We Want To See Florida: June 2012

First we have to thank our sponsors which include any product that contains deet, any product that has sun block and good ol' fashion H2O!!!!

We had this trip planned for about a month or so, then the closer we got to the time the closer Tropical Storm Debby got ( which wasnt a named storm yet, ) . We all thought it would be a fun time in the rain to be able to learn more with different elements like the rain. We figured if we can survive the freezing cold from the last backpacking trip surely the rain wont stop us. Well ill sum it up by saying What Rain!!!!
Debi ( not the storm notice the spelling ) and I leave the house about 7:30 am to meet James and Ken at Juniper Springs to drop off the car and head to Hopkins Prairie parking area, it was cloudy and drizzlin a little bit of rain. So we are sure we are going to get rained on the majority of time. I was a little concerned about Debis bag being a little heavy, and after taking a few months off I wanted to be sure she was nice and comfy despite the rain. We talked a little about it and I decided to remove 2 litters of water from her bag to help her out some. I broke rule number 1, Never sacrifice weight for water. And i wont do that again! When James and Ken arrived we loaded their gear up and headed out, jokin about the rain and all the fun we would have in the storm. We had about a 20 min ride or so to get the Hopkins Prairie parking and I hollar BEAR LOOK AT THE BEAR !! Not even 5 mins after Ken says " dont count on seeing a bear I have a bear curse ". It was our first bear encounter ever ( well mine and Debis at least maybe Kens and James ) .. We were so excited til we realized he ran the way we were goin to be walking, kinda made us say HMMMMMM.
We jump out of the truck and start our trip, All of us had sprayed ourselves with bug spray to be sure there were no problems with skeeters, well we didnt think about all of the deer flies, i kid you not i think we stirred up a hundred of them the first 5 mins in and it didnt stop for a mile or 2. I saw 10 on Debis backside at one time, and yes i did swat them off the best i could. No problem we made it through that with some laughs. I dont know what was worse the deer flies or all the spider webs, seemed like every 10 feet was another web across the trail, i thought James and Ken did great clearing them out for Deb and I LOL. While we walk i have a habbit of watching the feet of the person in front of me, this time it was James in front, and then i saw it, yep IT, the dreaded snake, just about 6 inches from James's feet a Pigmy Rattle Snake. I have seen a few of them while i was working but this is the first one that Debi has seen. No James didnt get bit but it goes to show we need to watch the ground and watch out for spiders at the same time.
The later in the morning it got the hotter it got , yea its summer time in Florida we know, but remember it is supposed to be raining all day and/or overcast. I guess thats one more the weather man missed. I was bright and sunny almost the whole day. The sun was beating us down and laughing at us, Debi was suffering pretty bad, so she was dumping water over her head and we were taking breaks at almost all of the shaded areas. There were very few trees and very little shade. We were hoping for a good place to take a break and cool down some which we found at "hidden pond" . Once we realized where we were we knew things would get better, it was almost time to set up camp all we needed to do was cross whiskey creek bridge and start looking for a good place to set up. It was only about 1.2 miles or so to start lookin.
We did find the creek with no problem, and James noticed it could be a decent place to camp there. But we pushed on a little bit further til we got to a small pine area. Debi was still hurting and ready to stop, James wanted to get closer to the river ( juniper springs river ) so James and Ken set there gear down at the end of the pines and headed off to look for another spot. Deb and I stayed at the gear and took a break, and i did a little bit of scouting in that area where i found a old camp site the " Roy " had set up. We know it was Roys spot because he left his name on a make shift bench he built.
After Ken and James got back we decided to camp at Roys spot, we took a looks around and saw a lot of widow makers that had fallen. We still figured it was the best spot for that area. We knew we had to get set up before the rains hit so we all got busy. Then it was time to fight the ticks, i pulled about 4 off of me before we had the hammocks set up. And probably about 6 before i was done with my coffee, they were everywhere!
We decided that because we were low on water that we would catch the rain water to resupply us, again NEVER BREAK RULE NUMBER 1 !!!!! Yep you guessed it NO RAIN!! We could hear the thunder and we even saw a few storms, but we get maybe 10 drops on us! It was still breezy so the temps werent to bad at camp, but i was a little dehydrated and James was low on water also.We werent in horrible shape for water i still had 4 liters so we knew we could make it back no problem, but thats still a bad feeling of being low.
Ken, James , and I headed out to see if we could get some wood and while we were there Ken noticed a camp site that was closer to the water, after we got a ( yes i said a ) log we went back out and tried to find the river for more water and maybe a quick dip. We got " close" to it but started to run out of daylight, if we were in bad need of the water we could have gotten it there. We went back to camp and saw a deer on the way back.
After dinner and a almost good nights sleep, i say almost cuz evidently there was a critter ( or bugger as we call it ) walking close to camp and scared Deb as it snorted and stomped, i didnt hear it but the guys did. James says it sounded like a Buck snorting so it was all good!!! The rain stared about 4 or 5 am, but it was just a drizzle.
We headed out about 8 am after coffee and breaking camp, the walk out was a good one nice and cool with the light rain.
It was a good trip with plenty of wildlife to see, if the rain would have started Sat. morning it would have been a lot better of a trip.
Here are a few pics .... Thanks for reading!!!!!