O’Leano State Park, High Springs, Florida
Everything that lives and moves will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything. ~ Genesis 9:3
Did you realize that no one ate meat until after the flood?
We were gone 10 hours today – six or so of them actually on the Santa Fe River. First, we drove to the set up point where we got the kayak all ready and I sat down with a good book to wait for an hour, in the cold, for Blaine to return. It was only about 40⁰ when he left me sitting by the water to take the Jeep downstream and decide how he was getting back. Believe it or not (even I was surprised) I wasn’t cold. I had on four layers, shoes and socks (as opposed to just water shoes), my headband and gloves. I also had a small blanket to wrap around my legs and help insulate from the cold fallen tree I sat on.
I took these 
while waiting for Blaine
Once Blaine got to the end point, he had to decide if he was taking an Uber, a shuttle or biking 11 miles. Fortunately, God was looking out for him and provided a shuttle. There were no Ubers anywhere. We had noticed when we scouted it out the other day, that there was a shuttle service available, but it was unclear who could use it, plus they wanted reservations. Well, when Blaine arrived and parked, there was a couple just getting ready to leave with the shuttle service, so Blaine finagled his way on board too. It cost him $25, but it was worth it. We susect the driver just pocketed the money for himself. 😊
And Blaine was able to garner some information from him about the river conditions, etc. He also explained why the River Sink isn’t spinning.
Think of a bathtub full of water. When you first pull the plug, the water appears to just sit there. The lower the water goes, the more the whirlpool around the drain becomes apparent. It seems this River Sink works the same way, because the driver told Blaine it’s not spinning because the river is high right now.
We had a glorious day on the water! And the further we went along, the later into the day we got, the layers began peeling off one by one. I was even down to just my t-shirt and shorts for a little bit! (I had on my zip-off pants, that convert from long to short with the tug of a zipper) It was nice while it lasted. 😊
There were lots of things to capture our attention as we drifted downstream at about 1 ½ miles an hour. We saw egrets, blue herons, hawks, kingfishers, deer and scads of turtles. Probably close to, if not 1,000! We took great enjoyment in seeing them all piled up on the logs along the way.
There are a few pictures with disturbed waters, but mostly it was smooth sailing. However, this river is spring-fed from quite a few springs. Once, we were just sailing along, when we suddenly started spinning around. It surprised us! We were sitting on top of where a spring was bubbling to the surface. Fun! Another time, Blaine was on the phone talking with our son and I was steering, when we started drifting to the left for no apparent reason. I thought Blaine’s paddle had dipped into the water on that side, but once again, it was a spring. This time, I had more trouble getting us righted – whether because I was steering from the front by myself, or because the spring current was stronger, is hard to say.
That’s it, so don’t squint your eyes to study it too much. : )
Ha! They were nothing really.
We just have to watch that it’s not too shallow.
He went through our posts to pick up any information we wanted to remember.
It seems that Nestle doesn’t just make chocolate. They also bottle water, and they’re asking to siphon off an additional 1.2 million gallons of water from a private place upriver called Ginnie Springs. That’s PER DAY folks! No wonder people are protesting! But some say that that amount will only lower the river level by one inch. Still . . . . How long before it’s more? Plus, the only price a bottler pays for using any Florida Spring water, is a $115 application fee. That’s it. Oh, I imagine they pay property taxes or something, but they don’t pay for the water.
So much so, that we had a hard time seeing it last time.
Wonder if they strung it up to keep motorboats out?
It felt really good to be upright and use our legs!
But all that water has to come from somewhere . . . doesn’t it???
The water was rippley here, so it didn’t turn out so well.
This is the private park, Ginnie Springs. When we were here before, every campsite was filled and it was super noisy – radios, people yelling, drinking and yelling, tubers, and other paddlers. It was pretty quiet today.
There were actually more than this sitting in the trees here.
Catching the sun setting. 
The sun was nearing the horizon by the time we finished up, and we were really hungry, so we set off to our pre-determined spot – Bev’s Burgers. We ate there two years ago when we were here and really enjoyed the food, so back we went! Burgers, onion rings and corn fritters! There was so much salt in what we consumed, I could feel my blood pressure rising with every bite. But it sure was delicious!!
Tomorrow, we ride!