Swampy, I was VERY disappointed that you weren’t there. Poor thing, that nasty cold should be ashamed of itself. I was also disappointed not to meet NRATB and Planman. (And anyone else who wanted to come and couldn’t.)
So, no one has any comments on how cleverly I edited the photos and inserted myself?
No one appreciates my artistry!!
Your editing job was so good that I couldn’t tell which one was edited, so I said nothing! 
That’s why I like you, Bambi - you lie so sweetly! 
I’m uploading pics as I post this, but on dial-up, with large images, I may be doing this all night.
I think it’s just that the sun down here has melted away some of his surlyness. That and the possiblity of seeing girls in bikinis, something that was usually lacking from MAD fests.
I think it’s just that the sun down here has melted away some of his surlyness. That and the possiblity of seeing girls in bikinis, something that was usually lacking from MAD fests.
I’d like to mention the picnic contraption that the Bluesclan showed up with. It had a cooler, extra storage space for dry goods and utensils, and a freaking grill all rolled into one wheeled cart of pure BBQ evil. What in the world was that thing? It looks like it could even make Ronco envious.
Bambi, has it been that long??? 7 years? Holy crap! What the hell have I done with my life???
I’m not sure if I said it yet, but it was really great to meet everyone. I think I almost met screech-owl a couple times, but now I finally got to!
KarlGrenze is sooo quiet yet makes great conversation.
Before the hour of full contact Xtreme bumper-kayaking, I spent much of the time with Bambi, Ling 1, and ThePerfectChild! We played in the springs a bit and marveled at Ling 1’s innocent kleptomania.
She comes swimming up to us with a purple Fun Noodle. She saw everyone else with one, and this one was just laying around, so she figured the were for public use. So she just grabbed some random person’s Fun Noodle and jumped in the water. HA!!
The water was great, but cold. Damn cold. Luckily it’s like 6ft deep in the shallow end, so all that treading water warmed us back up quickly. I was expecting warm water!! On Discover Channel, I always see those GeoThermal hot springs that the monkeys hang out in like some huge Sim Simian[sup]tm[/sup] jacuzzi party. But apparantly, it’s not that kind of spring…
After beating up on the girls for a little while, we decided to get the rest of the gang together to do some kayaking.
Ling 1- Great kid; loves to climb on things and people
Ling 2- Awesome Girl. Got extra points when she described the fishing lure as “It’s Hurty”. HA!!!
ThePerfectChild[sup]tm[/sup] - Finally truth in advertising?
furt - Made the whole kayaking expedition possible with his ATM card. I’d like to take this second to once again say THANK YOU! Oh… and I owe you six bucks. 
bluesclan- Really great to meet you two. One a nurse and the other in Spec Ops intel. Both living in T&C. While I am a Spec Ops medic who grew up in T&C… small world. You two have done an excellent job with your kids. You should be proud of them.
FairyChatMom - I finally got to meet Queen of the Spam Ferrys!!! Woohoo!! And the green stuff was delicious.
Oh, BTW, what is Rue’s MMP threads?? I heard them mentioned in another thread just before reading this one again… I think I am really missing out on something. I must be totally out of the loop!
Ok! It’s my turn! Everybody else got to talk about how wonderful the picnic was, and I wanted to also. 
I did have a great time although I may have seemed rather down (so sue me for running on 2 hours of sleep!). It was a vast improvment from the night before. It was great meeting all of FCM’s peeps (now I know that you all really exisit! Wow. Now I’ve been sucked in… what the heck?) I can still feel it in my shoulders from rowing the kayak, but that was great fun. Bear_Nenno and I had a race and I kicked butt. He claims he quit racing, but as far as I’m concerned - I was not informed of this at the time, I WIN! Teehee
So long FCM - It was great to know you!! 
JUST KDDING! ha!
Bear, this is the latest MMP - you’ll have to search out the rest.
And my darling child, who decided today to join, even tho I asked her yesterday if she wanted to… I see she’s a charter member even tho she cost me $14.95! (since I’m the one with the credit card…)
I also rearranged some of the photos I’d posted - they’re now in chronological order, more or less.
FCM You’re the coolest ever!!
I am so glad you all had a good time.
Wish I coulda been there. Give me a couple of years, and I, too, could be a Floridoper.
Shibb, I agree with Tupug Anachi.
Pics posted here. I’m too tired to caption and link each one, so if someone wants to do that, feel free. The first pic is of the nasty fuzzy caterpillars we all kept having to get rid of. :rolleyes:
[OT]Trouble, I sent you a Very Important e-mail, just so you know not to delete it. SDMB was in the subject line.[/OT]
Also, I’d thank furt (who is missing, apparently. Finals and papers and all that this week) for the debit card, but I got my canoe gratis. The Man was nice to me for a change. BTW, Bear, I added a year by mistake. It’s six years this month since ENC 1102 ended. Oh, and a big old HI to TPC, who is one of UCF’s newest Knights. Congrats, and you’ll have a blast in school. Even though it is UCF.
Ok… the part you’ve all been waiting for:
No shit there I was, chest deep in marsh grass and cattails… Wait, let me back up a bit.
So we return to the group soaking wet, our hair flat and messy (or was that just mine) and screaming about “booots” – you know, Canadian style ‘boats’. Most everyone was game, so we walked down to the canoe store to rent some boats and see some gators. KarlGrenze had never seen a live aligator before. And I was intent on showing her some.
I have canoed on the Hillsborough River on numerous occassions. It is quite different from the Rainbow River in at least three ways. One, the Hillsborough is shallow and brown and tastes like tea because of all the Cypress trees, where as the Rainbow is deep and clear. I could see the bottom even where it was maybe 40 feet deep in some places.
Two, the Rainbow has no cars in it. And most importantly, three, the Hillsborough is infested with aligators. They are all over the place. I’ve never seen less than a dozen per trip and they swim under the canoe and all over the place. So I was expecting to see gators everywhere.
Well, we get to the canoe store and the guy is all out of canoes. All he has is seven clear bottom kayaks – the big fat kind you sit inside. And one “expert” kayak – the small skinny type you sit on top of. Though I’d never been in a kayak before, I lied and told the man I’ve been dozens of times and it was ok for me to take that one out.
Unfortunately, there were 10 of us expecting to go canoeing, so that left Bambi and Ling 2 on the shoreline. 
We finally get the money issue straight, thanks to furt, (I think he had to sign his house over for collateral or something. The boat store was very paranoid about losing one of their cheap ass $50 plastic kayaks) and we shoved off into the river. It took KarlKrenze a while to get a hang of the whole “rowing” concept, but she was a pro in no time! Everyone seemed to be confident and able in their vessels. I found riding my “hard one” – called that by the boat store employee – to be like balancing on top a piece of drift wood. Except made of plastic, and not quite as stable. The man assured me that “the water coming through in the middle is normal. It’s supposed to flow through there.” WTF?
The main point here though, is that I am only a good three or four inches above the actual water. It’s like Im just sitting on top of the water and rowing myself around. More on that later.
So we’re off!!! Immediately I saw a couple turtles. Surely I could catch one of those. They’re big and dumb, and slow. They’re turtles for cryin’ out load. I paddled my ass off trying to catch one. (I’ll do this repeatedly throughout the day, and fail each time) Luckily the clear water allowed us to watch them as they swam away. I showed the group all the turtles but deemed them “not vicious enough”. So we moved on in search of some gators, slamming into each other as we went. I think one person in the group had a watch and although it was getting late, we pressed on because 200 meters ahead of us always looked spookier and more interesting.
I was getting kinda frustrated that no gators were swimming around where we could see them. So I decided to actively seek them out.
I’m not sure what to call the marshy (is it a marsh), grassy areas on the banks of the river, so I’ll be a little verbose. At certain random places along the banks of the river are little floating islands of grass, and reeds. The roots are pretty thick, but are tightly woven at the surface of the water, so it makes like a floating island. Though a person could not walk on this, he would easily be supported if he laid down. (like an aligator)
My very shallow-hulled kayak had no problem skimming over the top of the little islands. The difficult part was getting through the tall grasses and reeds, and all the bugs. The vegetation was thick in some of these islands. It took some hard rowing to navigate my way through.
Well, I had almost given up on finding a gator, when I noticed something else: a swamp chicken. A stupid little flightless water fowl. Surely I could catch one of those…
I chased his ass all over!! Everytime I got close he would swim/fly about 20 meters away and rest. Then take off again when I got close. I followed this little shit head through two islands and then he flapped his way into another one. But this island was big. There were reeds sticking easily 5ft out of the water, and lots of thick grass. But I was determined. I built up speed, cause I knew this island would be hard paddling. As soon as I busted in, I was committed. No one on the outside could see me, and I couldn’t see anything around me but grass and reeds! Through the thicket, I saw that chicken again. And, whats this?? A nest?? Little stupid baby flightless water chickens… surely I could catch one of those!!! I made a beeline straight for the nest at ramming speed. Swamp Chickens ran every which way in a panic. The mother, ignoring all natural instinct, told her babies to piss off and ran for her life. I almost caught one of those little ones. I leaned over to grab it and almost tipped my kayak. But I missed and they all got away. How the hell did they all get away?? And they were nowhere in sight. I sat there… stalled out in the marsh, stuck actually, scanning the thicket to my right where they all escaped. I kinda sat back and sighed while still scanning for movement. “Mumble mumble, stupid water chickens, mumble mumble”
My rightside (is that port or starboard?) scanning progressed to the front and then to the Holy Shit!!! An Alligator!!! Godzilla was laying there sunning himself on the floating island to my left! He had been next to me that whole time, yet I was so concentrated on the chicks to my right, I hadn’t seen him!! He was an adolescent, at least 6ft long or so. His head was not even 3.5 feet away from me and facing the other direction. His was laying so that his head was furthest away and his body and tail were situated between his head and my kayak. So, basically, I could touch his ass where his tail met his body!! Which meant the rest of his tail was either under my kayak, or curled to the side. Either way, half his tail was underwater.
Now keep in mind, I am only a couple inches off the water myself. And I have no walls on my kayak. I might as well be just sitting on the marsh next to this freaking gator.
Good thing he was not facing me because I did not bring an extra pair of pants. I know that if he had only been turned the other way, toward my kayak, he would have hissed at me, (or worse) and that would have really scared that crap out of me!!!
Anyway, I saw this monster out of no where!!! But he wan’t moving. All these thoughts raced through my head. Not the least of which was “Holy Fuck! There is an alligator RIGHT next to me.” My mind began to race. “But he hasn’t seen me yet. Or hasn’t acknowledged me… or maybe he’s waiting to lash out at me… the water’s cold. Maybe he doesn’t have the energy to move. Just get the hell out of here. Back up!!”
I slowly dipped my paddle into the water “Oh shit, I forgot! His tail!!!” That did it!! Touching his tail made him disappear in a flash. Man, those things can really move!! He kinda splashed into and through the grass island and was gone. But not before turning his head to look at me and making the biggest scariest splash as he vanished!!
I was even more scared now. I thought it was bad before, when I knew where he was. Now he could be anywhere!! But it looked like he went forward, so I decided to keep rowing backwards. Only problem: I was stuck! The one thing that helped me move in there was forward momentum and I was all out of that. Plus, all the reeds and vegetation had been pushed in the direction of travel, so now I was fighting against all this crap pointing toward me. Only way out was forward. Even that was a pain. I fought the marsh for a couple more minutes before I finally found a way out of that thing. And luckily, I didn’t fine another gator. I did see where he swam through though. The water was dirty from where he stirred up the mud as he swam off.
From the time I noticed him, to the time he splased away was probably only a couple seconds. But, man, he was right freaking there! It was like I was sitting on top of him. Actually, I kinda was. My previous encounters on the Hillsborough were from the safety and security of a canoe – that floats well above the water… and has walls. It’s much nicer inside a canoe than on a kayak!
Well I made it out in time to watch furt (it was furt, right?) paddle over to some kids to try out their tree rope. It wasn’t much of a swing. More like a dynamic fall into the water while holding a rope… I don’t think it was constructed properly or something. It looked better when Tarzan did it, that’s for sure.
So that was pretty much it of our expedition. As we waited for the acrobat to get back in his booot, up paddles Bambi and Ling 2. Awesome!!!
Now we had an actual boat to ram. (Or get rammed by)
ThePerfectChild and I agreed to race back. But on the way to the docks, I noticed a really neat bird that kept diving underwater and swimming around. He’d go under and pop back up a couple yards away. Surely I could catch one of those I thought…
Nice pictures!
I don’t know about quiet, Bear, I’m afraid I didn’t stop talking on the way home with FCM.
Yea, it took me a while to get the concept of rowing right. What is strange is that my arms didn’t hurt as much as I expected. Sure, a bit sore, but I’ve had worse things happen to me after aerobics.
No… “quiet” as in volume. Not as in amount. Like I said, You make great conversation and I enjoyed talking with you. Even though I couldn’t convince you to jump in the water
But you’re quiet. You have a soft voice that is the opposite of loud – quiet.
Now I’m wishing I’d gone down to photograph the boaters - coulda gotten some, um, interesting action shots of Bear, huh? Chasing birds and turtles?!? :D:D:D
Bambi, I haven’t gotten an email from you, at least not yet. Nothing with SDMB on it.
So, is this a new moniker for the PerfectChild[sup]TM[/sup] or just another FairyChatMom fan?
Oh, and either way, welcome aboard!