We went to visit Jenn at Stetson University recently.

We picked her up and headed over to one of our favorite places, DeLeon Springs State Park, which is not very far from Stetson (or DeLand, Florida).

The Old Spanish Sugar Mill restaurant is in the park (so you’ll need to pay park admission if you go).  We ate in the mill and made our pancakes at our table.  (See a 2006 photo of Mike making pancakes at the restaurant).  It’s a fun place for breakfast!

A lot of people were enjoying a beautiful day at the park.  Besides the usual swimming, boating, and hiking,  we saw cave divers who had just finished scuba diving in the spring.

Before our hike, we looked through the small visitor center and chatted with ladies who were demonstrating crafts that morning.  In learning about the park’s history, we chuckled at a short video of Queenie, the water-skiing elephant who performed at DeLeon Springs in the 50’s when it was a private park.  In writing this post, I learned that Queenie just died on June 3rd.

On one of our visits to the park about two years ago, we took the 50-minute eco/history boat tour which follows the water from the spring as it flows into Lake Woodruff.

MORE PHOTOS: I made a short slide show of our visit to DeLeon Springs with pictures of our hike.