Paddling the Crystal Clear Rainbow Springs

Dunnellon, Florida
Rainbow Springs State Park


We loved our time at Rainbow Springs State Park.   It's a great, small park with full hookups and a very nice laundry facility.  Just $1.25 a load!  There are very few hiking trails and even fewer bike trails.  There is a great Rails to Trails that would've been nice to bike on, but we are here for the kayaking.

 

 

After we got all set up we decided to check out the little town of Dunnellon and look for somewhere to eat.  We were told of a little place called Penn Station that had great Cuban food.  So off we went.  Steve had the Shrimp and Chorizo and I tried the Bistec de Palomilla en Cebollado.  Both were good, but not as good as we had hoped for.

 

 

Rainbow Springs was first known as Wekiwa Creek by the Seminole Indians.  Later it was know as Blue Springs, then later Rainbow Springs which became a registered National Landmark in 1972 and an Aquatic Preserve in 1986.  This artesian spring produces over 490 million gallons of water each day.  It empties into the Withlacoochee River.  The waters stay a consistent 72 degrees. Special care is taken to keep the spring clean.  They do not allow any disposable items on the river.  So if you'll be kayaking, you need to bring any food items in Gladware or Tupperware.  No plastic baggies, napkins or paper towels allowed.  You must have a metal or such drink container.  No plastic bottles. 

 

Most of our paddling was done upstream, to the headspring.  This is where the river begins.  I found the water here to be very warm.

 

 

The water is fairly shallow.  It's deeper than it looks however due to the clarity.  There are some areas that reach 20 feet or so.  There are so much waterfowl you'll see.  We also saw many turtles and fish.  Still no alligator sightings.  We've heard they are very rare here.

 

See how clear it is?  There was still a bit of fog on the water when we headed out early in the morning.

 

 

 

These fellows loved to sun themselves off after fishing.  It was incredible to watch them dive in the water right in front of us and come out with a fish almost every time.

   

There are some homes built on a portion of the river across from the
land owned by the state.  Some had decorations and Christmas trees up.

I'd take this one.  Nice house with a deck overlooking Mediterranean colored water. 

 

 

There were many types of Cooter Turtles and larger Loggerhead.

 

While exploring a little cove, we came upon some very friendly, what I call, Bluegill.  They swam right up to the kayak and followed us all around.  I put my finger in the water a tiny bit and they all thought it was food and a little frenzy broke out.  Good thing they weren't Piranha!

 

Hurley found the fish very entertaining.

 

 

A rather regal looking Blue Heron.  This large White Heron kept playing Peek a Boo with the tree.

 

Two is company, threes a crowd and five is a turtle party!

 

They didn't even care as we paddled right by.

They really went crazy over some bread.

Blue Heron

It took a while to get a picture of this school of Chad swimming around.  They darted all about and flashed their pretty silver blue colors.

 

 

We ended this day trying to paddle up a little creek.  It was less than a foot deep.  We went back until we weren't able to get past a fallen tree.

Today we paddle downstream.  But first a nice breakfast of Vanilla yogurt with granola, blueberries and a drizzle of Lemon Infused Olive Oil.  Yeah, that's right, olive oil.  Try it!  Also great on ice cream!

 

This will be a longer trek as we want to paddle down to the little town of Dunnellon and eat at Swampy's.  It's right on the bank of the river.  The way back will be upstream and we need to boogy as it gets dark around 5:30.  We brought a flashlight just in case. 

 

 

The view is a little different going downstream.  More Cypress and pines.

 

Also, more kayakers.  There is a popular put-in and some people like to get a shuttle service to bring them back from the end where they park their trucks.  This way they can float down at their leisure making it a one-way trip.

 

This was the largest clump we saw of Cypress.



 

 





 

 

Delicious drinks and we even tried some deep fried alligator.  You guessed it, tastes like chicken!  We kicked back on the deck, relaxed and watched the beautiful scenery.  Here some fishermen were trying their luck.  Nothing today they reported.  But as the saying goes, The worst day fishing is better than the best day working!  That's for sure!!

 

Again, look at that water!

This is as close as we could get to these Wood ducks.  The only ones we saw.

I love these stumps.  Are they Cypress that just didn't grow any taller?  Anyone know?

 

 

I like how his deck canopy looked like a Christmas Tree.




More cool trees  All different types, very large trunks.



Anhinga Cormorant.  Beautiful tan and black colors.

And the drive back took us through this neat tunnel of oaks draped in Spanish moss.

 

We also had a chance to meet up again with Bill and Kelly.  We met them back in April at the RV-Dreams Rally.  They are also 2014 Grads.  It was great to see them again!!  Check out their travels at: BK American Odyssey

 

 

Way Down Upon the Suwannee River

Live Oak, FL
Suwannee River State Park


We're here to do some paddling down the Suwanee River.  The entire time we were here we could not stop singing, humming or whistling that song.  ~Way down upon the Suwannee River, far far away...~  The campground itself is small and very nice.  It even has a laundry room ($1.25 a load).  There are some trails we hiked too.


This short trail leads to an old, small cemetery.

 

I liked the feathery look of this giant dandelion.  It was about the size of my hand.

I love cemeteries.  Especially old ones.  There is something peaceful about them.  I love the history and reading the old stones and the inscriptions and the art on them.  Some are very unique.  I try to imagine what their lives were like and how it was to live back then.  I am a member of Find-a-Grave and when I get a request to do a look up, I go to that cemetery, find the grave (if there is a marker) and take a picture of it.  The info is uploaded to the website.  I have located many graves and I have also had others do the same for me.  This is a wonderful tool for genealogy, especially when your relative was buried in another state, far from where you live.

 

I thought this grave marker was really cool.  It was a tree stump.  The detail is amazing.  The base had lilies and ivy.  Mr. Cannon was born in 1877.  The writing and emblem intrigued me and I looked it up when I got back home.  The Woodsmen of the World is a very old fraternal organization.  Here is a little info about it: 

 

     The organization was founded in 1890 in Omaha, Nebraska, by Joseph Cullen Root who was a member of several fraternal organizations, including the Freemasons. The organization played an important role in broadcast history.   In 1949, it began a radio station which later began the television station WOW-TV. Among its first performers was Johnny Carson, who had a daily show called The Squirrel's Nest where he told jokes, conducted humorous interviews and staged various skits with wacky comic characters.

 

I hiked a short trail that mostly went along the river.  At this overlook you can see a couple that were fishing at the confluence of the Suwannee and Withlacoochee Rivers.  I later learned that the woman caught a 2 lb. white bass.  Nice.



See them at the base of the white sand?

 

There were some nice benches and swings where you could sit, relax and just watch the river flow by.  Being from Northern California, I was a bit nervous at first of watching out for poisonous snakes.  There are about 5 different types of rattlesnakes, cottonmouth, coral and copperhead to names just a few.  But the ranger told me that at this time of year they are not really around and tend to not hang out on the trails.  With the trail being covered with all the leaves and having our dog, Hurley, with us still made me more watchful.

With all the leaves and roots on the trail, I felt I had to watch for snakes more carefully.

This was my favorite area, with the Cypress trees.

This is a spring coming out of the ground and flowing into the Suwanee.  You can't tell from the picture, but the amount of water gushing up from the ground was amazing!  Clear spring water joining the tea-colored river water.

 

   

 

I know it's almost impossible to see the colored bands on the pole, but I can't even imagine what it was like having the flood water reach 60+ feet from where it normally is!

 

Being a person who loves to fish, I'm always curious what type of fish are in the river or lake that we're at.  There is quite a variety.  Much more so in the middle of the country and the East Coast than on the West.  Bass fishing in lakes and trout in rivers are our favorite.  But we're looking forward to catching something that isn't on the west coast.

 

We had planned to meet up with one of Steve's good family friends from Virginia, Linda & her husband Joe, at a nearby campground, Steven Foster SP.  It is a beautiful campground with very nice, private spots.  They have access to great hiking trails nearby.  I'd stay here next time because we ended up being shuttled up the Suwannee anyway to get to the put-in spot we wanted.  They were having a large Christmas Light Show.  Seems almost every park we've been at since Thanksgiving has these.  Or small town parades.  We do miss our Placerville Christmas Parade. (our son's, Shane, employer Western Slope, won 1st place for their Elvis Rock-n-Roll Float)  Anyway, they had the large oak trees and palm trees all decorated up!

 

 

 

In one of the buildings, they had a bunch of old train sets set up.  One area had an RV Park which we thought was cute.

   

Linda & Steve who haven't seen each other since they were little kids.  She had her campsite decorated up for Christmas.  They were part of a large group of 20+ friends.

 

Time to get on the water! The Suwannee River begins at the Okefenokee Swamp in Southern Georgia and empties into the Gulf of Mexico 246 miles later.  This is our maiden voyage in our new replacement kayak.  Steve  has named him Big Red.  Some of you will remember that back in North Carolina we had our kayak, Old Blue, stolen.  If you missed that post you can read about it  --HERE--

 

Here we are putting Big Red into the Suwannee River for his first voyage.  You can see the brown, tea colored water against the white sand at the bank.  This is a result of all the decomposed leaves, roots and bark.  Not the prettiest, but it makes for beautiful reflection pictures. 

Most of the banks are steep limestone, but every now and then there are some pretty white beaches.

 

Love the roots spreading out into the water and the Spanish Moss waving in the breeze.

 

Some pictures of where you can really see the limestone on the banks.

 

 

 

This is where you sing, "Way down upon the Suwannee River, far, far from away..."

There is a spring here, but we didn't have time to check it out.  It was getting late and
we didn't want to be out on the river at night!

We had a great time kayaking down the Suwannee River.  The beautiful sunset on the drive back home was a perfect way to end the day!  Goodnight everyone!