Old Florida Attractions

Today, I went to the girlfriend's company picnic at Rock Springs State Park over in Apopka. This was kind of cool for me, as when I was in Scouts, we used to go camping at Rock Springs every once in a while, so I had gotten to know the park pretty well. Today, I got to take the littlest one for a hike through the scrub forest around the long way from the picnic area to the spring. We then spent time standing on the rocks just downstream from the spring talking about nature.

It was really an enjoyable afternoon, even though I missed the Miami Dolphins game.

But it also reminded me of the post I was intending to write the last time I found out that I had been locked out of the site.

At the time, I had been intending to write on the fight to save Weeki Wachee Springs over near Tampa. It had been just about ready to close due to a lack of funds and there was a great campaign on to save it (which was successful for the time being).

For those of you who have never been to Florida, or who have only come to visit Disney or Universal or Sea World, you've really missed the true flavor of Central Florida.

When I was a little kid, some of my stronger memories are of looking through the brochure stands in the service plazas on the Florida Turnpike. They had brochures for everything from alligator wrestling and airboat rides to all the major tourist attractions in the state. But there were always a few brochures that seemed to stand out a little more than others (at least to a little kid).

Weeki Wachee Springs with its "live mermaids" was one the most memorable. I always wanted to make a trip over there, just to see the show and to see if it was really as good as the brochure made it seem to be.

There was also Silver Springs with their glass bottom boats, St. Augustine with its old city and fort, Cypress Gardens with its water-skiers, Bok Tower, Citrus Tower, Marineland and Gatorland. The list just seemed to go on and on and on. They were almost all old time Florida roadside attractions. They were almost never close to an interstate, but they were almost all right off one of the US highways crossing the state.

They are the attractions that the original tourists to Florida saw. They are not the anti-septic, always the same attractions like Disney and its ilk. Instead they were a reflection of the uniqueness and eccentricity of the state.

But they have been slowly dying off. As I said before, Weeki Wachee was just saved from being shut down. Cypress Gardens did shut down, although as the above link for it indicates, it was recently purchased by a conservation organization that wants to keep it in its current state. Outside of Gatorland, I'm guessing that the vast majority of my non-Floridian readers have probably never heard of Bok Tower or the Citrus Tower. Most people are probably aware of St. Augustine, but maybe not of the history in the city (among other things, it's been under five flags in its days). Most people are probably familiar with Marineland, but they most likely think of Marineland Miami, not the St. Augustine one.

As me and the little one were walking through the scrub, I pointed out to him that that was what Florida is really like. Not the Disney, not the Universal, not the city of Orlando or South Beach in Miami. The true Florida is different, it isn't of pavement, glamour, and glitz. It's spider webs, artesian springs, pine trees, and palm bushes. The old Florida has a beauty all of its own.

I've never been to Weeki Wachee Springs, the most memorable of the memorable brochures from my childhood. One day, sooner rather than later, I'm going to make a point of taking the kids over so that we can all experience it together. It may be corny, but I don't care. These places are disappearing and they're a part of my childhood, a curiosity, which I need to experience before it is no more.

I remember on April 14th, when Cypress Gardens closed, feeling terrible that I had never made a point of taking the kids down to see it. I went there on field trips from school as a kid, but the schools stopped taking kids that far anymore - not for nature stuff. From where we are, 10 miles north of Orlando, the schools won't even take the kids to Leu Gardens, even though it is just around the corner from the Orlando Science Center - a place where my kids have already gone to several times each on field trips.

Maybe these places aren't as exciting as the Science Center, but they are an important part of the history in the state. They help to show that eccentricity among native Floridians is not a new phenomenon. They are a physical link back to the Old Florida in both a historical sense and a natural one.

Want to know what Florida is really like? Avoid Disney and search out some of the older attractions that are based around the natural beauty of the state.

It was an exhausting afternoon as I swam the 3/4 of a mile river twice while the kids tubed down it, but it was worth every bit of it.

For those few hours, I got to bring the littlest one into a part of my childhood and he loved it. That is one of the best feelings I have ever had.