My muscle man and I decided that his birthday weekend would be a great time to take a little long weekend road trip! And since our roommate had Monday off for Martin Luther King Day, he decided to tag along!! With the recent cold snap, I figured that it would be a perfect time to go swim with the Manatees in Crystal River Florida!! I've been before, but my muscle man never has, and it's really such an awesome experience! Of course, since it was his birthday, he decided we would also take a diversion to a cavern about an hour away for a little scuba diving!
There are actually two cave/cavern dive locations we had to choose from, Blue Grotto and Devil's Den. I've actually been to Blue Grotto before, and would have been my choice, but our roommate was with us and not a certified diver, so we decided Devil's Den gave him a cooler swim since he would be down in the cave with us.
This was my our first time diving in an overhead environment, which is admittedly a little more dangerous than I would normally venture, but my muscle man was set on it! So after some assurance from the proprietor that it was safe so long as we stayed in the main chamber we were ready to suit up and dive in. Our roommate stayed at the surface and snorkeled while we went into the icy water, it was quite the experience! I mostly got video inside the cave since our GoPro isn't the best at still photography, especially in a darkened cave.
After our dive, we found the best little local restaurant, they had the most amazing rice-cereal breaded chicken! And mac-n-cheese! And sweet tea in massive mason jars, of course haha!
We spent the rest of the afternoon at Rainbow Springs park, which happened to be on the way between Devil's Den and Crystal River. It was such a cool park, and we were able to bring the puppy with us for some exercise after she had to spend the morning in her kennel in the hotel waiting for us to dive and enjoy lunch. Not only was the park positively gorgeous, our puppy loved it, and was so happy to have so many trails to lead us down into the marshes. We thought about going back the next day for a swim, since the hot springs feed into the river it makes the water quite warm, but never quite got around to it.
Sunday we set out for our manatee tour at day break, and we all felt quite a bit stupid knowing we were about an hour away from jumping into water, considering that there was frost on our car windows! Lucky for us, the river is hot-spring fed, which is why the manatees come into the water in the first place... So the cold was actually good, it would mean more manatees wanted in the warmer water! The sun warmed things a bit, but man the water still stung, even when we got closer to the spring. But the manatees were amazing, my muscle man and our roommate were both like little giggly girls when they started seeing them hehe! And there were a few little pups that were just so cute and so curious, it was so fun and really worth the near hypothermia =P
There were some great trails in the Crystal River area, so we decided to spend the afternoon hiking with the puppy, thankfully it had warmed up quite a bit since our frosty morning, and the sun was awesome at raising our spirits and capping off a great little weekend getaway!
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