Manatee Springs State Park, FL

We've officially left and moved away from Georgia, which means I am happy yet very, very sad. :(
but nonetheless, life shall continue to move on, as it always does. quite frankly.
















Our stop for this weekend was Manatee Springs State Park, which is located in Chiefland, Florida! I unfortunately got sick a few days before moving here, to the point where I couldn't breathe through my noes, my eyes were pink, my head hurt, my throat hurt, and my body was weak.

Which is odd, because I eat like a rabbit. I am super duper healthy and nothing fights down the walls of my immune system! Or at least, not usually, so when I suddenly became sick this suckkkeed.



The first day we arrived at the state park, I just slept, and when I wasn't sleeping I was watching supernatural and eating soup. I was a mess. We also had no wifi, internet, water, or television here. (At least we had electricity!)







Something I loved most about this place was how our campsite was literally dead center in the woods, right in the trees. We're surrounded by birds and forest and deer and that just makes me so incredibly happy.





Also, hence "manatee springs", the park has numerous outlets to the ocean-fed river, which is currently home to tons and tons of manatee at the moment.

The water is over 70 degrees year round and is perfect for swimming! (I can see why the manatee are currently living in these waters) not to mention how crystal clear it is, you can see every fish in this water! How awesome!





The next day, after taking a long hot shower and blowing my nose a few dozen times, I was finally able to make it out the house, despite the fact I felt so sick, I just couldn't miss this day.

The sun was shining and the air was nice and cool. Dad and I went for a walk on the wooden bridge, it goes for almost a mile through the woods, and is alongside the water.














We happened across a hawk, and got very close to it, which is the highlight of my life right there because I mean how often do you get this close to a hawk and snap such an amazing picture.

I loved seeing all of the different animals - such as turtles, manatees, butterflies, hawks, squirrels, blackbirds, fish, and the list goes on.

Walk A' Bout Campground, Woodbine GA

Finally, we've settled into Woodbine, Georgia. Not too far from the Florida line, we're staying in a really nice family-friendly campground for the time being. I have no idea how long we'll be staying here, but at least it got us further south. Because the camper has so many issues, it tends to overheat really bad after going to many miles, and plus dad is worried about it breaking down (again) we tried our best not to over-work the camper.

playground & basketball court,
right across from our camper!

I'm not sure if I like it here in Georgia or not... it's definitely different... but maybe it's a good kind of different. The people here are pretty awesome! The owners of the campground are actually from Australia! :)

Also, I'm pretty excited because we are RIGHT next to the crooked river (that is actually ocean fed water!) the campground has access right to the river, with a board walk and everything. Pretty cool, right?









I'll post more about the campground later, I'm off to explore the area!
Happy Travels to my fellow camping friends.

Storms and power outage

Heatwave, humidity, storms, lightning, thunder, rain, winds, destruction... what a way to start the summer!

It all started on June twenty ninth- Mom and I had just gotten home from attending an event at the state park, when dad announces that "Bad storms are coming" I knew it was going to rain that night, but I didn't realize how bad it would then become. Everyone in the campground started to put their awnings up, I was standing outside when the clouds became black as night, and then the wind started. A wind that was said to be 60-80mph, and I defiantly believe it. The cool breeze was refreshing from the days humidity, but it was so strong I felt as if I'd be lifted off the ground. The trees started dancing in the wind, you could feel the camper shaking and rocking back and forth. I honestly have never seen a wind like this in my life! Tornadoes of dust swirled around in the air, taking rocks and other objects around and around with the dust. My aunt said that her neighbor "had just gotten home when the storm hit" getting out of their vehicle and putting her little three year old daughter on the ground "when the wind literally picked her up, she started flying away!" she had to grab her by the arms, luckily the girl is OK. I could never imagine being picked up by the wind like that.

A tree limb fell right on top of a camper, destroying their awning and creating a large hole in the roof of their camper. Dad went out there with a flashlight, despite the strong winds, many other people went out to join him. After the wind had died down a bit, you could see many flashlights shining in the dark, going all which ways checking out the damage in the campground. By morning many of the people had left and gone home, except for us few that live here. There was four-five generators all running at once, it was so very noisy outside, plus the the fact the temperature was a hundred and ten degrees outside and one hundred percent humidity, it felt miserable. Along the road many huge trees were knocked down in the storm, for almost four days we had no electricity or power. Luckily our motor home as a battery, and we also have a built in generator. Though it still meant no showers or water for awhile!

 

The next day we all pitched in to started cleaning up parts of all fallen trees and branches, no one was hurt here though four campers had branches/trees come down on them. In the area, it was estimated an entire two million people without power, they were opening cooling shelters for people in need. Luckily we've had our power back on for a few days now, though the heat is still tremendously hot, and many people are still without power. People in the stores were fighting over lanterns, bottled water, and water jugs, you could tell they were getting desperate! I am thankful that we are blessed to have cool air conditioning and water.