I actually slept until 5:00 this morning! Progress!
Eventually I got up and had a granola bar and then I started getting ready for the day while Nick woke up. We were both excited for today!
I think we were on the road somewhere between 7:30 and 8. Slightly later than I’d hoped, but not too bad. Thankfully the drive was pretty uneventful, even with the time of day, and thanks to I-4 Express Lanes, we reached our first destination just about an hour after leaving the resort.
So what was our first destination of the day? Blue Spring State Park. The winter home of the manatees. Blue Spring is a natural spring, that stays a consistent temperature year round. It connects to the Saint John River, which experiences temperature fluctuations. When the river cools below a certain temperature, it’s too cold for the manatees that call the river home. So they make their way into the spring for the warmer water. My mom and I came here in 2012, on a day with about 65 manatees in the spring, and it was an incredible experience.
The week before our vacation (aka Masshole vacation week) had been quite warm, so there had only been a couple manatees in the spring each day. But the weekend had been cool, so the river temperature had dropped, and on Sunday they had counted hundreds of manatees in the spring. So we were optimistic that we’d see some today, in light of the rain and cool temperatures the day before.
Sure enough, when we arrived at the entrance booth, the A-frame said they’d counted 149 manatees in the spring today! Sweet! We paid, and drove into the park, excited for this experience.
We were early enough that we easily found parking. Once parked, we hopped out of the car and headed for the very first overlook. And we saw manatees!!
We stayed here for quite awhile, watching the manatees and listening to a park employee explain their movement and all about them in general. We both were fascinated. It really is awesome to observe these gentle giants in their natural environment.
Eventually we continued on along the pathway. We had some other views of the manatees, but the best views were definitely at the first overlook today. We got some good views of the spring itself, poked around the gift shop, and worked our way back to the car eventually, by way of some additional manatee views. Blue Spring was absolutely worth the visit! And pro-tip, they update their facebook page about every afternoon in the winter with the manatee count, so you can see how things are trending if you’re trying to decide whether to go or not.
The park filled in quickly, so it definitely paid to get there early (I think we were there within about an hour of the park opening). By the time we left, people entering were being directed to a secondary parking lot.
Once back in the car, we headed for our next destination. It was about a 30 minute drive over to DeLeon Springs State Park. When we got here, we debated for about 30 seconds when we saw that the restaurant wait time was posted as being over an hour, but then we paid the entrance fee, knowing we were at a park and could walk around to kill time.
Once parked, we headed straight to the Old Spanish Sugar Mill to get on the waitlist. It took awhile to be added to the waitlist, but the hostess said she thought we would be seated in 10-15 minutes since we were only a party of 2. Apparently a tour bus had shown up, and that’s why the wait was so long for most people.
When we were finally on the list, we wandered a bit. Of course it started raining while we were wandering, so we ended up spending some of the wait just hanging under a big tree to lessen the rain we were getting hit with, but…at least it’s not snow?
We got the phone call and text that a table was ready within about 15 minutes of getting added to the list, so we headed straight inside. Once inside the hostess flagged us down and directed us to our table.
So why were we here? Well, on that same manatee viewing day in 2012, my mom and I came here, on advice from one of the people I worked with. The Old Spanish Sugar Mill is a unique restaurant. They serve food that they cook for you, but the big draw is the cook your own pancakes. Every table has a built in griddle, and you can order from a few different batter types, with different pancake mix-ins. They bring the batter and mix-ins to the table, and you cook your own pancakes. This used to be VERY inexpensive (like $5 a person). The price has…just about doubled since I was last there, but it still is pretty inexpensive in the world of eating out, and it’s a unique concept. Also, I remembered the pancakes were pretty good, and Nick has wanted to experience this since I came home talking about it. So it was time!
Nick ordered the monthly special of raspberry chocolate chip pancakes and I got their multigrain pancakes with strawberries to mix in. Nick also got an order of their corn beef hash. The batter and hash arrived pretty quickly, and we got to work making pancakes. It was fun and everything was delicious!
When we finished brunch, it was still raining, so we headed for the car.
Once in the car we had decisions to make. I ruled out going to the other spring that had been on my list for today, because I had dressed for the forecast, not the reality, so I was kinda cold, and I was done with rain without a raincoat. So, the question was…head straight back to Orlando, or detour about 40 minutes over to Daytona Beach for our first Buc-ees experience.
Nick’s response? “Wait, there’s a Buc-ees around here?! BUC-EES!!”
Yeah, that’s what I figured. Buc-ees had actually been on the original plan for this trip, when I’d been planning an overnight in Saint Augustine, before I added extra theme parks to the trip. So…it had been on the radar. We’ve been trying to get to a Buc-ees for awhile while traveling. So…it’s time.
The drive over to Daytona was easy, and Buc-ees certainly was easy to find. WOW that place is huge!!
Buc-ees really was an experience. We were blown away by all the stuff (and food variety) that they sell, and also how clean the place is. I understand why Buc-ees is so popular. We left with lots of different snacks and seasonings to try.
Once done exploring Buc-ees, we headed back to Orlando. At this point in the day, the drive wasn’t bad, with the exception, obviously, of the area around the theme parks. So, it was an uneventful drive back to the condo. As an added bonus the sun had finally come out!
Back at the condo, we decided to explore the resort. We really hadn’t wandered at all yet. It was a beautiful resort!
Part way through our wandering, we used the pedestrian gate access to get over to the Vineland outlets to check those out. We went into the Character Warehouse, Columbia and some candy store. Unique Peeps for my Peeps-obsessed MIL were the only purchases made, and pretty soon we were completing our tour of the resort.
When we made it over to the main pool, we grabbed seats at the pool bar and got drinks. Nick got a Lushy Lemonade, and I got a mango hurricane I think. Both drinks were great, and we enjoyed just sitting outside having a beverage. We also looked over the food menu and agreed that we needed to eat here at some point during the week.
Drinks consumed, we headed back to our condo, where we settled in for an evening of reading, watching TV, snacking on Buc-ees beaver nuggets, and eating some leftover pizza. And then I crashed early, because I’m old or something.
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