A family adventure, embracing nature

After a wonderful and relaxing weekend, I thought I would make today's post a recap post. First though, let me tell you the little bit of weather news we have... A non-tropical low is pouring buckets of water on the Carolina coasts, while it just sits there. A Cape Verde system has been awarded the name Tropical Storm Fred. He is possibly going to develop to hurricane strength, but he will likely be taking a turn to the north very soon, making him more of a threat to Africa than us, but he will most likely just end up a fish.

Now, onto the wonderful family-filled holiday weekend. On Friday, my wonderful groom's sisters and their wonderful grooms and their children arrived for a fun-filled visit. We shared a nice dinner with the first group to arrive, while waiting for the others. We decided to let G'ma and Papa enjoy the kids at night, while the grown ups sought refuge at our place. On Friday, we woke up early, retrieved the kids and went to the same spot at Reed Bingham that we visited last October, with the really awesome climbing tree, which the kids once again enjoyed. We had a lovely view of the "lake" there, and the gorgeous cypress trees. We grilled a yummy lunch, played kickball, the kids performed skits and climbed, played putt-putt, swam at the beach... and I took lots and lots of pics. It was a wonderful family adventure, and everyone had a terrific time!

On Sunday, we woke early again and headed to the Ichetucknee River for some tubing. Each person got a tube and we hit the river. The north exit was closed because they had reached capacity at 750 tubers, already (just to give you an idea of the number of people who were out there). I don't have the tubing pics "developed" yet, since they were on my film water camera, but I did catch some shots at on the way, during our picnic and at the springs with my digital. Just to list some of our notable adventures... we saw 3 wild hogs on the embankment (actually I only saw 2 of them, but my niece saw 3)... one of them was frantically digging in the ground, oblivious to the passers-by floating down the river, ants (the biting kind) invaded our picnic with a force, driving most of the children away from the blankets, and Blue Hole Springs had a family of 4 brown water snakes living there that were up by the railing for me to capture, right by the railing (I captured it so my wonderful groom to check the eye shape). EEK. The water in Blue Hole Springs averages 72°F throughout the year, so this was my reaction to the water, with my wonderful groom playing with settings. Darn tootin', it was COLD! Of course, you know me... can't keep my head out of the clouds.So... how was your Labor Day?!

Have a slendiferous day!
~Dewdrop

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