No football games for Mayra, Linda and myself. We headed north for Homasassa Spring State Park. You park and pay to enter the park, and are shuffled onto a boat that takes you down the spring waters to the main attractions.
The manatees are probably their biggest attraction. The park has 6 full time residents that have been rescued over the years. Park volunteers will throw carrots into the water to get them to swim over to the gathering of park visitors. Once the manatees have made their way over, a small talk about them is given.
The park is supposed to be a habitat for native Florida animals, but you will find a hippo in the park. Lu has spent most of his life in FL. I believe we were told he was a regular on one of my favorite shows, Daktari in the 1960's. He was going to get the boot from the park, when Gov. Lawton Chiles made him a citizen of FL in the 1990's. 
It was just heart breaking to see this Eagle try to fly. I don’t know how he lost part of his wing, but he couldn’t get it through his head, he was never going to fly again. The big guy would run back and forth in his area trying to take to the air.
The Flamingos and Sandhill Cranes made me laugh. The racket they made remind me of a story my Mom likes to tell. In 1964 my Dad and Mom took my brother and me to Seattle’s Woodland Park Zoo.
Back then animals were kept in hideous cages. As we walked past the bears, tigers, monkeys, and etc, I screamed, “they’re going to get me!!” The bird weren’t kept in cages.As we approached the noisy water fowl, my cowardly father grabbed my brother’s six year old hand and scrambled out of the area.
My pregnant mother stood in horror watching ducks and geese making their way towards us. She says she could have strangled my two year old neck, when I giggled and said, “Look at the pretty birdies Mommy.”
There are a few birds that seem to have free range of the park, like this black headed vulture. And why wouldn’t they hang out with the rest of the birds. Nothing like a free hand out.
In the Alligator Lagoon, you can look up in the trees and see nesting herons.I just realized, we forgot to make black eye peas.
