Saturday January 14, 2006. Cold - temps in the low to mid 50's. Very windy - 20 to 25 mph with gusts to 40mph. Dot and I were going to take a kayak with us on this trip to White Springs to go on the Suwannee River. Needless to say we didn't. Way too cold and way too windy. Driving up Rt. 41 from I-10 we stopped at the boat ramp on the Suwannee and saw these two guys. This is why America is the great country that it is. This is American ingenuity at its' best. These two guys built this raft from wooden logs and 5 gallon plastic buckets tied together with what appeared to be glass twine. I must also add that the Suwannee was very, very fast - high water and fast current. Dot and I had a good laugh  over what these guys were doing while at the same time we truly admired their courage. These are two modern day Tom Sawyers and Huckleberry Finns. 

Carrying their creation down to the river.

Shoving Off !!

Getting it together.

The start of a three mile float from Rt. 41 down to Stephen Foster Folk Culture Center State Park. One really has to admire this kind of spirit.

Leaving these two guys in the hands of fate, Dot and I went to the Stephen Foster Culture Center State Park. We went through the museum first. These following photos are highly detailed models that the photos truly do not do justice to.  The amount of detail in these models is amazing. So to truly appreciate these, you will have to pay a visit to the park yourself. Yes it's a long drive to White Springs, yes you have to pay to get into the park, and yes it is well worth the trip. Dot and I really enjoyed ourselves. 

All of these models are based on songs written by Stephen Foster. Not being true music buffs, Dot and I were both at a loss for some of these songs.

Just as a side note, the park also has camping with very good facilities. There are also cabins for rent.

In hindsight I should have photographed the titles of these models.

This one I remember was Camptown Races. Some of these models were animated. This one had the horses and riders going around the track.

I think this one was 'Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair'.

This is a model of the bell tower. The bells are all tubular bells, 93 of them as i recall. The tower was constructed in 1958 and is the largest tubular bell tower in existence. Every two hours starting at 10am, a 15 minute series of songs is played. There is a visitor area inside the bell tower where one can see a playlist of the songs being played.

One of the period dresses on display.

The bell tower.

A windblown Dot on the Suwannee River who doesn't like her picture taken. 

This was a youth group of some kind preparing to take off on a trip downstream.

Dot and I left the park and visited the 'Spring House' where people paid to use the medicinal springs. As luck would have it, we saw our two intrepid explorers passing by. 

The Spring House

Being the age of the internet, Dot and I decided to go back into the park to find these two guys to get their email address so we could send them the link to this website. As a note to these two, if you see a picture you would like to have in high res, send me an email with the pic you want to the link at the bottom of this page. I squoosh down all my pictures for display on the web. 

Historical marker about White Spring.

After finally leaving the park, Dot and I had lunch at the Suwannee River Diner in White Springs. If you go to the park, go to this diner. The food is home-cooked and EXCELLENT! To walk off our lunch, we went to Big Shoals area and walked down to the shoals. It is a two mile round trip through the woods bordering the river. As Dot noted, one can look at the pictures of the shoals but you just can't appreciate their power until you get right next to them. She was duly impressed.

This starts our second outing for this weekend. I usually save the day before work as a rest and recuperation day, but because of the windy weather on Saturday and Sunday, on Monday Dot (Dorothy Brasher) and I went for a kayak ride on the Bartram Canoe Trail off Racetrack Road. The trail is actually on Durbin Creek. We tried heading upstream, south, but got stopped by fallen logs blocking the way. So we headed north. We had about 5 'showstoppers' that we were able to get around or over. So we were able to paddle about 3 miles downstream. We saw great blue herons, limpkins, hawks, kingfishers, woodpeckers, including a pileated woodpecker (one of the really big ones), but no turtles which did surprise us. And it was a perfect day for kayaking. Bright and sunny and cool enough to not break a sweat. Durbin Creek is another blackwater creek so we had some really pretty scenery to look at with the reflections and all. The creek started off kinda narrow but after the first mile, it started to open up a bit. We definitely plan on doing this creek again. So here's the photos.

Since these pictures really don't need an explanation, just sit back and enjoy.

This is one of the survey markers put out by the St. Johns River Management  people. It's really nice to know that areas like this are being preserved and saved from developers.

As always, Dot and I hope you enjoyed our day on the water.

Jack Woodward      mailto:  jackwoodward66@hotmail.com

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