It’s been awhile since I told a story.  This is not a story about a grand adventure, it’s just a small adventure.  Last weekend my son and his girlfriend accompanied me on a planned hike.  WAIT!  Don’t close the window yet.  This is not only a story about hiking again.  I swear!  Just hang with me a little longer.

As I was saying, we drove out early Saturday morning for about an hour drive to a trail I’ve been wanting to hike.  I tried to hike this trail back in February but I didn’t realize they allowed hunting in this state forest and during season they don’t allow hiking.  I actually ignored it and hiked in anyway, that is until gunshots started ringing out.  This first few shots were off in the distance and spaced a good time apart, so I wasn’t thwarted.  I hiked on.  Suddenly there was a cacophony of BLAM BLAM BLAM as it sounded like a war had broken out!  I turned around and got the hell out of there.  I managed to make it back to my car with no more holes in me than I started with.  Stupid, I know, but are you surprised?

This time I did some research and confirmed that hunting season was over.  So imagine my consternation when we pulled up to the trail head to see a sign saying YOUTH SPRING TURKEY HUNT just for this weekend!

A youth spring turkey hunt?  But it wasn’t on the internet!  If it isn’t on the internet it shouldn’t be real!  Was it for youth to hunt spring turkeys or was it just to hunt youth spring turkeys?  Seems kind of mean to hunt little kid turkeys, although I’m sure the adult turkeys probably thought it was just as mean to get hunted by human kids.  We weren’t sure which one it was, but we were sure of one thing.  We weren’t hiking here.

After consulting our phones we discovered that we were only about another half hour away from the Okefenokee Swamp Wildlife Preserve.  The site said there were hiking trails so we headed that way.  When we got there we soon discovered that the trails were really short and we hiked them in no time at all.  We were not ready to go home yet so we looked around the place some more and discovered that there were also some other trails.  Ones that could not be traversed by foot.  They were waterways in the swamp that you could travel by canoe or kayak.  See, I told you it wasn’t only a hiking story, it’s a canoeing story too!  OK, OK, please don’t leave.  There is some halfway adventurous parts to this tale and maybe even a little humorous incident.

The three of us decided to rent a canoe and off we went through the swamp.  It was quite the workout paddling the canoe, and it took us a bit to get the hang of it, but soon we had a pretty good handle on it and we were cruising.  We were out in the swamp getting to see some great scenery like this…

and this…

We noticed on the map that there was a place marked where you could actually go camping.  We wanted to see this so we paddled down that particular waterway until we found a platform that was actually anchored right there in the swamp.  We decided to disembark at this location to hang out and eat a little snack that we had brought with us.  I took a picture of my son and his GF sitting at the picnic bench on the platform.  When I looked at the picture I noticed something in the background.  Can you spot it?

Yeah, that’s a freaking alligator back there!  We had seen several of these while canoeing but they were much much smaller and they always took off the other way.  This guy was huge and he wasn’t going anywhere!  Let me zoom in on that sucker for you…

We named him Al, short for Alligator.  I know it’s not that imaginative but we were a little uneasy and the creative juices had been stifled somewhat.  Now that I think about it, we should have named him something like Al Chompacino.  BTW, do you know how we knew he was an alligator and not a crocodile?

Except in this case we were the ones saying see you later!  We jumped back in the canoe and took off at a bit of a faster pace than we had arrived.  When we exited this particular waterway back into the main channel we were going a little too fast and we didn’t quite make the turn and ran up into some low hanging trees.  This had happened a few times in the beginning when we were still trying to get the hang of the canoe and we had never had trouble just pushing back out into the middle of the water.  However, this time when we attempted that maneuver we bumped into a subsurface stump and things went, well, wrong…

Right into the swamp we went!  Remember back when I said these types of trails could not be traversed by foot?  Well that’s not entirely true.  Luckily we had been in a relatively shallow part of the swamp and we could touch the bottom.  My son and I didn’t even get our hair (or what’s left of mine) wet.  However, my son’s GF is vertically challenged and she was struggling to keep her head above water.  It was also cold!  We managed to save most of our stuff and get the canoe righted.  However it was still full of water and there was no way we were getting back in without it turning over again.  Just then a tour boat came around the bend and saw us.

My first thought was why didn’t we just take the tour boat to being with?  My second thought was they could give us a lift and tow the canoe back.  The tour boat veered in our direction and stopped but it turned out not to be the deliverance I was hoping for.  The boat was at capacity with about 20 people in it and the operator said he couldn’t take us onboard.  We pleaded with him to at least take my son’s GF as she was having difficulty keeping her head above water.  He agreed and we boosted her on the boat.  He then gave us a plastic bailer so we could get the water out of the canoe.  He also gave us this little pearl of wisdom as they were puttering away – You better get that bailed out soon.  Alligators can sense warm bodies in this cold water.

Oh shit!  In all the excitement I had totally forgotten about Al Chompacino and his buddies!  How nice of that guy to remind us as he disappeared around another bend.  My son started bailing as fast as he could as I kept an eye out for any scaly swimmers converging on our position.  Of course every ripple of the water made me jump and I actually pushed the canoe back down in the water a few times, earning some choice words from my son.  It took probably another 15 minutes to get enough water out to attempt a boarding.  Let’s just say it was comical, but in the end we managed to both get back in without turning over again.

There was still a significant amount of water in the canoe and we were riding low in the water, so I paddled as my son continued to bail.  As we were maneuvering our way out of the trees I heard a scream and saw the bailer go flying past my head into the water!  My son hates spiders and one had evidently gotten in the canoe from the trees and he had scooped it up in the bailer.  Now it was my turn for a few choice words as I quickly reversed my paddle and hooked the bailer with the handle before it sank.  With the spiderless bailer back in hand we finally got underway again.  My son got most of the water out and with him back on the paddle we put on some speed.  We still had two miles to get back to the launch point and we were freezing by this time.  About half a mile before we got there we saw another guy in an empty tour boat heading our way.  He said my son’s GF had told him what happened and he came out to see if we were OK.  This guy was prepared to tow us back but now our bruised egos and pride reared its head.  We told him we were OK but we were going to get ourselves back, and that’s what we did.

Once we were back on dry land we met up with my son’s GF and dragged our wet asses back to the car where we cranked the heater up to volcano setting.  Once we warmed up a bit we assessed the damage.  My son’s vape had went to the bottom of the swamp.  There’s probably an alligator out there somewhere taking up the habit.  His phone also got wet and never worked again.  My phone got wet but I quickly turned it off and after it dried it worked fine.  My son’s GF had a waterproof phone so she never had a problem with it.  Besides that, we looked a mess with our soaked clothes and all kind of disgusting detritus all over us.  We endured an hour and a half trip back home that way.  We had planned on hanging out that night but when we got back nobody was in the mood for anything but a shower.

When they took off from my place I told them see you later alligator!  They were not amused.

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