{"id":1625,"date":"2020-12-04T04:27:21","date_gmt":"2020-12-04T04:27:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.dancentury.com\/travel\/?p=1625"},"modified":"2022-12-29T16:35:56","modified_gmt":"2022-12-29T16:35:56","slug":"homosassa-manatees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dancentury.com\/travel\/homosassa-manatees\/","title":{"rendered":"Homosassa & Spring Hill Florida"},"content":{"rendered":"

While I was in the Weeki Wachee area for the Mermaids<\/a>, I decided to stay an extra day and check out other local attractions.<\/p>\n

My hotel was kind of crusty, kind of weird. Red\/orange carpets. Stucco & a spray-on ceiling to cover stains, leaks, & burns. Cigarette burns on the sink countertop in my room. I shared an elevator ride with a brunette woman in a crimson nightgown, holding a lit cigarette. She said, “God bless you”. I did not sneeze. I don’t remember the hotel room having lights, except in the bathroom. The air conditioner was making a racket. I tried to fix it. The filters were caked with gray-brown filth. I rinsed them off in the shower. The noise persisted, but the room smelled better. I looked out the window. Old gray macadam, Florida vegetation, saw palmetto, anole lizards everywhere. There was a bar & bowling alley across the highway. Why didn’t I go? I’m a fool. Instead, I watched videos on my phone. Watched the trailer for Wonder Woman 1984<\/a> — the one with music by New Order — and thought “that looks good”. The front desk clerk was sassy, humorous — the kid needs to get out of Florida and move to LA or New York. Be a stand-up comic, find more people like you “sassy front desk man”! Plenty of local magazines featuring gun ranges & stores. Good bedtime reading to remind me where I am.<\/p>\n

Some of the local sights:<\/p>\n

Bubbles the Manatee<\/a>.\u00a0Bubbles the Manatee resides at the entrance of the\u00a0Homosassa Springs Wildlife Park<\/a>, which I recommend you visit. They have actual manatees.<\/p>\n

\"Bubbles<\/p>\n

The Manatee Tours – Weird Statues as Roadside America calls them<\/a>. They have a great white shark, mermaids, a Mer-Goofy, a collapsed dragon, a giant mushroom — and mermaid tours.<\/p>\n

\"Manatee<\/p>\n

Pepto-Bismol Dinosaur<\/a>. Big pink dinosaur outside a massage parlor. I did not partake. The dino was decorated for Christmas. Nice pink sunset to compliment the pink dinosaur.<\/p>\n

\"Pink<\/p>\n

I stopped at a Checkers fast-food joint. I got a chili hot dog, a fish sandwich, fully loaded fries, and a Mr. Pibb. Enjoyed a sunset over a fan store that shares my name.<\/p>\n

\"Dan's<\/p>\n

What else?<\/p>\n

A shack that sold mullet fish and boiled peanuts! Yeah, I wanted some. Yeah, showed up after it closed. I’m not happy about that.<\/p>\n

\"Mullets<\/p>\n

There were these mysterious places like Spinners & Fish Games.<\/p>\n

Surf the Web and make friends? Fish games? Go fish?<\/p>\n

\"Spinners<\/p>\n

I kinda didn’t want to leave.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While I was in the Weeki Wachee area for the Mermaids, I decided to stay an extra day and check out other local attractions. My hotel was kind of crusty, kind of weird. Red\/orange carpets. Stucco & a spray-on ceiling …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34,25],"tags":[78,79],"class_list":["post-1625","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-food-beverages","category-roadside-attractions","tag-78","tag-florida"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dancentury.com\/travel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1625","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dancentury.com\/travel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dancentury.com\/travel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dancentury.com\/travel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dancentury.com\/travel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1625"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.dancentury.com\/travel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1625\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dancentury.com\/travel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dancentury.com\/travel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dancentury.com\/travel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}