A Triathlon of Days     02/04-06/23

Silver Springs State Park, Ocala, Florida

Then an overwhelming army will be swept away before him (Antiochus Epiphanes); both it and a prince of the covenant (Ptolemy VI Philometer) will be destroyed.  After coming to an agreement with him, he will act deceitfully, and with only a few people he will rise to power. ~ Daniel 11:22-23

Ptolemy VI Philometer  – South      

1. Ruled 180-145BC
2. Because he was just six years old when he took the throne, he ruled jointly with his mother, Cleopatra I until her death in 176BC.  That means he was only ten!
3. Philometer married his sister and had at least 4 children with her
4. According to commentator Matthew Henry, Epiphanes pretended to befriend and act as guardian to Philometer and gained his confidence so much that Epiphanes was able to leave a few of his trusted men in Egypt to infiltrate the government
5. At 41 years old, Philometer died of battle wounds in 145BC while fighting Alexander Balas of Syria. Balas was also killed shortly after the battle and his head was taken to Philometer before he succumbed to his wounds.

I always thought the word for partaking in three events had four syllables.  Turns out, I’ve been wrong.  For a very long time!  It’s not “triathalon”.  It’s “triathlon”.  See!  You really can teach old dogs new tricks!

Late Saturday morning, we decided to go Jeeping.  Blaine had found several National Forest roads that looked promising, but when we arrived at each one, they were all gated!  Why?!?!?

Our best guess came when we finally decided to just get out and walk one of them.  There was a hunting schedule, which led us to assume that they open the gates for hunting seasons, but close them the rest of the time to keep out the hunters.  But that’s just an educated guess.  And we’re not very educated.  However, we do have many years of wisdom behind us. 😊

So we walked.  It wasn’t scenic or interesting, but at least it provided exercise and a sense of earning the brownies and ice cream we were planning for our evening snack.

Sunday, we attended Trinity Baptist Church in nearby Ocala.  We would certainly visit again!  There was good worship music, friendly people, and a message based on the story of Cain and Abel that made us ponder a bit.

Sunday afternoon, we rode our bikes all around our Park.  We only took one picture because it all looks the same – pine trees, saw palmettos, pine needle covered sandy trails.  But once again, we were able to eat those brownies guilt-free!  Hmmmm . . . . maybe I should’ve taken a picture of those since I’ve talked about them several times now . . . .

We got pictures from home!

Monday brought a much-anticipated day!  And we were not disappointed, except a little by the fact that there were no monkey sightings, but even that didn’t dim the excitement we felt all day long!

We began our day at 9:35am paddling upstream from Ray Wayside Community Park (about 3 miles further to get to the Headsprings). 

Right after the turn from their canal onto the river, we spotted something sitting under the water that looked like a gray loaf of bread with score marks across it.  Turns out, it was a giant turtle of some kind!

From there, we spotted an aviary of bird varieties, turtles we recognized, a few gators, and manatees galore! 

One of the manatees was the largest one we’ve ever seen!  And as we sat and watched it, along with two others, it actually came up under our boat and we were docked on it’s back for a bit before it went back down and floated off.

All the way up to the Headsprings (a total of five miles), we spotted manatees (some were the same).

One of the things we missed seeing last time were the five-foot statues that are ‘planted’ there.  Three Greek statues are props left over from the old 1965-68 TV series “I Spy”, starring Robert Culp and Bill Cosby. Over the years they were covered with algae, until a newly formed dive team in 2019, hired to clean the bottom of the glass-bottomed boats, also cleaned the statues.  I’d say they could use another cleaning. : )

I grabbed the next two pictures off the internet.

Once we finished our tour around the Headsprings, we pulled into a small alcove on the way back and discovered three more that were cavorting in the water – rolling and splashing, etc.  Most people watching thought they were playing, but we remembered from when we saw this type of activity in the past, they were mating. They were really active, but Blaine had backed us up on top of a log, so even though it felt like we were moving, we were stationary.

And on the way back down the river, we encountered more manatees.  One even swimming quickly downriver alongside us!  We eventually lost track of it, but it was very fun!

Glorious, perfect weather today as well!  We felt very blessed by the Father today, as we spent seven hours in the water!

And we received pictures of three of our other grandchildren!

Tomorrow we move to within earshot of Walt Disney World’s evening fireworks, but we’ll not be visiting the park.  It’s gotten crazy expensive!  I wonder if that’s their way of keeping crowds down??