Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Way Down Upon the Suwannee River

Do you know that Stephen Foster, the composer of  "Way Down Upon the Suwannee River", never saw the Suwannee River or even visited Florida? Yet it became the most popular song ever published to that time, selling hundreds of thousands of copies and launching Florida's tourism industry in the late 1800s. As a matter of fact, the song had such a powerful influence on the state that Florida's legislature adopted it as the official state song in 1935.

So we could not leave Florida without a visit to the famous river.

The Suwannee River National Wildlife Refuge was very close to where we stayed in Cedar Key so of we went. The refuge itself in quite wonderful with lots of opportunities to view the wild animals and birds. But our goal was to see the river.

There was a 1 mile trail to take through the hardwood forest to the river:
The trail was like a causeway through a swamp filled with beautiful wild flowers:
After about 1/2 mile there was no more dry land and the trail changed to a boardwalk:
A long boardwalk, about 1/2 mile more:
With plaques telling us about the cottonmouth snake and other wonderful creatures living in the water below. Before total panic set in we reached our goal:
So beautiful and so peaceful:
With a couple of pleasure boats further up river:
We were the only people there that day. An amazing experience a lot of today's visitors to Florida miss, I think.

You can follow more of our adventures on our facebook page
To contact me click here

5 comments:

  1. Wow, this just reinforces our intentions of returning to Florida this winter!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks for the info about the Suwannee River. I had no idea that was the river in the song. Lovely pictures. Another place to go next winter!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. We were at the river delta. From the Good Luck Duck' comment it sounds like you should plan a visit to the memorial at White Springs as well.

      Delete
  3. If you follow the Suwanee to White Springs, I've heard tales of a new nudist camp there.

    Did you visit the Stephen Foster Memorial in White Springs? I can do a whole routine about the tour there without inventing a single item.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. We were travelling the coast and missed White Springs. Sounds like something for another visit.

      Delete

Hi There. Thanks for visiting. I enjoy and appreciate your comments.