Out Paddling: The Magic Treehouse and River Friends

Last night when we were at Woods Ferry River Camp and we thought we would be the only ones there. While we were having a dance party and playing the ukulele on the dock, though, six people showed up to spend the night there. They were very friendly and impressed by our ridiculous adventure. They brought a guitar so we made a valiant attempt at a jam session with our ukulele. When I told them we were going to sacrifice the ukulele to the river gods in a Viking burial at the end of our trip one of them was so upset that I gave him the ukulele on the spot. I was channeling King Solomon and determined that if he valued the life of the ukulele more than I did then he must be it's true mother. Far be it for me to keep a family apart. So I gave away my ukulele and now we're drifting and playing penny whistles. We're still easily the most obnoxious folks on the river.

We didn’t see anyone else out paddling today. One of the things I’ve been struck by on our trip thus far is just how empty the river is. Florida is a state that is blessed with easy access to beautiful waterways and springs and yet it seems that no one is taking the opportunity to appreciate them. I appreciate you Suwannee, I appreciate you. I suppose people may just be busy or on different rivers but they are all sorely missing out. Today was one of the first days when we really started seeing houses on the side of the river though, even though they are few and far between we are definitely starting to get out of the woods.

This morning took a late start at around 10 and had an uneventful paddle until we looked up and saw a magical treehouse on the left bank. We’ve seen many interesting things on the sides of the river (birds, hunting camps, little creeks, interesting flowers, and even a cow) but nothing caught our interest quite like this treehouse did. So we pulled our boats onto the bank and went to see what the treehouse was all about.

As it turns out, the treehouse was part of the Spirit of Suwannee Music Park which happened to be our halfway goal for the day. We took a tour with a cool guy named Eric who had an incredible banjo. Eric was kind enough to take us through the park and down to the store where we resupplied our food and beverage stashes. We are apparently on a BLT tour of the river because that is what we ate.

Then we took the longest 10 mile paddle ever to get to Holton Creek River Camp. It felt like 347 miles of paddling compressed into ten miles of river. Everything is hell. When all you want to do is take a nap and your sunburn is blistering it is very very hard to do anything at all. We passed the time by collecting things we found on the river. We’re stating to see more and more trash in the water and it is heartbreaking. Among the more interesting finds were a hubcap, a coconut wrapped in a bandana, and seven homemade sailboats.

About two miles from the camp we started hearing thunder and paddled hard to beat the storm. We were guided by the spirit of the Suwannee in the form of a blue heron who flew tree to tree ahead of us to the campsite.This is my story and I am not going to hear it any other way, the spirit of the river guided us. We unloaded our kayaks, flipped them on the beach, said a prayer that they would stay mostly dry, and got inside just before the rain hit. Boy were we glad to be inside when we were. It was one of those big thunder storms that I think only happen in Florida summers.

We're sharing the shelter with a couple of nice people from Virginia - one of whom has done the upper portion of the Suwannee multiple times on a paddle board- they shared their river smarts and their food.

The campsite is completely full because there is a large group of about two dozen people doing a father daughter/son retreat. They shared their dinner, their beer, and their river smarts with us too. The most impressive wisdom came from an 11 year old boy who told me to "never take your eyes off a lizard".

Before leaving everyone expressed concerns about our safety from others, and in fact everyone we meet expresses that same concern. I think that we all spend too much time in front of screens which thrive off perpetuating our anxieties. Maybe we are just lucky that we have only met kind people or maybe the folks who go to spend time on the river are just the kind of people you want to spend time with. Or maybe people aren't as scary as we let ourselves think

Tonight we will be sleeping to the sound of rain on a tin roof, which as everyone knows is one of the single best ways to go to sleep.