Are you a Real Floridian?
Only one way to know – look at this checklist and see if you’ve notched these five adventures. Not done some of them yet? Then get started and be on your way to earning your Real Floridian badge of honor.
Begin with food:
1. Make your own pancakes at the Old Spanish Sugar Mill
Inside DeLeon Springs State Park near DeLand is the Old Spanish Sugar Mill Grill and Griddle House. Each table has a griddle. The waitress plugs in the grill. It heats up and you choose what to have for breakfast.
They bring pitchers of homemade pancake batter in a variety of flavors including gluten free. But wait, the fun has just begun. Add blueberries, peanut butter, bananas, chocolate chips and more. On the side have bacon, ham, eggs. No wonder this do it yourself griddle in the table place is named one of the top things to do with kids in Central Florida.
Be advised: Cooking your own breakfast is VERY popular. Check hours. Arrive early. Reservations are limited. Breakfast served until 3:45 p.m. (they also have a lunch menu). Park entrance fee required.
The Sugar Mill wait staff is prompt and friendly. Adding to the ambiance – you and yours are sitting inside an old mill house. Afterwards take an ECO/history tour boat ride. Walk trails. Enjoy the springs.
Let’s get wet
2. Tubing down the Ichetucknee River in the summertime
The headwaters of the Ichetucknee River start at the north end of Ichetucknee Springs State Park. The Ichetucknee runs north to south for six miles until it empties into the Santa Fe River.
From Memorial Day to Labor Day the north end tube launch near Fort White has a three and a half hour float time.
Bring your own tubes or rent from outfitters both inside and outside the park. For first timers, renting is advised. Don’t bring wimpy pool tubes. Need serious river tubes no more than five feet across, so when you run into tree branches the tube doesn’t explode.
Parking, access, trams, fees – all the stuff you need to know for planning this expedition can be found on both the park website (above) and also Google travel sites for tips.
Water temperature is a constant 72 degrees year round.
Yes, you will freeze your buns off. The ride is worth it.
Hear the sound of traffic? No. None. Nada. You are floating in a pristine river with its own rhythm, going past turtles sunning themselves on riverbank tree roots. Birds sing. Flowers bloom. Wildlife may be seen.
The current carries you along past ancient cypress trees, around curves from a narrow beginning to a wide river ride. This is natural Florida, a place as far removed from Disney World as it gets.
Wear sunscreen. Bring hat and sunglasses. Come with children when they are growing up. Come again when they are adults. Bring the grandkids. This experience never gets old.
Between Labor Day and Memorial Day the only tubing is at the south end of the park. That is why summer months and the longer ride are recommended. Come early. Preferably on a weekday as tubing is a VERY popular activity and the river fills up fast on weekends. There is a cutoff number.
Connect with Papa
3. The Ernest Hemingway House in Key West
This home is a museum, a tableau of a famous writer’s life. Aalso home to cats, some with six toes, descendants of a six-toed cat given to Hemingway by a sea captain. You can make friends with the cats. About 40-50 cats roam the grounds.
For this writer the high holy moment of the tour was walking into his upstairs studio. Most of the room is roped off and you walk down one side of the room. I looked at the typewriter he used. It was like seeing the Rosetta Stone, a reverent moment to acknowledge that greatness happened here.
Hemingway like to write in the mornings, lingering over coffee then go explore Key West or go fishing in the afternoons, maybe swim in the pool.
Hemingway named all his cats after famous people. The tradition continues. If these cats could talk they could talk would have tales to tell, stories past on from generation to generation about living with Papa Hemingway.
Be advised the Earnest Hemingway House is open all year and only accepts cash. Parking nearby can be difficult. Some would say that is an understatement.
Find a Florida festival
4. Coming up soon: The Florida Strawberry Festival in Plant City starts the end of February 2020.
You are obliged by tradition to sit at long tables with total strangers all of whom are eating strawberry shortcake. It will be delicious. You may go back and buy seconds. Many do.
This is eleven days of community celebration, a great family event.
Plant City grows a LOT of strawberries and the harvest is in. Count on music, entertainment, fun and did I mention shortcake?
Festivals happen all year round all over Florida. Festivals celebrate the seasons (yes Florida has seasons they are just subtle), a harvest like blueberries, history, even celebrate animals like the manatee festival in Crystal River happening Jan. 18 and 19, 2020.
I recommend any seafood or Greek festival within a day’s drive (or take a vacation and include a festival). Leave your diet at home. Enjoy the food and the camaraderie. Meet new people. Talk to cooks and fishermen. Festivals are a vibrant, rich slice of real Florida.
If you want to get truly funky with Florida festivals try the Swamp Cabbage Festival held the last weekend in February in LaBelle or the Worm Gruntin’ Festival (I am not making this up) in Sopchoppy. The one-day festival will be April 11, 2020.
To find more festivals, here is one Florida festival calendar of events
Time for a boat ride
5. Take the glass bottom boat ride at Silver Springs State Park
My parents brought me here when I was nine years old and the attraction was called Silver Springs. It is now a state park.
I stayed bent over, glued to the glass watching water life glide by underneath the boat. Fish swam by. Grasses swayed in the current. I thought this boat ride was the coolest thing ever.
Then that day or the next we also went to Six Gun Territory. The bad guys battled in the street. One bad guy even fell from the second story. Gasp! Six Gun Territory doesn’t exist any more. But the glass bottom boats still run daily at Silver Springs State Park.
Tours depart the dock every 30 to 40 minutes a day from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and the tour lasts 30 minutes. There are also extended 90- minute tours on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
The waters of Silver Springs are not as pristine as they once were but underwater life still swirls beneath the boats and captures multi generations. You will be glued to the glass.
This boat ride is Florida’s oldest attraction. See rates and more information above under ‘glass bottom boats’. Reservations are encouraged. Boat seating is limited. Park admission also required.
There you have it. Five experiences that qualify you to be a Real Floridian in contrast with the Fake Floridians who go to Orlando, see the theme parks and think that is all there is to Florida.
Wrong.
Real Floridians know better. There is so much more to discover and do.
What are your places to go and things to do that qualify as a Real Floridian outing? Fun! Let me know at: mailto:[email protected]
Photo credits: Sandra Friend cooks breakfast at the Old Spanish Mill. Photo by Lucy Tobias. Tuber photo by Lucy Tobias. Hemingway House photo courtesy of Hemingway House website. Strawberry photo courtesy of a blotspot entitled: A Blog of Scenic Nature. Photo of glass bottom boat by Lucy Tobias.
©2020 Lucy Tobias