4. Blue Springs - August 22, 2009

Tom and I ventured to one of our favorite spots this weekend - Blue Springs! I love this place because it has the biggest spring area to swim in that I have seen so far, which means the people are all spread out. There are two different entry points, both of which are a little ways from the spring. The second entryway is probably a few hundred yards away. It is more of an adventure because you have to swim from one area to get to the spring. Tom and I also brought our mask and snorkel, so we were able to dive down and look at the spring a few times. There are a lot of big trees underwater, so it is fascinating to look at those. The reason you cannot enter Blue Springs at the spring is because of the cliff area that surrounds it, which is caused by erosion.

We did camp there on Saturday night, which was $22.00. There is a nice restroom facility with showers and all of the campsites are private. What is nice about Blue Springs is even though the spots are private with shrubbery, there is a path cut between each one so that people can easily move from campsite to campsite if they desire.

On site there is also an old Florida home, circa the late 1800's. This house was built at Blue Springs because it feeds directly into the St. John's River, making the area accessible by water. For those of you that remember your history, all the first towns in an area used to develop by the water, because that was the only way to recieve supplies. The house had a lot of items on display and signs. One interesting fact was that up to four steamboats would come to the area every day! This made the owners of the house part tourism, part postman, and part supplier for the rest of the town. The demise of this area came when Henry Flagler built his famous railway in Florida. Then people started travelling that way and only one or two steamboats came through the area, then none at all.

The first time we came to Blue Springs, we also took our kayaks out on the St. John's river. There is a nice put-in spot in the second parking lot. You have to drag the boat a little ways though.

In other news, we found out Tom passed his teaching exam the day we were at Blue Springs!

I love Blue Springs! Until next time,

The camping bug