Rum And Ginnie 03/29/19

O’leno State Park, High Springs, Florida

Whoever has My commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves Me.   ~ John 14:21a

Blaine managed an almost-triathlon today!  I don’t know what you call a double event.  A double feature?  Or if you want to go with triathlon, I suppose you could count the extra driving, but somehow I think that would be cheating.  Driving’s not very athletic.  Although, if you’ve had abdominal surgery, they don’t let you drive . . .   

The plan was to kayak twelve miles of the Santa Fe River today.  In order to do that, there was some strategy involved because the current is too strong to paddle back and we didn’t want to pay to rent equipment when we already have our own.  This river’s not part of the State Park, so you have to hire a private company.

As previously noted, we checked out the landing yesterday.

This morning, we left home at 8:45am (we had to wait for it to warm up a bit),

drove to the launch point,

blew up the kayak, and Blaine left me there while he drove 14 miles to the landing, parked the Jeep, took off the bike and began his 14-mile journey back to me.  Not only did he have to go 14 miles, but much of those 14 miles ended up being into a head wind.  It took him 1 ½ hours. Whew!!

Meanwhile, although I had my book with me, I didn’t read it very much.  There was a High Springs police officer who stopped by and talked to us just before Blaine left and stuck around for quite a few minutes, mostly talking about his life.  He was quite animated!  Probably because (as I learned in his conversation) he’s Italian.   He also turned out to have a K-9 with him in his patrol car, but I didn’t even realize there was a dog until I walked back to ask him his name.  The dog started barking when Tony shook my hand.  Startled me! 😊

Then there were other random people who stopped by.  I found it very surprising how many people dove up, stopped for a couple of minutes (both in and out of their car) and then left, even after the officer left.  😊

And the activity on the water picked up, too.  I saw at least four motorboats, about a dozen kayakers, and six canoes, all within just a few minutes of each other. 

Once, there was a couple with New Hampshire plates who apparently were there for the sole purpose of collecting river water in their gallon jugs.  I asked them if they’d seen a guy riding a bike on their way in, but they hadn’t. ☹

I thought about calling my mom, but couldn’t spare the battery power since there was no way to recharge and it was going to be a long day – once we got started on the river.

A guy with his German Shepherd stopped by the River and suggested we paddle upstream first to a Spring that he said was “amazing right now!”. 

Then another couple showed up with kayaks.  I spoke with them for a while about various paddling adventures and full-time RVing.  They said they saw someone on a bike a few miles back, but couldn’t remember if he was wearing a red shirt.  After a few minutes though, she remembered!  “red shirt and big hat”.  Yep! That’s my hubby!  But I think it was more than just a couple miles, because it took him quite a while to show up.  😊

Blaine made it back safe and sound at 11:15! 

But just as we were getting ready to get in the water, he got a phone call from a campground where he’s been trying to make a reservation since Fall, so he had to take it.  Perfect timing! We’re now all set for the July 4^th Holiday! Yay!!

Twelve miles heading down the river today, but we didn’t start out that way.  Blaine was game to try to paddle upstream to the recommended Spring.  We went about the distance he told me, but didn’t find a spring, so we turned around.  It was taking too much energy and we knew we needed to save ourselves for our 5-6 hour trek downstream.  Of course I realize it’s downstream!  But you still have to paddle some.  Especially when it comes time to bypass the tubers.

We had a spectacular day on the river, fraught with a few surprises, but that’s to be expected.  It was wide enough that Blaine could relax and let me do most of the work sometimes.  That was particularly important when we started out.  😊

We passed several “For Sale” signs and some of the proffered homes didn’t look in the greatest condition, but a couple seemed nice enough.  Most were difficult to see because of foliage or distance from the river.  I’ll mention one of the nice ones I was able to check out:  At only $625,000 it’s a steal with 2,750 sq ft, over 10 acres, 13” concrete/brick outer walls, 3 bedrooms, a covered pool and plenty of other amenities. We couldn’t see it to take a picture, but if you go to paleomanor.com, you can check it out!

In recent days, we’d heard or seen multiple things singing the praises of Rum Island, so we had great expectations!  However, when we arrived, there really wasn’t much to it, and where’s the island?  And how do you get to it?  Well, it seems we weren’t the only ones who were surprised.  There are several writers on the internet spouting the same confusion in one form or another.  What I was able to discover was exactly what we began to suspect or uncovered ourselves.  There is a small, very overgrown island.  No one could possibly walk around on it, hence no bridge.  It was named because back in the early 1900’s bootleggers used it.  There’s a walkway to the area where the spring actually springs up (haha!), a very small parking area, an even smaller boat dock, port-a-potties, and that’s it.  If you look it up, Florida Parks will tell you that there’s snorkeling here, and I suppose you could, but at least when we were there, all you’d see is a clear sandy bottom.

Even though our visit to Rum Island was a bit of a surprise and a disappointment, by the time we arrived, we were grateful to have a place to step out of the boat and walk around a bit!

And then there was Ginnie Springs.  This was another place we’d heard about, but it surely was NOT what we expected!  The seven springs in this area are privately owned and there’s a campground, snorkeling, scuba diving, tubing and kayaking available.  We knew it was privately owned.  We’d driven past the two entrances.  We’d checked the fee – $14.02 per person and deemed it unnecessary.  After what we witnessed today, we were glad we’d made the decision not to spend the money! 

For two miles along the quiet, peaceful river, the atmosphere took an abrupt 180 as tents lined the water and music from various radio stations shouted at us from the shore – hip hop with lewd and vulgar language, country, heavy metal . . . it was quite the cacophony!  And there were tubers!  Loud, alcohol-imbibing tubers!  Some of them were playing music as well.  And just to be clear – because Blaine will correct me if I don’t clarify (he has little flare for the dramatic 😊) – not everyone on the tubes was drinking.

We were happy to be far removed from Ginnie Springs!

I did take video here, but the blog site won’t allow me to upload it for some reason – even after trimming it down to accommodate the necessary size. In fact, not only did it not allow me, it added more data. Crazy!! Especially since the other videos worked fine. Including ones I trimmed. : (

Our reward for today’s activity was dinner at Bev’s.  We ate here last year and really enjoyed it.  You can go dressed very casual and receive good food and service.  Still, all those miles of kayaking, it didn’t warrant the dinner I ended up with!

I’m gonna have to find my receipts and return those new clothes I bought . . . Ugh!  

Our ten-hour day was pretty tiring! And (over) filling! Gluttons!