Our trip to the Ichetucknee River

Whew... now that I've got all that off my chest, I should share my Monday with you. After my future groom and I told the children on Monday about our plans to be married, we all headed out with his wonderful mother (seriously, folks... she is one of those future mothers-in-law that is super easy to love!!!) and drove down to the Ichetucknee River in Florida, near O'Leno State Park. A great southern treat is to hop into that very COLD spring-fed river and tube down. It's a nice relaxing, cool and refreshing ride, and we had great fun. The girls, Mini-Dew and MFG's daughter, bet me I couldn't go a whole day without talking about weather... which, might I say, is exceptionally challenging, especially when you're floating down a river (about 30 minutes from the pick-up site), and you see cumulus towers building and start to hear some rumbles of thunder off in the near distance... ugh. I accepted the challenge though... and I only secretly shared my weather concerns with MFG when no one else was listening. Just to share my concerns... as the wind picked up and the thunder grew more frequent and less distant... I really got concerned... We didn't have too many options. Fortunately, we avoided any nearby lightning strikes and the thunderstorm cell passed over quickly. That freed us up to hit the Blue Hole of the Ichetucknee, which is a phenomenal spring a little ways down the river. The kids had a great time jumping into the swimming hole and swimming over the brilliant blue spring which would push them out of the way as it fed 67 MILLION gallons of water into the river per day!!! We did make sure that the depth would support foot first jumping. Along the way to that spring, we encountered LOTS of large banana spiders, some fantastic mushroom and fungi and some interesting tree shapes. We then headed over to the crystal clear Head Springs, which is just amazingly beautiful. It was freezing cold (not literally-a constant 72 degrees year round), but it was so beautifully and refreshingly clear. We had a truly wonderful day, swimming and tubing and laughing... and exploring faster routes through my Garmin... now, my van needs a bath...

Aside from all that, we do have a moderate chance of some development out of a Cape Verde wave just now off the African coast. This system would become Edouard if named. I will keep you posted. Locally, I have been dealing with thundershowers daily, which is a wonderfully musical sound for me.

That's it for today.

Have a fabulous day!
~Dewdrop