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Packed for our trip, in the driveway.
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The main entrance to Wakiwa Springs Park, outside of Orlando, Florida. Another nearby park was closed, so this one was actually full to capacity. You can't tell in this picture, but the place was crazy with annoying people. We wanted to leave moments after we arrived.
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Say chreese!
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We brought a lot of stuff. The already poor-performing boats (designed for wave surfing, not treking) were quite overloaded and heavy. Somewhere in there is the kitchen sink, I'm sure.
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Paddling away from the springs, down river. We passed probably forty other canoes getting out of the main part of the park. Fortunately our camp spot was a few miles away.
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Still headed down stream. A glassy calm river.
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Now headed upstream. The palms along side the river gave it a prehistoric feel...
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No, that's not a little deer in the river. Though there was deer around. Not that we saw any.
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Me, riding in a green plastic bathtub. Their was enough extra weight that water filled the bottom through the scuppers.
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Amie paddling upriver under a fallen palm tree. Evidently hers didn't fill up with water, so I'm suspecting we didn't spread out the weight evenly. Or I need to lay off on the peanut butter.
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That water is obviously deep enough to paddle, so why anyone would be walking around in it is beyond me. Sure, alligators usually don't bother people. But still... Then again, it does make a good picture. And anything for a good picture... (Truth be told, a few steps down river was a sand bar she had to pull the boat over. We had to do this a few times as we worked our way upstream to the campsite.)
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Check out the veins on that leaf!
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There they are a little closer.
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It was my turn to get out of my boat and push. However, just around the corner Amie spotted an alligator sitting in the middle of the main channel. A little bugger, only 3 feet long. But I tended to get out of the boat less. They loved these areas with all the lilly pads.
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When paddling up through the lilly pads, you could hear dozens of alligators, making a sort of low growl. But they had no reason to bother us.
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Little white fluffy flower things.
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Much of the paddle looked like this, with the sun peaking through a canopy... Very pretty.
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We saw lots of fowl. One of which was poorly captured in this photo snapped at dusk...
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Dinner consisted of Alaskan Halibut and soup in a can, cooked over wood we hauled in.
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First thing in the morning, we awoke to a noise. A little black bear, which at that point is quite interested in a bottle of lighter fluid we neglected to hang with the food, missing it in the dark.
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The lighter fluid wasn't to his liking, so he ambled over to the tree in which our food was hung, ignoring the two people laying quietly in their tent, for now.
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He had already failed to reach the bag from below, but now he easily pulled it up from above. And we thought we were keeping it away from pesky racoons.
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The little guy was bigger than I was, we found out later when he decided to check us out. He refused to be intimidated by noise, hinting that he didn't want us around. When we tried to get by to return to our boats, he jumped out of the tree and came at us. I picked up the tent and shook it as we both yelled to try and scare him away. He ran toward us, grabbed a tree and shook it in return with a low growl, seemingly mocking us. He continued toward us as we backed away. Twenty yards later he returned to his (yes, his) food and we continued away.
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Several miles away from our campsite, the trail came to an end in a little clearing surrounded by massive spiders and thick undergrowth. We sat down on a log on the side of the river and debated the proper course of action.
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Still pondering, finally realizing we had to go back and hope the bear was gone, or that we could find another way around him.
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We found a trail around the bear, and got back in our kayaks. Here I am floating under a tree that earlier we'd been sitting in, talking about what to do...
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Some kind of falcon or hawk there in the tree. He looked like an owl when he flew.
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Bonus points if you spot the two turtles on a log.
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Seven or eight ibis on the falling trees that I'm floating past.
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Billy the friendly Ranger who took us back to our campsite via old windy back-way access roads, helping us clean up the mess the bear left, and to retrieve a few important items we'd managed to leave behind. (Keys and wallet come to mind.)
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Pretty bug in the sand, to get technical.
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Back at the beginning. This is where you launch canoes/kayaks from when you want to paddle upstream to go camping and loose your food to tree-shaking bears.
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Adventure over, Amie's on her way to the natural springs to take a cool refreshing dip in the 72 degree water. After making fun of her for being slow to enter the water, I followed to learn that indeed 72 degrees feels quite nippy in Florida.
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Water leaving the natural spring.
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The actual spring, turned into a park. Refreshing water. A young girl showed us how to find prehistoric sharks teeth in the sand under the water, showing the little one she'd found. Impressive, but we didn't find any ourselves.