I walk, We paddle

Thursday February 23, 2012
Site #13  Lithia Springs
*RTMOTP – remember to mouse over the pictures

Wednesday was not a running day but I like to get out  in the morning so I took a walk down to the spring. No one was around except the leaf blower and the resident Blue Heron and Duck Trio.
It just amazes me how noisy this lovely park is with the leaf blowing machines nearly every day blowing the leaves off the gravel sites and off

the parking lots and off the side walks– well sometimes the side walks get skipped as you can see Here.  
He actually blew the leaves off the parking lot onTO the sidewalk this time and then turned and walked away.

I have to say, I do hate noisy leaf blowers and all those little engine excessively polluting things.  I really don’t understand it here in the middle of a beautiful Live Oak Forest and spring.   There really are not that many leaves and we are camping for heaven’s sake.  Who do leaves in the site bother?  Or on the parking lots.   The wind is going to blow them all around and back anyway.  Why waste the gasoline.  Pollute the air with the fumes and the noise?







He sure ruined the serenity of my morning walk and everyone else’s morning solitude as well I am sure.









But I waited and finally outlasted him as he drove off to deal with an onslaught of leaves somewhere else.





Then I enjoyed the company of the  3 ducks.  Larry, Curly and Moe???
OK Ducks and duck fans, what kind of ducks are these?









The heron was at about the same place David saw him yesterday.  I wonder if this is his favorite fishing spot?

He stood in this one spot and preened and stretched and I had such a good time watching him.

We even stared at each other for a bit.

In an attempt to distract me, the one who appears to be the head duck flew up but not quite over the fence.

I walked on around through the lovely live oaks and the SO southern looking Spanish Moss.

  This is a strong childhood visual memory for me of happy times visiting my Great Aunt Carrie for whom my daughter is named when she lived at 909 Sunset Drive in Ocala Florida.  Her street was treed just like this.

I always feel her near me among these trees and their “goats beard”.

By now I’m getting hungry and start back in the direction of Winnona
thinking about a scrambled breakfast vegan style.

So when I get back and David says “what’s for breakfast”, this is what I suggest.  And it was just as good as I thought it would be.  Next time tumeric to give it that yellow scrambled egg color.

Around 1:30 David finally got his wish, we set out in the kayaks on the Alafia River.  First we headed out to wlak the kayaks over to the boat dock.  it's a short walk along the park road but David doesn't like roads even in a nearly empty park with no cars on them at all.
David knew a short cut.  Or so he said.
NOT!
So the short walk became a longer walk as we backtracked to the road and on to the dock.

First we went upstream where I had been earlier so he could get a look at the water sides of the few campsites on the river.  We think next time we are here we’d like to get site #40 if we can.

No pictures of the site from the water though.  Neither of us took it.
We’ll get one when we move in there.  :-)

We glided along within two or three feet of this cormorant who never even batted an eye at us.  I wondered if he’d just come out of the water and perhaps his wings were too wet to fly but he wasn’t sunning them when we saw him.

We didn’t go far upstream but turned around to go back down river
past where the spring run empties into the river. 
Pretty easy to notice with all the No Trespassing signs.

This is the larger spring in which you are allowed to swim.

And this the smaller which is roped off in the park with  “habitat restoration” signs
so that you can see it in its natural state. 
There is quite  a difference between the one set up for “use”
and the one left in its natural state..

We drifted on down stream slowly




Passing by the usual river dwellers

We went through several fun small “rapids”.  We were surprised by another bigger one around a bend and when we went a bit further and there was ANOTHER one we started to wonder if we wanted to paddle back up all these “riffles”.

So we turned around and started back up. 
We definitely were working hard and getting shoved across the river.

At this point we got grounded on opposite sides of the river and took a break before
going on with the effort.

Good place for a banana break.

David shoved off and got turned around going back down the river.
It was becoming funny. This river was having its way with us.
Never taking total control but not letting us have it either.

I was more stuck than David but the water under me was so shallow I could have gotten out and towed the boat. 
Only problem was that with the swiftness of the water, my getting out might have sent it on down the river in a hurry without me.









So David got himself over to my side of the river right by the bank where the water was calm but not on the rock face where I was stuck.  We used my paddle to pole him up on my right hand side so he could step out with the bank for support, get his boat into the shallows and tow me out.









Since we decided we’d have to come back another time with a shuttle to kayak the river downstream, we paddled up the smaller riffles back up stream.  David wanted to see the little river community I’d been to.

 

It was another wonderful day on the water.