boyecho: There's a culvert at the park on the corner of... I think it's 6th E and 8th S, but could be wrong. Definitely SE of campus, though (might be off 8th W & 12th S, now that I think of it - called the Tumbling Creek area, something like that). There's a stream that goes through that culvert. It essentially looks like a drainage ditch, but if you follow it north a little bit, it becomes a real "stream" stream soon enough. I spent long periods of time lurking in that culvert like a troll.
I'm pretty sure it eventually flows into Paines Prairie, which is, well, a place of high weirdness. The amazing disappearing lake....
And if you haven't been to Devil's Milhopper yet, you need to go.
In Gainesville, all the big water is underground.
Look at a map -- all the lakes are circles because they're not wide spots in rivers, they're points where underground water has worn holes in the oolitic limestone (ancient coral reefs) overhead. That's why cave divers love Central Florida. Sometimes, they pop into one lake and come out another one. Mystery!
I know what you mean about the beach - I grew up in Palm Beach County. But there's other things going on with some of the same ingredients.
Hope this helps. |
