We’re
hoping to visit the Florida and Georgia State Parks with campgrounds during
short trips every month. This time it was Rainbows Springs. The weather was
cooler than we expected, but we survived. Given all the snow up north, I guess
40’s and 50’s isn’t too bad.
The
park is kind of weird. One section has the campground. There is only one hiking
path there. We hiked that the first day. It was full of palmettos and curvy
live oak trees.
The
whole area was full of spots of sand from pocket gophers. The ranger mentioned
these are like the ones in “Caddyshack”. Cool!
The
next day we biked down to the section for tubing. Tubing was closed for the
season but open to biking. The third section is the one that is full of
things-to-do. The section is only ½ mile away from the camping section, but it
turns out you can’t get there without a car. So, we visited that section on the
final day as we were leaving. This section used to be a tourist attraction with
glass bottom boats, swimming at the springs, a garden, a zoo, and even a
monorail. This all closed when Disney came to Florida and the tourists stopped
coming.
The
area became a state park in the 1990’s. The trails near the visitor center are also a garden with flowers blooming like these azaleas.
The
springs are still open for swimming. We didn’t swim, but we saw some people
heading that way. They say the water is 72 degrees all the time.
The
waterfalls are interesting. The area used to be mined for phosphate. They took
the tailings from the phosphate mines and built several waterfalls. The park
pumps water from the springs up to pools to make the waterfalls. So, very artificial but
it looks gorgeous!
The
remains of the zoo are still here. To us, it looked like dinosaurs could show
up at any time.
We
hiked a couple of miles through the back trails to search for geocaches. There
were several large pits along the trail that we assume were where they mined
for phosphate.
Good
hike!
