Silver Springs

Silver Springs is an old theme park about an hour's drive south of my parents' house in Ocala. Silver Springs isn't a fancy, modern amusement park like Disney World, but an old-fashioned park that is part zoo and part nature park with a hint of amusement park atmosphere mixed in.

The following description of Silver Springs is courtesy of Wikipedia:

Silver Springs is the site of one of the largest artesian spring formations in the world, producing nearly 550 million gallons of crystal-clear water daily. Since at least the mid 19th century, the natural beauty of Silver Springs has attracted visitors from around the country. Glass bottom boat tours of the springs began in the late 1870s. In the 1920s, Carl Ray and W.M. Davidson made the land around the headwaters of the Spring into something resembling the attraction that is there today, now known as the Silver Springs Nature Theme Park. The attraction features native animal exhibits and glass bottom boat tours of the springs.


We visited Silver Springs on Saturday, which was a rainy and overcast day. Fortunately for us the rain stopped temporarily mid-afternoon so we were able to put away our ponchos for a couple of hours and explore the outside exhibits. One of our favorites was the glass bottom boat ride (boat pictured above). Looking down towards the bottom of the boat you could see all sealife and grasses underneath, as well as the deep craters of rock that line the natural springs.

Outside the boat you could see the swamp, trees with lovely spanish moss, as well as several types of birds and ducks.
The jeep ride through the animal wilderness was also a favorite attraction. The trailer attached to the Jeep could hold about 30 passengers, making this for an intimate (and very bumpy!) ride. The more dangerous animals were caged but most of them roamed freely on the surrounding land.
We saw acrobatic monkeys.And llamas!And a kodiak bear! These bears were HUGE.The one traditional theme park ride was the "Lighthouse Ride", which was a tall tower with ferris wheel-type cars that revolved pretty high in the air. I took this photo when we were up at the highest point. Notice the glass bottom boat in the water way below.Amelia and John tried to feed the giraffe, but she wasn't hungry.While it was raining we spent time indoors hopping from one animal show to the other. First was the nonvenemous snakes show, followed by the creature feature show (tarantulas, bats, and spiders!).The animals in the shows were not exactly my cup of tea, but the shows were interesting and we were dry in the show pavillions.

Also in the park that day was a local Scottish games festival. We enjoyed watching the participants engage in traditional Scottish games, such as log throwing, axe pitching, and other labor-intense "games". The men and women in traditional dress were interesting too. One of my favorites was "Big Daddy" (see below). And yes, that is a woman two persons to Big Daddy's left.

Who feeds these people? Many of them were quite large, with tatoos and sleeveless shirts (not my favorite for men) to boot. Thankfully John didn't show any interest in wanting to dress like these guys.

Despite the rain, we had a nice time on our outing to Silver Springs!