Shell Mound & Manatee Springs State Park - (Cedar Key, FL)

It was a nice day, but we were both still not feeling well.  Neither of us had much energy, but we had enough to do a little driving.

About ten miles from us is a place called Shell Mound which is part of the Lower Suwanee National Wildlife Refuge.

This Shell Mound is the largest remaining shell mound on the central Gulf coast.  It covers 5 acres and rises 28 feet above sea level.  It's almost 6,000 years old and was created over a 3,500-year period from oyster shells, clam shells, turtle shells, and fish and animal bones discarded from the various "shell cultures" that lived in the area.

There are a couple of short trails at Shell Mound and there is a bench overlooking the marshes and the Gulf near the above sign.  We sat on the bench for a few minutes taking in the view.

At the end of the gravel road in the Shell Mound Unit, there is a boat launch and boardwalk leading out to an observation deck/fishing pier (in the above photo).

We had visited shell mounds before, and while historically interesting, they are basically small bluffs along the coastal areas, and we probably wouldn't know they were "shell mounds" unless there was a sign telling us.  :)

Now, just outside the entrance to the Shell Mound Unit is a small county campground - the Levy County Shell Mound Campground & Boat Ramp.  That's not an "official" link, but it is a nice little review with photos that I found.

I wanted to check out that campground, which is the main reason we drove to Shell Mound.  It's a first come, first served campground with 28 sites.  Some of the sites have water and 30-amp electric hook-ups ($15.30 per night), some sites have 30-amp electric only ($10 and change), and some sites have no hook-ups ($5 and change).

The 28 sites are packed into a pretty small area so, with a few exceptions, you are really close to your neighbor.  The sites are a combination of grass and gravel and some aren't very level.  But many of the sites will hold larger rigs, and if you want to spend some time on the "Nature Coast" and spend a half to a third of the cost of the area RV parks, it's not a bad place.

It certainly doesn't have the "it" factor and there is a public boat ramp right in the middle of the campground.  Still, it's a budget option for staying in the Cedar Key area.  :)

From Shell Mound, we drove another 20 miles north to Chiefland to visit Manatee Springs State Park.

We drove around each of the two campground loops.  Yikes.  Some of the sites were large enough for big rigs, but it wouldn't be any fun getting a big rig through those very narrow roads and getting parked.  We'll cross that state park off our list of possible places to camp.  :)

Just beyond the campground is a large parking lot.  It's a short walk to the springs which produces an average of 100 million gallons of water per day.

The springs and the spring run which meanders a short distance out to the Suwannee River ....

are popular for swimming, snorkeling, scuba diving, and paddling.  However, the run is closed to boats from December 1 to March 30 for manatee protection.

The temps were in the 60s, but the spring water stays around 72 degrees.  Still, we were surprised to see a few people swimming.  :)

There is a boardwalk along the spring run that goes out to an observation deck on the Suwannee.

A ranger had told us they have only been seeing a couple of manatees where the run meets the river.  All we saw was a flock of Black Vultures roosting in the trees and bathing in the river.  :)

It was a rather short, uneventful stay at Manatee Springs State Park.  On the way out, we did see two deer "browsing" near the road.

 

We're still experimenting with this video thing, but what we're finding is even short videos take a very, very long time to upload at the speeds we are dealing with on the road.  We took videos of our drives through the campground loops at both Shell Mound and Manatee Springs, but they were taking much too long to upload.  I guess we'll eventually figure it out.  :)

After the park visit, we went into Chiefland where we stopped at this produce stand to pick up some fresh citrus.

The sweet navel oranges are quite good.  :)

From there, we went to the Super Walmart in Chiefland to re-stock our groceries and over-the-counter meds.  By the time we were finished with that, we were both pretty worn out even though we hadn't really done anything.  :)

On the way back to the RV park, we drove the nine-mile Nature Drive in the Lower Suwannee National Wildlife Refuge.  Well, that was about the most boring drive we've had at any NWR.  We saw a couple of armadillos, but we could see those along just about any road.  :)

You would think the nature drive would go along the coast or at least some marsh area, but it doesn't, at least the main road doesn't.  There are a couple side roads we didn't take.

Back home, we plopped down for the evening.  We're feeling better, but just very little energy.  Tomorrow is supposed to be in the 70s, so we hope the energy comes back and we continue to improve.  :)

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Comments

[J.C. Webber III]

About the video...
What format are you using? Have you tried H.264 (also known as MPEG-4). It is a higher compression format that results in higher quality video per byte. Check it out.

[Sherry]

Great to see the pictures of places we visited not long ago. Thanks Howard.

I've got a second opinion in case there are folks who didn't read our blog about visiting Shell Mount, staying in the Campground and at Rainbow Springs State Park... www.directionofourdreams.blogspot.com

We loved shell mound especially seeing the sunset from the bench. It's a short trail but since it is nearly all shell, I suspect we would have known it was a "shell mound" without the sign just from that and the fact that it was a "hill" in flat Florida.

Kayaking from the boat launch is great. I don't think David lost a camera there. :-)

As for the county campground...not so much. Very few flat sites as we detailed on our blog, very early very noisy air boats every day and bugs bugs and more bugs. Also local wild boar visit often.

We did enjoy Manatee Springs very much especially the kayaking from there. We found their sites easy to get in with our 34' Winnebago and the park was so far superior to the county park that we were sorry we left it to move there. We didn't think Cedar Key was worth more than one visit anyway. (details on that are in the blog too)

Of course, we weren't feeling under the weather, we were there in mid-October and the kayaking was good. Isn't it great that we all have different likes and dislikes and can find just the places that suit us each best.

[Roland & Nancy Ballow]

Great pictures of Manatee Springs. Brings back some great memories of a pleasent spot to dive and snorkle on our way to Crystal River in years past. Hope you two get to feeling better soon.

[Rick Larson]

Try Anne's Cafe, just a small little place on the left side of 24 going in towards town. Small, place easy to miss, has a deck with tables on the right side of it. Not bad, had breakfast there a couple times during our stay. Best to you both.

[steve]

The reason for the slow upload is you bought
a hi definition camera. Their not very useful on the internet. Too much data. And you can't send hi def. in emails. i read the
link you put in the blog to this camera.
It said the format was h264. and then i read
it also did avi.If you want to use windows mov. maker which is super good for editing vidios. You'll have to convert the videos to
wmv format. Movie Maker won't reconize the other formats. You may be able to download a free video converter off the web. Sounds like a nice camera. Especialy with the stabilization feature.

[Howard]

Hi J.C. & Steve,

I figured out a few things. I downloaded this free program (http://www.h264encoder.com/) and it allows me to quickly convert the video into various sizes and quality using the H.264 format.

Now, I'm able to upload the videos more quickly into our SmugMug galleries and embed them. The Kodak Playsport comes with Arc Soft Media Impressions editor - I'm still practicing with that. :)

Thanks for the tips!