Thanksgiving at Manatee Springs State Park

Last week we enjoyed Thanksgiving at Manatee Springs State Park.  It's been a long time since we camped there but it was so enjoyable that we will be going back again soon.  We'd forgotten the deer walk right up to your campsites.  



We also saw a group of 11 manatees slowly moving down the river.  There is a long wooden bridge and dock that goes from the kayak and boat ramp on the spring to the river.  At the end of the dock you can view the river and luckily for us, there was a large group floating along.  The baby was sticking close by it's mother, there was also a large older one with propeller scars on it's flanks.  Do manatees have flanks?



Lots of birds.


Lots of good meals too.  For Thanksgiving day Doug grilled fillets and asparagus while I did the easy stuff like making stuffing and opening a can of cranberry sauce.  Long time past I had made fresh cranberries and carved little crowns out of oranges, placing the hot berries inside.  Pretty presentation.  But turns out we like the canned stuff better :-)



Another night we had pecan crusted trout and I'll tell you, that was very good.  Light meal to prepare for feasting.



The concession stand offered good BBQ so we treated ourselves to that for lunch one day.  You can sit and look at the spring while you eat.  Some folks were brave enough to go in the water (which is a steady 72 F) but we didn't swim this trip. 




The concession stand is also the only place you can connect to WiFi so we'd walk down there twice a day to see if we had any texts. There wasn't any phone service but you could connect to the WiFi for a bit.  It was rather nice to be disconnected for the most part and we spent our time reading, enjoying walks and eating. 






We had a fire every evening.  So nice.



Sharing with Beth Fish Reads for the Weekend Cooking Series with all the foodie events.