This past weekend, my family took a nice hike out at Big Shoals State Park. Big Shoals is up near where I-10 and I-75 meet, about an hour and change drive from Gainesville. It’s well worth the drive. The Suwannee River breaks over the rocks and drops in elevation about 10 feet over a length of 600 feet and creates the most intense whitewater rapids we have in Florida. Look closely and you’ll see that water is more the color of coffee or root beer (as a nice couple from Pennsylvania suggested) or coke (my son excitedly pointed that one out). We didn’t catch much wildlife aside from hearing the bats at the bat house, but there are gopher tortoises and deer and it’s a great spot for bird watching as well. We took a pretty easy 2.5 mile trail that gave us a lot of looks at the Suwannee. There are apparently 26 more miles of trails we could hike! We’ll be back for those soon enough.