St. John's River Boat Photos (2)

More photos from the X-Mas Adventure! I am planning on one more bunch of photos, but they all have a different theme (you can figure out the theme later). Enjoy the rest of the visual story of the McLarty Clan on the St. John's River....

On Christmas morning we were towing five boats behind our BIG boat. That's Mom and Dad's kayaks on the left, the Family canoe in the middle, and Cheryl and Martha's kayaks on the right. For the most part, it was just the first three boats, but these five sure made a sight to be seen!

This is my "I just woke up" Aunt Jan on X-Mas morning. That's my fun little tree in the background surrounded by my "Going Green" presents: Green (reusable) Bags!

We had five boats training along...and we had four bikes along for the ride. They spent most of the trip on the back deck, covered in a blue tarp...we did get them off the boat one time for a LONG and very COLD ride on the morning of the 26th.

Letterman has "Will it Float?" and the blender company has "Will it Blend?" Well, the McLarty Clan has "Will it Fit?" This was our first encounter with a bridge and, according to my Dad official view here, the tallest antenna made it by a mere six inches!

60 minutes into a paddling trip up-stream at Alexander Springs, my brother had the notion that he wanted to exit the back of our canoe onto this particular tree and have me paddle away to take a photo. Obviously, I obliged his request and this is the resulting picture. I call it "Dustin in the Middle of Nowhere."

We had to eat...Jan and Grandma Jane were in charge of making lunches here...and we ate heartily! Everyone wanted to impress everyone else with their cooking skills so we had feasts at every meal (I'm not complaining:) and many leftovers to take back to dry-land.

That's my Aunt and Dad (brother and sister) kayaking up to Juniper Springs. This was during the pleasant time before the river got very shallow and very powerful and you had to put some serious effort into every paddle stroke to keep on moving forward!

We had some guests at the back of the boat in Lake George. The seagulls (are they still 'sea'gulls if they aren't at the sea?) thoroughly enjoyed the two-day-old waffles that I was breaking apart and hurling into the lake!

Our final night was at Silver Glen Springs and it was the only boil that was relatively close to the St. John's river. This photo was taken on our final morning. It was another very cold morning and the steam in this photo shows that the water (always 72 degrees) was warmer than the air. The rippling on the surface of the water at the bottom of the photo is the BOIL of the spring...the water is actually coming out of the ground right below our boat!

That is Jan, Me, Dustin, and Dad overlooking Lake George on our final morning. We went on a 40 minute hike before breakfast and were treated to a beautiful sunrise. (Thanks to my Mom who snapped this photo...sorry she couldn't be IN it:)