What I Did on My Summer Vacation.

     Ok, so I don't get a summer vacation anymore. Here is the thing though, I've never gotten to write a "What I did on My Summer Vacation" paper before. For some reason, the schools that I went to, either didn't care what we did over the summer, or decide that the assignment was no longer relevant. Today, I did something that would easily fit into the "What I did on My Summer Vacation". I went kayaking today, for the first time I might add. Well there you have it, "What I did on My Summer Vacation".

     Did you really think I was going to leave it at that? Me with the gift of gab when it comes to writing (would that really be called the gift of gab if it's in writing?). Of course not, i'm going to tell you all about it. First off, it was a lot of fun, even though it was a bit frustrating at times, with my inability to steer the kayak properly. I went out with my dear friend Elie Wolf, as you should know by now, you can click on her name to see a few pictures from todays journey. We went  out to Thonotosassa, Florida for this little jaunt down the Hillsborough River. We started out at, I believe, John Sergeant Park. We got in our tandem kayak and paddled out into adventure. The goal was to see the Florida scenery and a whole bunch of gators.

     The water level on the river was very high. The area has gotten a lot of rain lately, and it is also a normal high time in the season, so wildlife was a bit scarce. The first half of the trip was really fun. It was a new experience for me, and a battled through my terrible kayak driving skills. I was learning with each stroke of the paddle, and I was determined to get better. If not for the sake of being a decent kayaker, definitely for the sake of not screwing up my friends shots with her camera. If you clicked on that link up above, you would see, that she still managed to get some pretty good shots, and the best ones are yet to come. I'll get to that in time though.

     We meandered down the river, and kept away from other parties that were a bit loud. We worried that they would scare the gators, so we hung back, and it paid off. We had a pleasant and peaceful ride down the river. At times, it was so quiet and tranquil, that you could hear your heart beating in your eardrums. I feared that if I even spoke, that I would break the silence that was being held over us.. The silence would be broken though, but it was normally by, at one point an owl, at another a woodpecker, and at others random flopping of fish. It was amazing to experience that level of peaceful tranquility.

      We finished the first leg of our trip in about 2 and a half hours. We stopped for a quick snack and some leg stretching, and then it was back in the boat. The loud couple was stopped as well, and we wanted to try to get well ahead of them so as not to spook the gators. We saw quite a few on that first leg, and my friend had not gone down the second leg before, so we were hoping for a fair amount of gators there.

     Our meandering ways, in order to get some good shots, didn't pay off for staying ahead of the loud couple. They must have jumped in their canoe right after we left, because they were on us, in about 10 minutes. We once again stopped and got some shots of the scenery so that they could pass us by, and stay far ahead of us. softly after leaving them, we saw our first gator on the second leg. It was a good 5 footer, maybe a bit larger, but not by much. It hung there for a while, and then it decided he didn't like our company, so he swam off for a less paparazzi type of place. This is where the struggle began. The second half was a bit zig zaggy (yes i know zaggy isn't a real word, but it works), and you remember my struggles with steering. It was an adventure into tree branches to say the least. This new area was a bit boring. There was nothing to see, no wildlife, no new foliage, nothing, and I was getting more frustrated by the minute with my paddling. I didn't let it show, but it was there.

     To make things worse, the loud couple had some how fallen back and we caught up with them, so even if there was some gators in the area, they wouldn't be for long. Now, even though this section was boring, there was room for adventure, and a daring river rescue to get our kayak to where it needed to go. We finally catch up to the loud couple, and they are stopped, and looking confused. They mention a big log in the way, and that they must have taken the wrong fork in the river. I was sure that we were on the right path, and that we just had to go over the log and get back to paddling. I pulled out my trusty phone to check the GPS, to see if we were in fact in the right place, and by my map, we were. The woman in the other boat swore up and down that we were nowhere near where we should be. My friend called the rental area where we had gotten the boat, and they said that we were going the right way. I hoped out of the kayak onto a stump along side the fallen tree, (yes, i'm putting on my superman cape) and puled the boat over the log. My friend had to turn the kayak, and back it up, so that I could once again, pull the kayak back so that I could get seated again. Before doing all that, I did ask the couple if they wanted me to pull them over, since I was in a good position to do so, and they said they were just going to bulldoze over the log at full speed. With that, I was back in the kayak and we were paddling away. I was taking small looks back, because I was half expecting them to hit that log at full speed, and come to a dead stop, launching them into the river. Fortunately, they didn't. The did come to that dead stop, but it was halfway in the canoe, all they had to do at that point, was move themselves to the front and push off. It took them a little while to figure that out, but they did make it over.

     They were back on us in a a few minutes this time. We let them pass again. They had to make it to the checkpoint at a certain time, so they really took off this time. We had plenty of time to hit our check point, so meander was back on the menu. it was still boring. We made it to a much wider part of the river, and saw one gator. He didn't like us very much and went under. I tried backing up the kayak to get away from him to see if he would resurface, but then a boat came around the bend and there was no chance of getting any shots of him (yes i know i'm saying him even though i have no idea if it actually was male). We were working our way to a little offshoot near the final checkpoint called Trout Creek. We were going to spend a little time in there before dropping anchor in port.

     Trout Creek was a small let outlet that was a bit hidden. My friend pointed it out, and I steered into it. I was finally getting passable at my kayak steering. This little area was absolutely beautiful. It had that same quiet tranquility, but it also had the beauty of the Florida woods that I knew as a kid. There was a small raised banks on either side of us, and you were half expecting to see a wild animal of some kind. A deer, boar, panther, bobcat, anything really. This was the perfect area for something like that. This little creek bent around to a fork, and as I was saying "Uh oh". meaning, which way do we go, my friend spotted a gator. I finally saw it and started reversing the kayak. I asked if it was two of them, and then I saw what was really going on. This gator was massive. It was at least 8 feet long, and seemed to be 3 feet wide. I had the boat reversed and then slowed it, and she started taking pictures. I was so focused on the sheer size of the gator, that I failed to notice, that we were drifting towards it. We got about as close as I wanted to be to it. We were about 10 yards from it, when it finally hit me, that I could actually see it's pupils. I slowly started reversing the kayak again, but at a much slower pace. We drifted back to about 30 yards, when she finished up. I asked her where she wanted to go from there, and she said, "That's what I came here for. I don't need anything else." With that, we turned around and headed for our final destination.

     Guess who was waiting for us? Yep, the loud couple missed their pick-up time, and had to wait another hour until the next one, which was the same one we were waiting for. Oh joy! I was pretty exhausted at this point. I had paddled 9 and half miles in that kayak, not too bad for the first time out. It was a good day. I'm looking forward to the next chance I get to go out on a kayak. Hopefully I'll steer a bit better.

     I was going to talk about a few more things tonight, but they can wait until Tuesday. I'm exhausted and need sleep, and that's not going to come until I finish writing this. So with that, peace in and goodnight.