Maya stood on the stone steps of the swimming area for a full minute with her arms crossed over her chest, staring at water so clear you could count the pebbles on the bottom. The air was 64 degrees. The water was 72. Dana, in her puffy coat with three towels over one arm, said what the rest of us were thinking: "It's warmer in there than out here, mama. That's the trick."
Then Maya went in. All the way, head under, and she swam to the far wall and back while Nico stood in the shallows up to his knees yelling that his feet were "screaming." She came out blue-lipped and grinning and asked to go again. That was the Saturday after Thanksgiving at Juniper Springs, and it's the part of the trip both kids tell first.
Turkey in Ocala, then the forest
We drove up to my parents' house in Ocala on Wednesday. Thanksgiving at Ron and Linda's is the same every year: my dad carves, my mom makes the sweet potato casserole with pecans on top, and the kids rake the same pile of oak leaves three times. On Friday morning, sitting at their kitchen table with a second cup of coffee, I ordered a small power station on a Black Friday sale. That's its own post, and it wasn't in the car for this trip.
Linda sent us off with a cooler bag of leftover turkey, rolls and half a pie, which is why our grocery line for this trip is so small. Juniper Springs is about 45 minutes east of Ocala on State Road 40, deep in the Ocala National Forest, where the sand pine scrub looks nothing like the Everglades. We'd booked the campsite on Recreation.gov months ago.
My checks at any new site are shade, bugs, bathroom. Shade came from live oaks and cabbage palms. Bugs were a non-issue in late November, which felt like a gift after our summer. The bathhouse had hot showers and was a two-minute walk, close enough for a six-year-old at night with a headlamp.
Cold mornings and a 72-degree spring
Saturday morning it was 41 degrees on the Pilot's thermometer. That's the coldest the kids have camped, colder than our 47-degree night at Long Pine Key last January, and we used everything we learned there: hats on at bedtime, a bottle of warm water in the bottom of each kid's sleeping bag and dry socks that only get worn in the tent. Nobody woke up crying, which in our family counts as a success.
I made café con leche in Marisol's old cafetera on the Coleman stove, the click of the igniter loud in the quiet campground, and we drank it from the white enamel mugs with gloves on. The best thing I saw all weekend was steam rising off the spring run at sunrise, because the water was about 30 degrees warmer than the air.
The swimming area is a big spring pool ringed by stone walls built back in the 1930s, with an old stone mill house and a waterwheel beside it. Nobody swims right after sunrise in November, but by noon a few brave families were in. Maya was the only kid under ten who went all the way under, and she'll tell you so.
Later we walked to Fern Hammock Springs, a short trail away, where you can stand on a footbridge and watch sand boils bubble up from the bottom like a pot about to simmer. Maya spent 20 minutes drawing them in her nature journal. Nico spent 20 minutes collecting what he called "excellent kindling" and delivered it to the fire ring in three trips. He's the kindling manager. He gathers; he never lights.
And no, there were no alligators in the swimming area. Nico asked the woman at the entrance station, who was close enough to a ranger for him. She said the walled pool is a swimming area for a reason, and he looked almost disappointed.
What it cost
From the trip log, the green notebook in the glove box where every receipt goes:
- Gas: $109 (Miami to Ocala to the forest and home)
- Campsite, two nights: $66
- Groceries: $48 (thank you, Linda)
- Ice and firewood: $18
- Cat sitter: $60 (four visits from Isabela next door, at $15 each, so Pickles didn't starve or sulk)
That's $301 for four nights away, two of them free at my parents' house. The power station isn't in there. It goes in the gear column.
The one thing I'd change is how we handled the swim. We waited for the warmest part of the day, which was smart for the air but meant the wind picked up just as Maya got out, and she walked back to the site in a wet swimsuit under a towel. Next time a full change of dry clothes goes to the spring in a bag, not just towels.
On Sunday we drove the five hours home. Nico was asleep before we left the national forest. Maya wrote one line across the top of her journal page in purple pencil: "Bravest swim. 72 degrees. Mom did not go in."
