Manatee Springs State Park, FL

Sitting in the minivan at the Chiefland Walmart parking lot, checking email and updating this blog. There was no cell signal in the campground. Spent the day exploring Manatee Springs State Park. Some critter visited my tent awning last night (or early morning). Heard a crash but was too sleepy to get out to check. They turned over my trash bin, ate up the rest of my roasted peanuts, opened up a small new bag of salt and pepper pistachios and scattered the nuts around. I guessed they did not like the taste. I should have known better than to leave food and trash out although there were no warning signs in the campground. som

I really like this park, lovely landscape and lots of wildlife around, great hiking trails. Saw lots of buzzards, egrets, commorans, turtles, big carps in the transparent water, a manatee, an alligator, two water snakes next to the swimming area; some deer came by to visit the campsite in the evening.

I met a retired lady at the springs. She is a solo RVer camping in very nice Class B rig. We chatted quite a while, exchanging information. She did a lot of boondocking and said she felt quite safe at parking lots of Walmart and Cracker Barrel. We made plans to do some hiking or swimming tomorrow.