Way down upon the Suwannee River

I spent 5 days paddling along the Suwannee River in Florida starting at Dowling Park and ending at Ruth Springs. It was a really short trip so we didn't really get a chance to work on anything with the girls. The trip was supposed to be 14 days but the river is so low right now that we couldn't do more than 5. 2 of the canoes got stuck anyway.

The trip was fun overall. We had 10 kids and 4 chiefs. Since it was only 5 days we didn't have time to evaluate stearning with the girls so the chiefs ended up sterning for the 32 miles we paddled. Sterning means steering the canoe. It was a long 32 miles.

It was beautiful though.

I didn't take any pictures myself so I had to get them off of Google.

Overall the kids enjoyed the trip. We had some kids that were better paddlers then others. For example my first canoe had one girl who wasn't very strong and got tired really easily and the other girl didn't want to be on the trip so we were last all day. And on the other hand my second canoe had 2 girls who were really strong paddlers and were determined to be in front away from the other loud canoes so we were in front all day.

Our kids were very lazy and slow at getting things done for the first half of the trip. We didn't leave our first campsite until 12:15pm. We had been shooting for 11. Then we had 11 miles to paddle. We got to the next campsite super late and got the canoes emptied and cleaned pretty fast. We ended up eating dinner in the dark and setting up tents in the dark. The only light we had was from the 4 chiefs headlamps because the kids aren't allowed to have flashlights and we didn't bring lanterns with us. We stayed at a place called Lafayette Blue Springs

The third day the kids were a lot better about time goals. We paddled 10 miles a lot faster than the day before and got into our campsite around 3 or 4. We stayed in a river camp that night. It was super nice, all of the kids were behaving really well because it was a privilege to stay in the river camp and not pitch tents and use the flush toilets. They knew we could take away that privilege if they misbehaved too much. We were staying at Peacock Slough River Camp. Our camp hosts were super awesome!

The last night we stayed at Adams Tract River Camp. We were the only group staying there so it was really cool.

This is what the kids slept in with the MC, the other 3 chiefs slept in a tent in front.

The last day we paddled about 3.2 miles to Ruth Springs. Camp had never been there before so we didn't know if it would be a good pull out spot or not. It turned out to be not so good. We had to carry all of the gear over the spring and up a flight of stairs and then carry the canoes as well. It was hard work but the kids worked hard and we got it all done fairly fast.

Okay some funny stories from the trip. So on the 3rd day when we were at Peacock Slough River Camp we ate lunch and then walked down to the gear tarp which was on the shore next to the river. We told the girls to sit in a waiting huddle while the chiefs went to evaluate. We walk a few feet away and turn around and some kids are sitting, some kids are standing next to the water throwing rocks and some are lying down. We're like really they didn't listen to us and then someone said I wonder how they would react if we just laid down. So the 4 of us collapsed in a heap on the ground and we look over and one kid is staring at us with her jaw on the ground in shock and a few of the others are like what are you doing. We just started laughing and couldn't stop. After a minute or 2 one girl got up and starting grabbing stuff and getting the other girls to grab things and they all marched past us in huff up the hill to the campsite. We were still having a fit of giggles watching them, one kids marched past with a dry back in each hand and one in her teeth. We were impressed to see that they grabbed everything that they needed and checked out crews without our prompting.

The next night inside crew was cooking what we called the All-American meal-they made mac and cheese, bbq chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, biscuits and candy yams. A ridiculous amount of food. They ended up dropping half the meal on the ground and picking it back up and at the same time they were making puppy chow for the last pow wow treat. Well apparently they dropped the chocolate at one point while they were trying to pour it into the bag so they scooped it off the ground back into the bag and then proceeded to lick the remaining chocolate off of the ground. I was on outside crew so I didn't see most of this happening but when they dropped the chocolate we heard the pan hit the ground and turned to see what was happening, the 2 chiefs on inside crew decided that jumping around making a lot of noise was the best way to distract us when in fact all it did was draw our attention more toward them.

Later that night after final pow wow we put the kids to bed and then evaluated outside by the fire. Unfortunately the fire was  right in front on the building and our evaluating turned into laughing at everything that had happened over the 4 days of paddling. So were basically crying because we were laughing so hard and our kids were so mad, one kid came out on the porch and told us that we shouldn't be having any tones because it was time to go to sleep and we were making too much noise. We were probably laughing for 15 minutes, trying so hard to be quiet.

The wildlife on the trip was super lame. We saw turtles, birds and fish. Not one alligator, I was so disappointed, although most of the kids were relieved.