Sigh.
Back to IM sports, clubs, finance homework, marketing and the 'real world'. Whatever that means.
But it's kinda ok because I had a FANTASTIC break.
I went to Florida.
Yep. Florida. When you think of Florida do you think white sandy beaches, margaritas, big cities, old people and alligators?
I do. I got the white sandy beaches. Kinda. No margaritas, just a few beers at a local dive bar. Definitely no large cities, the town had only one stop light and there wasn't really a reason for it. A few old people, but they were super cool and pretty funny in that cute they don't get kids these days way. Oh and yeah, I saw an alligator too. No big deal.
They're so cute when they're not trying to eat you.
I went to White Springs, FL to canoe and camp along the Suwanee River. I slept on the ground in a tent for an entire week, made my meals out of dehydrated food and didn't shower (bathed in the river) in a legit shower for an entire week. I only knew 2 other people going on the trip, the outdoor pursuit ga and a supervisor who works time to time in the rec. But I didn't know them that well. And I would be living basically with 9 other strangers out in the back country of Florida for a week. I was entering a world without cell phones, electricity, air conditioning, heat or even so much as a blow up mattress.
And I loved it.
It was so much fun and it was so good to get away from everything. I turned my phone off and didn't turn it on but on the second to last day just to tell my parents I was alive.
It was 7 days filled with sun, canoes, new friends, new adventures, new states, self exploration, perspective, random talks of religion, school, past events, politics, power ball lottos, billboard signs, road trips, block-rockin-beats, cheese blocks and southern accents.
I'll give you a short version of a play by play because I could probably write a full on novel about my trip. But I'll save you from that much reading.
Day 1, Saturday, March 8th:
Travel day. After meeting at the Rec to pack up gear at 5am we head off on our adventure. We spent 8 hours in a van headed south, we traveled through Kentucky, Tennessee, and Georgia. I was co-pilot and listened to some rad 90's rock music and talked about beer brewing and life after SIU with we'll call him Mick the outdoor GA. He's super tall and lanky and when he talks his voice just commands attention. If the whole outdoor/guide deal doesn't work out, preacher or politician would definitely be an option for this guy. It was really cool to see all of the states that I had never ever been to before. We drove through Nashville and Atlanta, traffic was crazy bad in Atlanta so the rumors are true, Atlanta SUCKS with traffic. But I was excited to see it because of The Walking Dead. Not gonna explain, if you don't know the show, you're missing out.
The billboard signs were hilarious. Georgia has a ton. Like every 200ft there's a new sign. And some are weird and now that I'm in business and learning about marketing I couldn't help but comment on a few…like the "trucker friendly spa" or "Mary's sausage festival" or "Strippers. Need we say more?" (personally my favorite). Pecans and peaches are king in Georgia that's for sure. Every exit had a pecan farm or stand and you hadn't had a peach til you had a Georgia peach. And honey jam is a thing. No clue what it is or how to make honey jam but it's only real honey jam in Georgia. Don't get it twisted with Honey jelly either.
They're serious about their peaches and pecans. Pronounced 'pee-can' and not 'pee-khan'. I made that mistake. Sure fire way to prove you're a 'northerner'.
We spent that night in a campsite in a town called High Falls. Yes, they had a water fall. No it wasn't that high. Cool to see and we went exploring for a bit but the name did not live up to the actual falls. We learned how to make our dinner using a little gas burner stove and dehydrated food. Before you start to gag it was actually really good. Like gourmet of the dehydrated packaged foods. We ate spaghetti with red sauce, cheesy garlic bread and chocolate pudding pie for dessert. And it was delicious. All we had to do was boil some water and stir.
I ate better on that trip than I do at home.
We set up our tents and the only 3 girls spent the first of many nights together. Turns out…we all snore. Loudly. And not very lady-like at all. I guess I'm the worst. I woke up to a few zzz's myself but was so tired and uncomfortable trying to sleep on the ground for the first night that I didn't care much.
Day 2, Sunday, March 9th:
We woke up a little late. It was daylight savings AND we went to eastern time. So we lost out on 2 hours. We planned on waking up at 6ish. We woke up at 9:15. oops. As we still had a 4 hour drive to get into Florida, breakfast was a quick meal of scrambled eggs and hash browns. (dehydrated, mind you and they could rival denney's scrambled hash.) We packed up the tent and moved on out. We learned pretty quickly that you don't wear shoes in the tent and the faster you can get it up and down, the easier life becomes.
Not an actual photo from the trip but this is the gist of what our camp looked like. Gear every where and a bunch of tents staked about. Our mobile homes that served as bedrooms, kitchens and living rooms for the entire week. Dump it all in a spot only to pick it all back up in the morning and move again. Ah, the life of a nomad. Fun for about a week and then you really start to appreciate not having to pack up your entire house every flipping morning.
More driving. So far I've seen mostly roads and cars and sketchy gas stations with people trying to push us to buy pirated dvd's. No thanks I do not want to see a fake Bruce Willis in Die Hard from the view point of a cell phone in a movie theater. But some of the guys got some power ball tickets. It started as this inside joke thing because of all the billboards about it and then imagine that the marketing strategy worked and they bought a ticket.
We finally get into Florida. Still lots of billboards. But it's really green. And flat. The first thing I noticed in all of the states are the trees. Logger's daughter problems. They are so much different than the big pines we have back home in the mountains of California. They're little and skinny and there's a lot of spanish moss. Which makes them look eerie and like you're in a scooby-doo episode. That became their name, scooby-doo trees, thanks to one of the guys on the trip, who just blurted out on the drive, "Oooh look at those scooby-doo trees!" and thus they were dubbed such.
We got into White Springs, Florida. Finally. Here we would start our 43 mile canoe trip down the Suwanee river. (Tons of Native American names for places and things, Chatanooga, Chatahoochee, Okeefanokee, etc.) The town is super small. One little burger place that also doubles as the towns only bar. It only has 3 taps so don't plan on getting wild and crazy. An outfitter for camping, canoeing. And a few cute little southern houses. Oh and don't forget Sharon's Eatery. A little breakfast/sandwhich shop.
We stayed at Stephen Foster's Camp grounds. Stephen Foster was this composer back in the good ol' days of the 1800's and he wrote about the Suwanee river. Turns out he's not even from Florida and never even saw the river he just liked the name and it rhymed. But hey whatever floats your boat.
The campgrounds were beautiful. Cyprus trees and marshy, not swampy but marshy. And they had bathrooms. So we didn't have to rough it so bad. We had running water. What a luxury. It was warm too. A beautiful 70plus degrees. I was basking in the sun, it felt so incredibly good.
After checking out the area and the river we spent the evening chatting with a group of retirees on a couple retreat style trip. People in the south just are automatically nicer if only for their accents and how they call even us silly and loud kids 'sweet heart' and 'honey'. They were cute and so excited to hear we were from Illinois and enjoying the fact that we were no longer in the snow. They told us about the "Real Florida" and how they were basically all not originally from Florida (imagine that). But still really cool to talk to them.
Rad pink flamingo board shorts, bro.
We had to hit the river pretty early in the am, so it was an early night for us. I slept a lot better than the first night, my body slowly getting used to sleeping on the ground. And that it was a cool 50degrees all night definitely helped too.
Day 3, Monday, March 10th:
River Day!
We met up with outfitter and put all our gear in dry bags, got the kodak cameras out, put on the sunscreen and started to paddle. 10 people, 5 canoes all headed down the Suwanee River for a 12 mile paddle for the first day.
And here I'll stop and continue with my next post later. Pics will also be posted later, still got to get the camera developed. #oldschool
To be continued!
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