Beatin the Heat

Two weeks ago, I went to visit my sister in Florida for a few days.

It was pretty warm and humid down there, as expected. One day we headed to Rainbow Springs to beat the heat. The springs are a perfect place to go on a hot day. Water from the aquifer is constantly bubbling up to the surface, making it completely clear and very cool (averaging about 70-75 degrees, I think). There are lots of these swimming holes all over Florida and up through the 60's and 70's, many of them were made into popular road-side tourist attractions, complete with performing mermaids and glass-bottom boat tours. Rainbow Springs was taken over by the State of Florida in the 70's and now there's a nominal fee of $2 a person to enter the park.

It was really great, there are walking trails, a butterfly garden, the remnants of an old aviary and zoo, and of course the river, which begins at the spring and on which you can take canoes and kayaks. Below is an old map of the amusement park in its heyday.

This is a big part of Florida as I remember it from growing up there. Swampy, kitschy, sunny and replete with alligators, palms, oaks, pines, and Spanish moss. There are other tourist attractions like this that have survived post Disney. A great one is Ponce De Leon's Fountain of Youth in St. Augustine. I find these places fascinating; they're relics of another time in America's history of tourism, but they've persisted, so they also say something about us today and what we think about the past.

On another day, we visited a great pizza place that also has a tourist/junk shop attached.

And this was outisde, so we had to take a photo...

So that's my story. Has anyone else gone on a vacation lately?