I Was Only Staying One Night I Ended Up Camping Here for 3 Days

All right, well good morning from Juniper Springs, Florida. Gorgeous, gorgeous area with the natural spring and we are floating down this, I think it's a seven mile stretch. I feel like that's what my friend Sarah said. We're going to be here for two days, two nights. Last night we did just rolled into town about, I don't know, four o'clock-ish and just stayed at camp and today we're paddling the river down. We'll stay another night tonight at the campground. I'll show you camp when we get back there. Beautiful area. We got up pretty early this morning to beat the crowds because this can be a very popular place, especially on the weekends. So we got up around 6 30. So it's so shallow right here I'm having to actually get out and push the board because the fin on this board keeps catching the sand. And then Sarah just told me there's alligators in this water so neat. So I'd like to actually get to the point where I stand up on my stand-up paddle board. Right now it's all sit down. Oh the trees are so low and I keep having to get out to push the board. There's a lot of twists and turns on this river though. You gotta really maneuver your board. Nice thing about it being so shallow is that I can actually put the paddle like directly in the sand and like really maneuver around. It's actually easier than just paddling like through the water. And there's so many branches I can just kind of grab onto this kind of stuff. I'm just like pull myself or turn the board if I need to. All right I'm actually gonna try to stand up because it's been so many twists and turns and low-hanging branches I haven't had a chance to stand up. So let's actually stand up on the stand-up paddle board. The only thing about standing up on such a shallow river is there's many branches in the water and this fin is so long. If the fin catches the branch it really shakes the whole board. When you're standing up you lose your balance a lot faster but we're gonna try to avoid that. About to hit that branch. There we go I avoided it. All right okay that's probably all the standing up I'll be able to do on this river. There's just so many branches in the water that like I said this fin if it catches it it shakes the whole board and you can definitely fall a lot faster. And this part of the water is a little murkier. It's still a spring water still clear but the bottom is more muddy so it's making the reflection like darker. Oh that is right there. So it's harder to see these branches in the water right now. So it's a lot easier when the bottom of the river is just sand because it reflects the light a lot better and a lot easier. And with the spring water it just turns out this really gorgeous blue color and it's just clear and you can see everything. So you can see the branches a lot easier when it's a sandy bottom but now this is all like mud a lot of um just dead leaves in the water. Mostly dead leaves. And so it definitely makes the water just harder to see. So I'll come up I'll be paddling all of a sudden I see a branch and I'm like literally a foot away from it. Look at this funky branch. So apparently there are some rapids on this little river. Not anything that's gonna be like actual rapids but a little bit of a current. So we'll see what that's like. This fin hopefully it's just not a lot of branches or anything. I mean usually that's causes the rapids though. Something in the water. So just sit down and enjoy it I guess. I mean that's all I've been able to do the whole time anyways. I haven't been able to stand up on this paddleboard. This would probably be one of the small stretches that I could have actually stood up on a little bit except for that branch. It's still really peaceful. We've probably only passed like eight people total. And then we'll stop and they'll pass us and then we'll keep going and then they'll stop and we'll pass them. So it's kind of like that but it's like the same eight people we keep passing. Really nice peaceful day out here. And lots and lots of places to get out of the water if you wanted to. The water's pretty shallow most of the time. Only a couple times it's probably gotten to about five or six feet maybe. And I haven't seen a single alligator. Although it's the rumor there's alligators on this river. I've seen plenty of alligators. I don't personally need to see one but if you've never seen an alligator in person it's still pretty wild to see. I've been in Florida most of my life. I've seen a lot of alligators out in the wild. Speaking of alligators I actually came really really close to one one time. There is a river not too far from here Silver Springs. It's a really beautiful state park. We are paddling it. And off to the side you see a lot of alligators but they're always off to the banks and side and the river's pretty wide. So I was in the middle of the river. Well I was in the middle of the river but I had started to drift over and I was just kind of looking up at the trees and just kind of miring everything. And I started drifting a little bit to the embankment and when I looked over I heard something. I looked over and there's an alligator just to the front of my board. So I'm in the middle of this board and that alligator was approaching my board just like swimming. It wasn't like coming right at me. He was like swimming kind of parallel but also like diagonally and uh he's coming in. He was just minding his own business. He probably thought my board was just a log or something in the water. And I saw what it was and he was a good four footer I'm I guess. Um I just saw the back. I saw what it was. I saw the tail. Fish tailing. And I said oh I threw the paddle on this side because he was on my right side. I feel like this and that startled him. So he took off and that jetted me away. And that jetted me away from him. So he went that way and I went this way. So that was my alligator encounter. He was a four footer or so. He would have taken me down. And again he wasn't like coming at the board. He was just minding his own business and I just happened to be a paddleboard going next to him. Look at that. Yep. I'm stuck. Oh my fins caught. All right we came to the rapids part. It's definitely picking up a little bit but it's nothing. I'm not I wouldn't necessarily call these rapids. I would just call them Florida rapids. It's a big difference. It's like a Florida winter. It's not the same as anybody else's winter. But uh it's just a little bit of movement to the water. So let's get it. Oh yeah. I I see them. I see the actual rapids. It's it's it's actually got a little bit of current to it. You'll see it when you're coming up. Oh these are actually these actually are a little bit of rapids. Wow. Oh shoot. Oh shoot. Okay. Here we go. Oh yeah. This fin is catching everything. Careful. I fell over. I know but I fell over turning like that. Good job. Yeah. I almost I almost slipped over. That was actually more than I thought. It was because it's low. Good job. All right. That was definitely more rapids than I expected. It was fun. But at one point I did think I was going to go over because the right side of my boards are dipping into the water pretty heavy. I'm like oh no. And this fin was catching everything. But it literally only lasted for a few seconds. You just I wasn't expecting an actual drop. Yeah. It was fun though. It's something different. This this river is just would be so much better though in a kayak because I've been sitting down 98 percent of the time. Almost 100 percent of the time because I've only stood up that one time for like five minutes. And that little rapids part would actually be really fun in a kayak. Kayaks are also a lot smaller. You can maneuver these little tight corners a lot easier. But still fun. I still highly suggest this river sometimes. You're in Florida. Juniper Springs. It's not as busy as Silver Springs or Weeki Wachee is one of my favorites. But gosh that is so busy nowadays. You have to have a timed reservation I think to launch even for private launching. And it's not it gets and turns into like a big party scene at the end of the river. It's not peaceful. I come out here for the peace and quiet of nature. I can hear people's music and people partying on boats and stuff. So this river doesn't have any of that so far. Maybe it's different on busier weekends. Beautiful area. Found a gator. He is a big one. That's probably about the size that was going towards my paddleboard that time. Okay. This fin man. This fin. I did not even see that. Can't stand up for anything. Trying to steer a paddleboard one-handed and hold the camera while standing up. I deserve some sort of reward. This is not easy. Alright. So aside from being able to paddle the springs here or kayak the springs, they actually have a swimming pool area you can actually get into and swim around. So that's we're going to do now. We got done paddling and we're going to swim in here and check it out. Okay. We came out to the swimming hole area at night. Just kind of peek into the water. There's a couple fishing and stuff you can see. There's a big eel. Where are you seeing eel? Oh wow. Oh wow. That is cool. Oh my gosh. I've never seen an eel in the fresh water. There's the eel. That's awesome. Alright. Well, good morning. I tried filming a little bit over here yesterday, but there were some people camping with us and they didn't really want to be on camera. So I'm going to show you the campsite now. I really want to show you my friend Sarah's bunkhouse trailer. It's really neat. So check this thing out. Alright. So here's our campsite and there was somebody camping with us right over there. She just left. And so that's where I slept. I put up my tent over here. I didn't want to sleep in the car. It was just been so nice out here. This campsite is pretty nice. It actually has a bear box here. And because yes, in Florida, we actually do have black bears sometimes. And there was this nice big field that you can walk out and do some pretty nice stargazing and a fire ring. But check out this trailer. I think it's a bunkhouse trailer, my friend Sarah. So this thing looks massive, but when you put it all down, it collapses into this little trailer that weighs what? 300 pounds? 350 pounds. And she just can pull it with her car here. But check this thing out. Is it unzipped? Yeah. Look how roomy this thing is. So you walk and come in here. It's got a full queen size, full queen size bed. I mean, I'm standing in this thing. I'm trying not to get her floor all dirty, but I mean, I'm standing up, reaching my hand up, not touching it. It's got plenty of space here on the ground. So you could change and have a little table in here. You can sit in here. In fact, I'm pretty sure the middle you can take. Yeah. See right there? That is a table. You can set it up and you can actually sit at, sit at the table and like eat or something like that or play cards or something like that if it was raining outside. Windows, obviously, can put up things. This thing is so cool. And wait till she folds it down and you'll see how small it packs into. It's really neat. And there's even storage compartments outside and everything so you can put some gear. But this thing is so cool. Yeah. So if you're interested in this thing, she is not selling this one, but she actually has another one. She has a king size that she's selling. And I'll actually have her talk about a little bit. So it's a 2011 Aspen bunkhouse trailer. It's a king size. It's way bigger than this. You can fit three people sleeping in it. And the and the storage area out front is even extended. And that only weighs like 375 pounds. It's titled. It's ready to go. So if you're interested, twenty eight hundred bucks, they normally go for like seven or eight brand new out the door. Come down and grab it. You'll have such a good time in it. It is. Yeah, it is awesome. And this is what her tent looks like all folded down. Thing is really cool. It's even got some storage up front. So, again, she's got a bigger version of that. She's got a king size. Definitely hit her up if you're interested. Yes. Another cool thing about this park is there's tons of hiking trails all around the area. We were looking at going to one at a lake, but it was five miles one way. So ten miles round trip and she's got to get back home. And I'm trying to get to my parents house in a couple hours. So not doing that. We're just doing a short one. Just stretch our legs for a little bit. All right. Well, that is Juniper Springs. I'm about to take off and go see my parents. They live just not even quite 45 minutes away from here. It's been a couple of days with them. But I think this is just an absolutely amazing place. I think everyone, if you're visiting Florida and you're looking for some of the springs that are in the area, because there's a ton of springs that are around here. I think this might be one of my favorite ones, actually. The water is gorgeous, as there always are at all the springs. But this one just had a something little something felt like a little something different to it, I guess. And I really liked paddling the river, although I wouldn't recommend a paddleboard on that river, because as you saw, I couldn't do a lot of standing up. So I think a kayak would be much more comfortable that way. If you sit down in the kayak, you got some sort of like back support and like a chair to sit in everything. And kayaks are usually a little bit smaller. So you can kind of navigate around the little turns and stuff a little bit easier, but strongly recommend coming out and checking this place out. If I didn't already say it, I think the campground was about thirty five dollars or so a night. And then they do allow for day use. So I think that's around fifteen dollars, just just under fifteen dollars for the day, which is a little pricey. But if you live close enough to the area, you just want to come out to the springs here and just swim or you want to just paddle or something for a little bit. You know, it's not bad, but highly recommend checking out the campground here. We did a non electric site, so that's why it's a little cheaper. They did have full hookups. I'm pretty sure I did see some big motorhomes and stuff in some of the places, but everybody had their own space. They were spread out and there was showers and full bathrooms and stuff here as well. So if that's something you want, I think come here and check this out. Now, originally I was planning this to be my last weekend in Florida and I was going to spend a couple of days with my family and then I was going to head out sometime at the end of this week and get back on the road and head out west. However, my brother's going through a big remodel at his house and that is where me and my parents and obviously my brother are going to stay. It's just easier at his house than my parents house because my brother has an actual job that where he has to go to. It's like a brick and mortar. He has an indoor soccer facility, so he has to go there and coach a lot. So for him to leave Jacksonville and drive over to where my parents are, he can really only do that for like a day, two tops, and then he has to drive back. So while he'll still have to work while we're in town, at least he can go to work and then come home and then we can all hang out in the evenings and stuff. So waiting for him to get done with his remodel, so that's going to take another week and a half, two weeks or so. So it looks like I'm going to be in Florida for an extra two weeks. But you know what? I really like to spend this time with my family because after I leave Florida, I'm going to be heading out west and again I'm driving to Alaska in like a month or so. So I'm going to be driving to Alaska and staying the entire summer up there and then when I come back down and to fall and early winter, I am going to stay on the west side of the country. I'm already going to be over there. I'm going to come through like Washington and Oregon and Northern California and all that stuff. So I'm going to be already over there, so driving back across the country back to Florida is just a lot of driving. So I'm going to stay over there. So it's going to be a while till I see my family. So to me it's very important to stay in town for a little bit longer just so I can spend some time with everybody. I'm going to see my parents today for the next two days but then I got to go back to St. Pete and then after spending a week or a week and a half or whatever in St. Pete, then I'm going to go over to Jacksonville so I can see my brother, my mom, and my dad and me all together in one house for at least a couple days so we can all spend time together. But that's it for this one. Until next time, thanks for Escaping Normal Life with me.