Our next 2 stops were for kayaking more rivers. Little Manatee River State Park and Alafia River State Park. The rivers were both low but still beautiful. Alafia State Park is geared more towards moutain biking than kayaking. There is no lauch to the Alafia river from within the park so we drove 10 miles to Lithia Springs County Park to launch. We kayaked 8.2 miles on the Little Manatee River and 5.6 miles on the Alafia River. You could see how turbulent the river must have during the hurricanes as we saw windows, chairs and other items hanging in the branches that were about 7 feet above us.
Wildlife Sightings: Great Blue Heron, White-tailed deer, Little Blue Heron, Ibis, Cooter turtles, frog, Alligators, hawk, Catbird, Armadillo, Black racer, Gulf fritillary butterfly, Alligator Snapping turtle, Wood Storks, Black Vultures
Another highlight of this stop was our friends Allie and Rylie joined us for a night of camping, good conversation, and our first campfire. Little Manatee River was the first park that we could sit outside at night. There were little to no bugs and the weather was still cool.
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