't get off until 11:00 the night before, so we all got to bed around 1:00AM or so. It didn't take very long for any of us to fall asleep.

Sure enough, we woke about 2 hours later, and although there had been quite a bit of rain, the sun was out and the rain seemed to be gone. We left for Ichetucknee Springs which is around 10 - 15 minutes away. We decided to spend the afternoon snorkeling and then tube the river the following day. The springs were cold, but so pretty. Although James and I bought wet suits so we didn't have to endure the cold water anymore this summer, which helped tremendously. We got there around 3:00 and around 5:00 we ended up having the entire head spring to ourselves. We all snorkeled, well except for John, and had a great time. Amber snorkeled for the first time and she really enjoyed herself as well. We also went to the blue spring, and although it was pretty, there was a lot of grass on the bottom which didn't make for the best snorkeling experience, but it was okay. After we snorkeled, there was a park across from the head spring and John played on the slide and we swung on the swings. We went back to camp and had dinner.

The following day we went back to Ichetucknee to float down the river. We snorkeled and rafted down until around the halfway point, and then we back to the head spring to snorkel some more. Everything about this trip was great. The only mishap we had was that we ran out of propane for the grill, but luckily there were restaurants nearby for lunch on Sunday. Our next trip is scheduled for July when we are going to Manatee Springs and Fanning Springs. I am really looking forward to that trip, but looking forward to snorkeling the most. I LOVE THE SUMMERTIME!