36.5 mi / 12.5 mph / 628 ft. climbing
Home: Crystal River KOA

Yesterday was filled with peaceful riding on farm roads, and today was filled with peaceful riding on bike trails. From the campground it was a short ride to a crossing of the Withlacoochee River (through some real deep-country homes down along its east bank), and then onto a trail of the same name. This is a favorite trail of the Wisconsin couple who camped next to us outside of Sarasota a month ago. And while I took their recommendation to heart, I didn’t make any particular effort to go out of our way to ride it; like all of the (many!) trails we’ve been on in Florida, it just turned out to be the best way to get where we were going.

Our Wisconsin friends had said they’d be staying in Inverness (which the trail passes through) for a few weeks, so I was keeping an eye out for them and their unusual recumbent bikes on the trail. “Hey, is that them?!”, I thought after only 10 minutes on the trail. “Oh, no, those are recumbent trikes, not bikes”. Two minutes later: “whoa, here comes a couple on recumbent bikes, just like theirs. And they’re waving! It’s them!” As I slow and say “hey, do we know you?”, I can see that no, we don’t know them!

What are the chances that we’d witness another couple riding the Withlacoochee on recumbents? Well, extremely high, it turns out! As we continued on, we saw all manner of recumbent bikes and trikes, maybe 50 in our 20 miles on the trail, definitely outnumbering conventional bikes, and probably exceeding the number we’ve seen over the last three years. Halfway through, we passed a trailside bike shop with big murals showing that they specialize in recumbent trikes, so that made it make a bit more sense, but I’m still not sure about the chicken-and-egg of it. Simply plopping down a shop filled with weirdo bike/trike things is hardly enough to make a whole community say “oh yeah, let’s do that!”

The night’s sleep had improved Rett’s cold symptoms, allowing her to cruise for the first 12 miles. But then fatigue hit hard, so we paused a bit early for lunch. That helped a lot, and while the rest of the riding wasn’t as easy as the start, she again did a great job of pushing through anyway. When we had to turn west off the Withlacoochee Trail, we didn’t need to get on the Norvell Bryant Highway, because another trail rides alongside it nearly all the way into Crystal River. The highway-side trail definitely wasn’t as nice as the in-the-woods rail-trail (especially because it had us on the “wrong side” of the road), but Rett appreciated not needing to spend any extra energy on minding traffic.

Our tent site at the Crystal River KOA was an insane $72/night, but somehow after paying $110 at Disney, it felt more like “eh, kinda expensive, but it’s less than $100!” (plus, it was significantly cheaper than anywhere else to stay in Crystal River. And it’s a brand-new campground, so in addition to the standard-in-Florida on-site electric, the bathrooms were excellent individual units, and they even had breakfast available in the morning. What it didn’t have (due to it being new) was shade, and while it had been 40℉ this morning, the 4pm sun at 71℉ somehow felt more like 91℉. Luckily after showering (in climate controlled bathrooms), the sun had gone down far enough to make dinner-making survivable.

Day 2

We were up at 5am, because Rett had signed us up for a 7am boat ride to go snorkeling with manatees! This was our whole reason to come to Crystal River, though it would have mostly been on our route anyway. From yesterday’s blazing afternoon, it had chilled down again to 40℉, which was at least good news for our chances to see heat-seeking manatees, which come into King’s Bay for its 72℉ spring water when the water further out is too cold. Luckily there is a McDonald’s in town just a few blocks from the tour company’s office, so riding over in the dark and eating there made our morning a lot more efficient than cooking breakfast in camp.

There were only two other girls (along with our guide) on our “semi-private” tour, though once we got in the water, with other groups from other tour companies, that became mostly-irrelevant. But at least one of the girls hadn’t snorkeled before, and our guide made it clear that here, it’s basically like snorkeling in a swimming pool, the most-beginner level of snorkeling possible. Perfect for us on our first return to the water after our snorkeling disaster in Hawaii!

I’ve never even seen a manatee, so it was pretty awesome to have my first sight be one swimming right below me. They’re so docile that, despite their huge size, they don’t add any challenge to the beginner-level snorkeling. I found them to have a similar ability as the manta rays we snorkeled with in Hawaii: able to glide within inches of your body while still maintaining separation along their entire length. While you aren’t supposed to touch them, it’s ok if they touch you, but since they definitely don’t just lumber mindlessly, no one was getting manatee-steamrolled out there.

We saw dozens of manatees, from roughly-human-sized babies to the shadowy shapes of much-larger ones resting on the bottom beyond the sanctuary ropes. Many swam quite close to us, giving very intimate encounters where we definitely got our money’s worth. There were also a few fish to be seen, and Rett even saw a couple of our cormorant friends rocketing through water beneath her. But for some reason the manatees triggered less-visceral excitement than the other aquatic animal encounters we’ve had (grey whales, sea lions, manta rays). My best guess is that it’s connected to one of their nicknames: sea cows. While the individuals all look surprisingly different from each other, and are quite cute and dopily-huggable, and eye-contact reveals some mutual curiosity, there is just something dumbly “bovine” about them, while our other encounters have been with animals exuding an obviously dynamic spirit. Nonetheless, it was still a really rewarding experience, and I’m glad we had the opportunity to do it (and re-open snorkeling to us!)

(The following photos were taken by our guide, and then generously shared with us by our tour-mates.)

By the time we got back to camp, Rett’s cold-exhaustion caught up with her again. Even before noon it was already too hot to lay down in the tent, but luckily there were poolside lounge chairs that we could put in the shade of an overhang. That’s where she spent most of the rest of the day, getting in a little bit of napping.

Day 3

We had only planned to spend two nights in Crystal River, and thus already had a campsite booked 57 miles up the road. But with Rett still in the initial-onslaught period of her cold, riding 57 miles didn’t seem like a great idea. Luckily our site at the State Park was available the next night too, so for $10 we were able to push back our reservation, and then book a third night at the KOA to give us a full rest day. And it also gave us a chance to visit the highly-rated Cajun restaurant in town (raved about by our manatee tour guides) for lunch. Frog legs and crawfish and alligator sausage, but thankfully no manatee!