Kayaking - Alafia River

 We had thought about paddling 12 miles down the Alafaya River, and Scotty left me at the Puddin at Aldermans Ford. While he was taking his bike down to the take out, a kayak or was getting out of the river with his boat, I talked with him and he said there was a large tree across the river, and it was not possible to take your kayak up on shore, but you had to go over the tree. That’s typically not a concern for us, but he did say there was an alligator nearby. That’s all I needed to hear and I called Scotty. He came back and we drove down to.Lithia Springs Park. There was a small but steep bank into the river and I stupidly let go of my kayak and it went down the bank and across the river quickly rather quickly. Fortunately, Scotty was already in the water and paddled over to rescue it. My hero, again. We kayaked 2 miles upstream and had our lunch under a bridge. The water here is brown from the trees, causing that tannic color. It really was a pretty paddle, and ironically, we never passed an alligator. Every once in a while a section of the river was hard to paddle as it was twisting or going around a downed tree. We paddled back to Lithia Springs, past the put in down to the springs. The springs were blocked off, but we could see the pretty clear water flowing out. We loaded up our kayaks in on the way out of the park. We drove over to the springs and waited in partly. It’s a popular spot as many people were enjoying the day there for dinner that night we met Scotty‘s friend from Iowa Todd and his wife, Joani, who live in St. Petersburg. They met us in Tampa at a restaurant called On Swan, and we had a very good dinner.