Years ago, during my first week at a new job, I had to answer a list of “getting to know you” questions during a weekly team meeting. One of the questions was “If you could kick one state out of the country, which would you choose?” I responded with Florida, which turned out to be a popular answer. It was 2014, a year after the dawn of the Florida Man meme, and hating on the Sunshine State had become a viral thing. If America was a drunk streaker, Florida would be the flaccid dangling member. Florida’s nature is visually beautiful, and its humanity, deeply messy. Florida is a Harmony Korine movie.
Since then, I’ve done a full 180 on Florida; I have a fondness and fascination for the state and its unique culture. Florida is a land of contradictions: tacky tourist traps and stunningly gorgeous swathes of wilderness. It’s the epitome of capitalism and primeval in its wild swamplands filled with the relatives of dinosaurs. Florida’s political landscape continues to grow increasingly regressive, with its book bans and “don’t say gay” laws, but there’s also the hard work of local activists fighting for their home. I’ve learned to love the state through the eyes of Florida-based writers like Karen Russell, Kelly Link, Lauren Groff, Jeff VanDerMeer, and others who excel at weaving magical realism, naturalism, and environmental activism into their work.1
Which brings me to my third trip to Florida in five years. I love Chicago winters, but I also love a late January getaway. A mini-break to feel those direct rays of sunshine feeding Vitamin D into your pale Midwestern skin, to see the vibrant green explosion of palm fronds everywhere, to dig out your cutoff shorts and hope they still fit post-holidays. Over a long late January weekend, Kurt and I planned a visit to EPCOT to complete the round of hitting every Universal and Disney theme park we started in 2019 (more on that in an upcoming newsletter), with two additional days along the northern Gulf Coast to see a new-to-us part of the state.
Weeki Wachee Springs
Weeki Wachee Springs and its underwater mermaid theatre was once the most popular tourist destination in Florida. The show originated in 1947 when an amphitheater with an underwater viewing window was installed into the limestone walls of the natural spring. Performers in mermaid tails put on a twice-daily show complete with music and choreography. I love mermaids; I was in fifth grade when The Little Mermaid came out and I decided that I’m spiritually a redhead. What young Gen X/elder millennial has not done an Ariel hair flip in a swimming pool? Weeki Wachee is all of the things I love about Florida rolled into one: kitschy roadside attractions, geological beauty, and a bit of mystery (the springs are so deep that only the first 400 feet(!!) have been explored).
As much as I enjoy weird Americana, I was specifically called by the siren song of one specific aspect of Weeki Wachee: its custom Mold-a-Rama machine. I grew up collecting Mold-A-Ramas—those plastic-injected souvenirs formed on demand by the metal plates of the Mold-a-Rama machine. On school field trips to Chicago’s zoos and museums, we’d bus home with backpacks full of those things, inhaling their addictive, comforting, core memory-triggering scent of molten plastic. I have a Mold-a-Rama collection displayed in my house, so when I learned that Weeki Wachee had a one-of-a-kind mermaid mold, found only in their state park, the destination shot to the top of my list.
Late January is Weeki Wachee’s off-season so the waterslides, lazy river, and tiki bar were not operating. But despite the light crowd, people began lining up forty-five minutes before the mermaid show while steel drum covers of Jimmy Buffet songs alternated with the Weeki Wachee original theme song.
It is an exciting moment when the curtain rises, allowing a view of the aquamarine water, mossy rocks, and whatever schools of fish or turtles might have wandered over. The show opens with a number choreographed to the theme from The Greatest Showman; most of the crowd was either eight or eighty years old but love for Hugh Jackman spans every generation. For thirty-five minutes, we watched three performers lip sync to popular songs and do swimming choreography while teaching us about the history of Weeki Wachee. The mermaid stay underwater for the duration of the show, using air hoses to take occasional breathes, and doing all of their costume changes(!!) deeper into the spring. I cannot swim without holding my nose so I was deeply impressed. Minus the Hugh Jackman song, most of the show feels like it hasn’t been updated since 1961 when Elvis Presley famously visited. In a world where the Disney company puts on extravagant multimedia fireworks in four different theme parks nightly, one might wonder if throwbacks like the Weeki Wachee mermaid show can survive. But it has for this long, still drawing fans of mermaids and kitschy American culture.
I also spent $25 on mermaid Mold-a-Ramas.
Crystal River
There is only one region in the U.S. where it is legal to swim with manatees in the wild: Crystal River/Homosassa Springs, about forty-five minutes north of Weeki Wachee Springs. It was very important to me that any manatee experience be respectful to the animals and obeying all conservation rules and regulations, so I did some online research before landing on Hunter Springs Manatee Tours.
Before our tour, our guide gave our small group a thorough overview of how to swim around the manatees. Manatees have hairs called vibrissae on their faces and bodies that operate similar to cats’ whiskers and help them sense disturbances in murky waters. These hairs are so sensitive that a manatee can feel our heartbeats from six feet away, so it is important that we visitors calm all of our anxieties before getting into the water with them. Since manatees have no natural predators, they can be highly curious; when relaxed, they may even swim up to people and nibble on their hair which resembles sea grass. Initiating touch, poking with a stick, riding, or swimming above a sleeping manatee are all federally prohibited.
Chilly air and winter winds are prime conditions for manatee sightings, as they are more likely to venture further inland seeking warm calm water. Squeezed into rental wetsuits, we carefully lowered ourselves off the tour boat into the water with a pool noodle at our waists, following the instructions to keep our feet from touching the silty bottom (kicking up silt makes for poorer underwater visibility). Using our arms to swim while letting our feet float at the surface behind us, we traveled single file through a narrow channel into Three Sisters Springs.
Nature is always unpredictable and wildlife sightings cannot be guaranteed. Kurt and I spent a week in Iceland in February and never saw the Northern Lights. A German couple we met in Chile traveled all the way to southern Patagonia to see Fitz Roy, but never actually saw it through the thick cloud cover.
But on our manatee tour, we lucked out. Almost immediately, we spotted the distinct shapes of a mother and her calf resting near the sandy bottom of the spring pool. There we were, sharing the same water, just hanging out!! Adrenaline kicked in, so I focused on slow, steady breaths to calm my heart rate down. Swimming with manatees is perhaps the best form of meditation ever. In my buoyant wetsuit, floating in the calm spring while observing these unique creatures as patterns of sunlight danced on their backs, a feeling of zen enveloped me. We are so lucky to experience moments like this.
It is very awkward to balance your torso on a pool noodle and swim without using your legs. I drifted away from the group when suddenly I spotted the giant potato-like shape of another manatee a few yards away. The other swimmers made exaggerated pointing gestures (underwater, we are all Marcel Marceau); a manatee was coming up behind us. They were everywhere! I looked straight down and saw a manatee glide through the water less than two feet below my face. Remembering our training, I went into “freeze and float” mode, passively observing this peaceful creature go about his day (and silently praying that he didn’t spontaneously decide to surface because nobody would believe me if I said I rode a manatee on accident).
There are few opportunities in this world to come face to face with a threatened species in their natural habitat.2 If you ever get the opportunity, I highly recommend taking it up. The more reminders we receive that we messy chaotic humans share this planet with millions of other living creatures, the better.
On our last night in Florida, we sat alongside on the river just outside our rental house in Weeki Wachee. Flying fish skipped across the river’s surface, prompting many Super Mario references and me googling “which muppet threw fish” (the answer: Lew Zealand). Suddenly, a few bubbles at the surface—a manatee’s snout emerged for a few seconds, just long enough to fill its lungs before slipping back into the water. The perfect Florida goodbye.
Our Sunshine State getaway was two PTO days well spent. Sometimes the best destinations aren’t on the trending lists; it’s all about listening to what’s calling you. If you completely write off an entire state, you might miss out on something pretty spectacular just below the surface.
Some of my favorites include Swamplandia by Karen Russell, Florida by Lauren Groff, The Southern Reach Trilogy by Jeff VanderMeer
The Trump administration controversially removed manatees from the endangered list despite the fact that they are still dying off at an alarming rate due to loss of habitat and starvation. Conservationists are urging for stronger protections to be reinstated.
Lew Zealand! Lol! Though Janice will always be the best for trading with anyone who has a jacuzzi.
I remember seeing a mermaid show at one of those kind of bizarre, past its prime theme parks, in the similarly complicated state of Texas. I wish I could remember more about it, but there was also some sort of natural component to it too. I suppose it’s sort of the original, pre-water park capital of the world, Wisconsin Dells model. I loved and still love that sort of thing. Thanks for this, Kim!