Good evening, ladies and gents! Once again, this is your flying friend, Skye Goodfellow, with another of my allegedly fabricated adventures to interesting places in the U. S. of A. The subject for this week’s jaunt: Alexander Springs in the Ocala National Forest in Florida.

How to get there:

Don’t let my big white feather dusters fool ya. I’m not blessed with all that great a sense of direction. Not bad, but certainly not on a par with migrating birds. Much of the time, I fly low over over the interstates, reading the road signs. That’s how I get about.

So here’s how you get there: Roughly halfway between I-95 and I-75, between Daytona Beach and Ocala, FL. You take State Route 40 west from Daytona. about 2½ miles after you pass through the little town of Astor,

you go south on County Road 445. Just after the bend it takes to the right, you’ll find the entrance to Alexander Springs.

Sights and smells

Under the strong Florida sun, sunblock is the rule of the day, and it is that smell that permeates the air in the the swimming area at Alexander springs. The tree canopy is thick and much like a jungle and green most of the time

Clear water

I was really impressed with the crystal clarity of the water in the spring pools there. One of the signs I read there says that during the winter, manatees move out of the ocean into this spring pool, where it is a warm 72° F. It also makes for great scuba diving. There are even some videos on YouTube recorded there.

They say there is good canoeing here, but I don’t have much use for it. I never travel with anything more than I can take in my messenger bag that I sling over my shoulder. Besides, I’m a spirit, hardly any weight at all. that means my feet don’t depress into the surface of the water more than, say, half an inch. I walk on top of the surface.

But not very well. I’m not very steady when I stand on the surface of that lake. I take little cub steps, and my wings are always spread, ready to take me into the air at an instant’s notice. I don’t see how the other Wild Angels—he skunk angel Heaven Scent, for instance—an skate on the lake, her little footpaws plowing through the surface ripples.

Encounter with the raccoon

I’m not like anything the critter has ever come across before. I’m more civilized and airworthy than any bear he’s used to seeing, and I didn’t even smell like one (I smell like roses and cinnamon) . Curious thing he was, he just naturally wanted to come up to sniff at my toes. I suspect he treats the human visitors with the same kind of curiosity. Poor guy. He’s gonna get a bottle tossed at him one of these days if he’s not careful.

A big Thank You to the following nice people:

Radicoon, who provided both pictures, and told a little of his experiences there.