Paddling the Blackwater River

Today we drove about 30 miles up to Milton, Florida to paddle on the Blackwater River.  The river is an easy paddle, maybe 2-3 feet deep, with white sand bottom and beautiful white sand beaches.  Here's Kathy as we launched on the river.  She's already looking relaxed!

The scenery was beautiful, with mostly Eastern Pine, cypress, some maple and birch trees.  We didn't see much animal life - a few birds and some turtles and perhaps one fishy rise.  But the structure of the stream and the bright blue sky and smell of pine was enough for us:

After half an hour or so, we stopped for lunch on one of the many beaches.  Here's selfies of us just hanging out:

We weren't alone on the river.  Many turtles took advantage of the warm sun to enjoy themselves.  Here are three of them (well, 2 turtle faces and one turtle butt in the middle):

The entire trip only took between 1.5 and 2 hours.  On our drive home we passed the causeway to Navarre Beach, and at 3:30 pm, the traffic was still backed up all the way across the causeway to our side, with people trying to get over to the beach.  This was the nicest day since Spring Break started, and everyone wanted to get to the beach. 

Not us.  Just mellowed out on Blackwater River.