Down the Creek; With a Paddle

It's early Sunday morning; bright sun and few clouds. Here we are at the Earl P Powers Boat ramp in Southeast Gainesvile, Florida meeting our outfitter and group for our paddle down Prairie Creek. 

We head out to Newnan's Lake
  

Until we reach the entrance to Prairie Creek

A narrow, winding creek in a natural preserve area

Many cypress knees

A Limpken along the bank

Another Limpken amongst the cypress knees

The water is high considering all of our rainfall but we still have several down trees to contend with

LLL 'does the Limbo" with this tree. I'm hearing Chubby Checker in the my mind singing "How loooooow can she go?"

Apparently, quite low!  The rest of us got hung up on the other side with a submerged log. But there was no way I was going to be able to get under this log the way she did.

Another log requiring some assistance and a bit of "scrunching"

Prairie Creak is absolutely beautiful to navigate. Well worth the hassle of an occasional "scrunch" and "duck"

Many Apple Snail eggs attached to grass and  cypress knees. Vivid orange in some cases. Unfortunately for the eco system, these belong to an exotic variety instead of the native Florida snail and bodes for an uncertain future.

Not too many alligator out today. Just a few of the "small guys"

A "nature" quiet morning and afternoon.  (Nature is NOT quiet. I mean we heard no machine sounds during most of our paddle)

The creek skirts the eastern edge of Payne's Prairie State park.  Original water flow for the creek empties into the Prairie.  In the 1930's canals were dug to divert the water down to Orange Lake.  Still a very contested issue to this day.  Toward the end of our journey, we are in Camp's Canal and paddle past a weir which determines how much water flows to the Prairie and how much flows to Orange Lake. 

We exit the creek and headed home by 2:30 in the afternoon. Physically tired but emotionally exhilarated both by being in such close contact with nature as well as having challenged ourselves and come through. 

My ice cold tea from the car cooler would not have tasted so good under other circumstances. 

Smile.

Our Blackberry Sniffing Dog

Sarah, our faithful canine, and I are never sure where we will end up when traveling with LLL- a glimpse at a sign by the side of the road ....

....and the next thing we know, we're out in the hot sun picking blackberries. 

Two other people jokingly (we think) accused us of having better luck finding the ripe berries because our dog was telling us where they were. Sort of like a truffle pig.

Sarah's nose pointing to ripe blackberries

 Sarah may have found another calling; although I think she prefers her "callings" to come with air conditioning. 

Usually our "outings" are reward in themselves, but today we have

fresh picked blackberries and vanilla ice cream!

At the Blues Brothers Blueberry Farm in Anthony, Florida 

Devil's Den and Cedar Lake Ranch

Devil's Den and Cedar Lake Ranch, a set on Flickr.
Click HERE for Slideshow

Overall sensory overload! By chance we discovered that , two places just a bit west of Williston, Florida that are not usually open to the public were open this weekend

benefit for the Hippodrome State Theater “Cave of Forgotten Dreams,” filmmaker Werner Herzog

http://www.gainesville.com/article/20110617/ARTICLES/110619611

Cedar Lake Ranch and Reserve, the home and passion of Dr. Ray Webber, a Williston endodontist.

For 19 years, Webber has been transforming a former limestone quarry into botanical gardens with boardwalks, waterfalls, more than 40 gardens, a

We arrived early fortunate crowded the 3 of us were able to spend time in the cave absorbing the atmosphere

next door

dark left for home

What a Saturday night!

How Things Work in Egypt

Yes, there is internet on the boat.

It is free.

It is not available "this' week
Sent from my Verizon Wireless Phone

Pyramids at Giza and the Sphinx

This is one of my favorite images from my visit to the Giza Pyramids on Saturday morning, November 13, 2010. Watching from a distance, one can almost feel the vast emptiness of the desert as the person on camel rides past ones of the original seven wonders of the world.

Reality of course is that there are thousands of people here this morning from all over the world. A true babel as the multiple languages of us visitors blend together with the authoritative voices of our respective guides and the wonderfully charmingly perfect English (to me anyway) spoken by the ever present souvenir hawkers.

The wonder and mystery of these Great Pyramids does not disappoint.

Neither does the Great Sphinx of Giza - pictured here with the second pyramid, the one of Khafra, behind it.



And pictured here with the head of KathyL beside it (for those of you responsible for letting Marcia know she's ok) ...

And here is one tacky picture of me in front of the Great Pyramid of Khufu (aka Cheops in Greek) with one of my new good friends in the spiffy white uniform with an automatic weapon by his side (aka Tourism Police) The picture was taken by another nice young man in a spiffy white uniform with an automatic weapon by his side (and who was tipped $1 for his efforts). Just glad he shot me with the camera. (Did I mention I tipped him?)


Sunday night (11/14/2010) We are back here for the sound and light show. (Since our hotel is within sight of the pyramids, it wasn't exactly a long drive even in Cairo traffic) Best part of which was the sitting here in the cool desert evening under the stars with a sliver of moon with the Sphinx and the three Great Pyramids visible before us. It almost seems real that I'm here.


Leaving the Giza complex at night to get back on our bus, here is the street scene as we come out. City and country present many contrasts.