The next destination was destination Panama City Beach, which meant another long drive, in fact the longest of the trip to date. We mostly slept, but when we stopped at Lake Manatee State Park for lunch we had a swim in the natural spring. It was a small area where a spring just appears from below, bellowing water up to the surface and then leading into the nearby Lake Manatee itself. As it’s a natural spring, the water was quite cold, but refreshing, and the stones are unaltered under foot. You can feel all the algae and slime on the top of the rocks, as we all struggled to balance on them. Jess ends up jumping on my back and 'riding' me as she’s too scared of the nearby gators, even though they couldn’t get into
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