High Tide And Green Grass: Last Day At SRR, Intex Explorer Inflatable Kayak, Convict Springs, Misc. Photos

This is our last day at Suwannee River Rendezvous Resort Campground and we are packing things up for tomorrow's trip to Sumatra, Florida. We will be spending two weeks at Wright's Lake, a primitive (no hookups) campground in the Apalachicola National Forest. This will be the first extended test of our solar panels. We will be completely off the grid so contacting us will be difficult.

Tomorrow's Route

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Me trying out one of our inflatable kayaks for the first time. Donna hasn't tried hers out yet - she has this silly hang-up about alligators. The kayak works surprisingly well for an inexpensive inflatable. It inflates very quickly with the supplied hand pump and is much more stable than a hard shell kayak that I am accustomed to. They fold up into a small package - I store both of them in the tool box on the truck along with all of my tools. The only real trade-off (other than that they could get punctured) is that they do not glide through the water as easily as a hard shell so they require more effort to paddle. As far as getting punctured, they have three separate air chambers so if any one got punctured you wouldn't sink and all the reviews I have read indicate that they are extremely durable.

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Convict Springs - This is a historic spring that is located at the Suwannee River Rendezvous campground. I didn't mention this before as it was flooded when we got here. The Suwannee river has now subsided and I was able to get a picture of the spring.

Convict Spring (Note the high water marks on the tree behind the spring)

The following highlighted description is courtesy of Suwannee River Rendezvous Resort and Campground:

"More than a hundred years ago, the serene site of Convict Spring looked mighty different, and not just because there were no cars, no planes overhead, no cellphones and certainly no TVs. Instead, right here at the Suwannee River Rendezvous, if you were taking in the sights, there’s a very high probability you were working on a chain gang.

Back in the early 1900s, our spring was used by Lafayette County’s incarceration system, notes Florida Caves. Their prisoners worked on road construction projects – often called chain gangs – and when it was too late or too far to get the inmates back to the county jail, they would spend the night at remote camps scattered throughout the county, and Convict Springs was one of those remote camps.

It’s hard to imagine grizzled criminals gathered around campfires, the light reflecting in the spring, but history doesn’t lie. Every once in a while, someone will turn up an artifact of one kind or another that further confirms the property’s colorful past.

Convict Spring sits atop a fascinating underwater cave system as well, one we’re certain the convicts didn’t spend any time exploring. This particular cave system is a dangerous one, with a restricted entrance and the need for a side-mounted style of diving through extremely narrow passages, notes Cave Survey in its assessment of the spring. In 2001, Dell Moats, John Moseley, Michael Poucher and Bill Rennaker swam through Convict Spring Cave to take a full survey. They captured extraordinary video footage showing the beautiful yet dangerous conditions inside the cave. We have DVD footage of their excursion, and in the lodge.

We invite you to come enjoy the spring – from the surface, of course – for swimming during the sultry summertime at Suwannee River Rendezvous. In the evening, over the sound of crickets and frogs, you might just hear the faint rhythm of a chain gang. Convict Spring is just one of the many amenities and conveniences that makes our resort and campground such a popular destination for visitors from all across the country. To plan your trip, call us today at 386-294-2510."

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Panoramic view of the RV park from the roof of our RV (I was up there today cleaning the solar panels)