Hillsborough River State Park

 This past week was spring break for the kids. And me! It was a much needed break, I cannot wait for this semester to end. We pretty much just took it easy all week, but I did want to get out of the house and do something. So we headed over to Hillsborough River State Park. It was one of the first state parks in Florida, and the river has class II rapids in this section.

 We only saw this one little gator while we were there. But we did see several turtles and plenty of fish.

 Other than the fact that there are cypress trees in this picture, it hardly looks like Florida to me. 

 This tree was hollow and full of holes.

 This is probably the biggest cypress tree I've ever seen.

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 It was HUGE. Wide and very tall.

 Even the cypress knees were impressive. Several were taller than Layla!

 Heading over the suspension bridge. It wasn't very high, but Layla didn't care much for this part.

 A trip with with Morgan isn't complete without a meltdown. She hasn't felt 100% this week, and she was tired of walking. I ended up carrying her most of the 3.3 miles that we walked. At least it's good exercise, right?

 This tree was riddled with woodpecker damage.

 

 We took a break for the girls to play on the playground before we headed back to the truck.

 

 Funny how suddenly she could walk, run & climb!

 It was a very pretty park and we will be back for sure! We only did a portion of the trails and there is a replica of Fort Foster that we didn't get to explore. There's also a campground & a pool (although the pool was closed). I'd like see more of our area of Florida and this was a good way to start.