Highways and Byways

Left Friends in Rotondo this morning traveling north on Florida route 75 with traffic between 55-70 mph. The countryside is not particularly attractive.  It's flat and the tropical weather means everything green just merges together.  Lots of highways signs to read though, including churches of every possible denomination.  Lord there are a lot of churches, seems like a soul could find at least one to fit. They look kinda lonely during the week; abandoned, no people, no cars, no singing.  Maybe if you opened up the steeple, you'd . . .  I think there ought to be legislation to consolidate all these churches and let the congregations each have a day, plus two afternoons and a Friday or Saturday night for bingo.  It would be a lot more efficient, sorta "green" churches- self sustaining don't you know.  Prayer might be more potent too, all consolidated. 

Some of the other signs were interesting too, in addition to McDonalds and Hardees, and all the other fast food joints, there was Bar B Que Bill's, the Florida Citrus Center, with gator head wind chimes, and the Adult Super Center with the "Cafe R Esque", an all night cafe.  You can't make this stuff up!  I think I'll stick to the churches. Fortunately, the world goes by fast on the highway, but its hard on the eyes, ears, and soul too.

I arrived in Rainbow Springs State Park mid-afternoon, got a nice campsite with water, electric, and sewer, and was hooked up in about 15 minutes.  Then I rented a kayak and paddled about a mile up the Rainbow river toward the first magnitude spring head that pumps approximately 490 million gallons of artesian water a day, eventually flowing from the Rainbow into the Withlacoochee river.  Crystal springs like the Rainbow drain large areas of their surrounding countryside through limestone aquifers that bubble up near the coast and make their way to the Gulf. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow_Springs

The Rainbow is crystal clear to depths of 25' or more though much of it is less than five feet deep and covered in beds of lush green grasses waving downstream.  But, it seemed like every 50-100 feet or so those grass beds would open up and the river bottom would drop away, sometimes 10',  sometimes 20' or more.  Some of that clear bottom was sandy and probably indicated a sink hole in the river bed, but in some of those clear patches you could see large, flat beds of limestone, and, in others, small cliffs stepping their way down into the aquifer.  Scuba divers explore the vents and caverns for miles.  Some of the spots reminded me of Yellowstone or Hawaiian fumeroles, but instead of spouting steam, they're spouting warm water.

As you can imagine, it was easy to spot big large mouth bass (that's not redundant), blue gills, grass carp, water turtles, and one 2-3 foot soft shell turtle.  They have long rubbery necks and pointy snouts. I saw a family of river otters swimming about 10-20 feet away near the reedy shoreline. When I first spotted the multiple backs of the foursome, I thought it was a small, local Nessie humping through the water.  I also saw a Snowy Egret and a few Anhingas, both diving and sunning themselves on tree limbs. I missed the pair of eagles that live near the kayak put in.  Maybe tomorrow.

It sure is a lot more peaceful here than on the highway.  Sort of a natural super center.  Don't need a building to pray.  It's real close to heaven.