Ichetucknee Springs

One of my favorite childhood memories was tubing down the Ichetucknee River, so I was so excited when I found out that it is only 45 minutes from our house in Florida.  An easy day trip for our family!  We went to Wal-Mart, got ourselves some tubes and headed to the river. When we got to the river, we realized we didn't really have any idea where we were going. The park ranger directed us to a tram that would take us up river a ways and told us there were exit points about 30 minutes downstream and 1.5 hours downstream. We hopped in the water and everything was going great. Ben fell asleep and the boys were singing Row, Row, Row Your Boat and having fun splashing in the water. As we approached the 30 minute take out point, we assessed our situation and decided we were having enough fun to keep going.

BIG MISTAKE. About five minutes later Jack started asking, "When are we going to be done?!" A few minutes after that, Will started crying because he was hot. A few minutes after that, Ben woke up and started crying too, although he couldn't really tell me why. Finally, we made it to the end of the line and hopped back on the tram to go back to the car for our picnic lunch. It would have been a perfect day if we had just gotten out at the 30 minute mark. Due to our stupidity, I have downgraded it to just a great day. Next time, we will know our limits!

 

I feel like I should comment on the Strawberry Shortcake floaties. Somehow we got all the way to the state park before we noticed we did not have any flotation devises for our boys. We stopped by several tube rental places and none of them rented life vests. We were directed to the Dollar Store in the near by town where the only arm floaties they sold were these beautiful pink girl ones. At least they were only $1.29.