Playing in the Panhandle

Our friend, Michel Laxson, with whom we paddled the Silver and Oklawaha Rivers earlier in the spring, has a waterfront home in Freeport where she likes to spend weekends during the summer. She invited us to participate in two river paddles that a local kayak club had organized for the upcoming weekend. So, Saturday we met her at her house, loaded the boats and headed for the put-in location at Vernon, on the Holmes River, about an hour’s drive to the northeast. The river was at flood stage and many areas of shoreline were completely submerged and were deep enough for us to paddle between the trees poking out of the murky, brown water like rebar in a concrete pillar. The high water also made navigation difficult as the banks that defined the river were gone. Fortunately the trip leader knew the way and we just relaxed into a steady stroke and enjoyed the ride on a gloriously warm, sunny day.

Solid ground would normally be visible at the base of these trees.

Note the “redneck canopy” mounted on the front of this vessel.

Jay and Chris were in separate kayaks and, as usual, Jay lagged behind a bit taking his time and looking for interesting critters. He struck gold when he spied a grayish-brown snake clinging to a tree just above the water. Unable to control himself he found a plastic bag in his kayak and stuffed the reptile inside. Chris just sighed and rolled her eyes figuring they would sort out the poor creature’s fate before leaving Florida. Michel contributed to the snake’s comfort by donating a large, plastic cat food container, with a secure lid, for a temporary home. Chris dug out an old, soft hand towel and bunched it up in the bottom for some warmth. Thus “Vern” may not be very happy but at least he was comfortable.

It’s a bit out of focus (Jay took the photo) but it is Vern on the tree before Jay “sacked” him.

Michel in the kayak and other members of our party.

Our second paddle with Michel was on the Econfina River on Tuesday, May 11^th. Each river we had been on was unique in its feature and the Econfina’s was high banks dripping with masses of lush, green fern, dotted with the white flower clusters of Oakleaf Hydranea. We paddled up narrow channels to several springs that fed crystalline water into the main river which had turned a muddy brown due to the sediment washed into it by the recent rain. There was a distinct line where the clear water of one large spring met the main flow. We eased down the river at a leisurely pace stopping at a little beach along the way for a snack and pretty much wasted the whole day having a wonderful time! How could our lives be any better? Oh, I know, we could win the lottery!

We paddled up one spring where the water was so crystalline you could see details in the roots of this cypress tree.

Notice the line where the brown water of the main spring meets the clear of another that feeds into it.

A view of this gorgeous river.

Michel resting near a bank of lush, fern.

As many of you know we are now Florida residents with a mailing address in a small, panhandle town named Crestview. As luck would have it Crestview is less than 20 miles from Niceville. We just had to pay our mailing service a visit to meet the people that take such good care of our mail. The operation is housed in a 20’ x 20’ room in one section of a small, one-story office building; the wall coverings consisting of a couple hundred dark gray, square cubbies for the client’s mail. We were warmly received by the two person staff and we can now honestly say that we’re from Crestview.

The water tower in our “home” town.

One of Chris’ passions is gardening and she brought along potted herbs to use in her cooking. In North Carolina she bought two pots of salad greens which we consumed in a short time so, she planted lettuce and spinach seeds to replenish the supply. They were decimated by pests, including a peacock in Miami and squirrels at every park where we stayed, who seemed to prefer digging in her pots to the expansive, surrounding acreage. Her imagination worked overtime creating solutions to the problem. Crunching up aluminum foil and placing it around the established herb plants seemed to work but she couldn’t use it over newly planted seeds as it would block the sunlight. She tried a variety of other deterrents to no avail. The day before we left Niceville she decided to try one last solution before giving up on the project entirely. After planting new seeds she stuck plastic forks all around the pot rims with the tines pointing outward. She then arranged the pots on the picnic table at the campsite, so that the squirrels would have difficulty accessing them. The next morning all was intact so there was hope we would be enjoying home grown salad greens in the near future.

Jay had been pondering Vern’s fate for almost a week; should he keep him or not? There were pros and cons to the decision. Jay’s pros were he’d most likely live a longer life in captivity since Jay would feed him regularly, and he wouldn’t be in danger of becoming a meal for a hungry hawk! The cons were he would be removed from the freedom of his natural habitat and contained in a terrarium. The RV has very little space to accommodate even a small terrarium. How often would we be near a pet store to obtain mice for his food, and finally, we were headed to the colder regions of the country and, if Jay did have to release him for some reason, he probably could not survive in an environment other than that found in Florida. The day we left Florida, Jay decided to release Vern, much to Chris’ relief. She assured him that when they settled in back at home he could get a pet snake if he so desired.

Five months after entering the state of Florida we departed for points north on Thursday, May 13^th. We had decided to head to St. Paul, MN where Chris’ grandfather lived in his youth and spend two weeks investigating items of her family’s that reside in the Minnesota Historical Society. We were not looking forward to the four day journey on interstates since we’d so much enjoyed meandering along the back roads of Florida. But, our long-term plans to spend the summer exploring the Upper Peninsula of Michigan warranted us getting north as soon as possible.