Campaign for Real Beauty
Speaking of beauty, this is one of the best ad campaigns I have seen in a while. Click here to see the other three ads.
Thanks for the link Jerry!
The Best Kayaking Trip Ever - A Survivors Story
***Heads up: This is the longest blog post I think I may have ever written. Go grab a cup of coffee or your favorite beverage and pull up a chair. It’s a long story***
The Benevolent Trainer (TBT… I haven’t asked him if I can call him by his first name here or not yet) and I share the same birthday. I am eight years older than him but we were both born on May 14th. This year we decided to do something in honor of our birthdays. We both love to kayak but we had not ever gone kayaking together. We had planned to but it hadn’t worked out to date so we wanted to correct that delay and enjoy a nice day on the river.TBT was kind enough to stake out all the different kayaking places in central Florida and he was specifically looking for scenery, challenge and not to far out from Orlando. Where I go, Rainbow River, is pretty far north of Orlando. He even borrowed a two seater kayak and a Lincoln Navigator from a couple he knows, Mr. & Mrs. C. They were very
kind to extend the use of their resources and we felt truly blessed. TBT thought it would be fun to explore The Black River. We got to the drop point and we were surprised to see that no one else was there. As we untied the two seater kayak, love bugs swarmed the car we were in and got all inside the interior. Every May the love bugs (don’t know their real scientific name) swarm over Central Florida. They are EVERYWHERE and annoying. They are nasty to clean up and really do a mess up your car when you drive. Even so, we went down to the water and instead of The Black River, it was more like The Black Trickle.
We only went down 50 yards or so and back. In that short span we:
* had to lay completely backwards into the kayak as we tried to clear the first obstruction of fallen trees.
* crashed through the second obstruction of fallen trees and brush. There were only the top branches of the trees coming up through the plane of water so we had to go through them, not around or under.
* Five paddle strokes later we were going under a bridge that was being expanded. The pile driver thing started up right about then. It was excruciatingly loud.
* We pressed forward and had to clear two more man made obstructions, one on each side of the bridge. The
water in between was nasty and stagnate.
* After clearing those we went about 3 paddle strokes to the next trash filled obstruction. It was huge and there was no getting through it… and we got stuck in the Florida muck.
* Frustrated, I jumped out of the kayak to pull us out and sank in the muck up to around mid thigh level.
* The only true thing about the black river was that the water was black. I was NOT a happy camper and told TBT so. We turned back and had to go back through all of that just to get back to the car.
I asked TBT if he just wanted to pack it in and go to the beach. He said, “No, we are close to another river that will be better than this.” He wanted to try something new and this other place, Kings Landing, he had been to many times before. While we were disappointed with The Black River, we were glad to be close to somewhere else that was a well known place for canoes and kayaking. Also, Kings Landing is King Springs which feeds into Wekiwa springs, so I knew that those waterways were more than a trickle. But I also knew that they had a lot more wildlife, seriously wooded and dark water (not clear.) Dark water is where all KINDS of things live, including alligators, water moccasins,larrrrgggee spiders
etc. I knew all of that but as we were leaving the Black River I said, “Well, at least we can say the worst part of our day is over.” TBT prophetically states,”Don’t say that … you never know what else could happen.”
