The Sugar Mill Post -

April 30, 2010

The Sugar Mill Post -

Hey, ya'll!!

So last night I went to bed on one of the most beautiful breezy and lovely nights of this Florida spring. If you are thinking about visiting ... DO IT NOW. haha. And this morning I woke up, and showered and now I smell like magnolias. Ahhh ... song of the South.

Ok. This really has nothing to do with this post except the Southern part, because really ... Northern mansions? They just can't look like this ... be still my loving heart!

So Saturday morning (Barberville Day 1) we headed out at 7:45am, with some dear friends, the Petersens, trailing us in a mini-caravan, aka: 2 cars. We drove over to the DeLeon Springs Old Sugar Mill for breakfast, due to tradition, and so that's what this post is about. :) No Barberville yet, because the Sugar Mill deserves a post of its own. Lots of memories made there.

So we drove by Stetson University, and I was awed all over again by how BEAUTIFUL their buildings and campus was. Seriously. Look at this. And huge spreading oaks and palms are all over. Made me shriek and swivel in my seat, trying to get shots of everything. :D

May it be said that the American people fought in her hardest days - for liberty, for valor, for honor, for Godliness, with bravery and courage and trust in God. Let's FIGHT for truth!

The springs are ... of course ... springs ... and the water flows underneath a bridge and down the river, it runs about say ... ummm ... 74 degrees or so in the Spring. (too many springs in that sentence) anyways, at 9am in the morning, it was lovely except for being humid. :)

Lauren and Joseph H. met us there, and so we all tromped around until breakfast time.

Sawgrass. If you live here, great - you know the danger. If not, this stuff will give you cuts worse than papercuts, I promise. One time I ran through this stuff, and my legs were shredded. Ok, they were cut up ... but shredded sounded better.

Various vegetative lilypads and water plants. :)

Two brave lads swimming in the "pool" area of the springs. My dad used to do this when he was a young lad ... for me, well ... I can deal with everything except - slimy and slippery algae. It's like the saying "Seawood touched my foot, it might as well have been a shark.".

SOOO true. Just ask Becs and me while swimming in 10 feet of dark water in the ocean.

Ohhh .... yes. Anyone notice anything fun in this picture? :D Hee hee!

"In case of drowning, please throw well-used orange circle in water and yell for lifeguard. If none is on duty, please jump in and save said person and try not to scream about the algae.

Thank you and swim safely."

Mr. and Mrs. Petersen. :)

... aaaaand - my favorite tree. An over 500 year old bald cypress. That thing is MASSIVE.

Beautiful little wildflowers ...

Lauren: "Oohh, look! That's pretty!" Me: "Okay, I'll take a pic for you." *click*

And here we are ... exploring the deep Fl wetlands ... oh wait. There's me on the right, someone must have commandeered the camera ... haha, that was Lauren. Nice shot! (whisper) She was going into camera withdrawls since she sold her d40. She begged me to hold mine.

LtR: Joseph, Mrs. P., Mr. P., Me, and Delaney N.

Our fearless and courageous leader - Joseph the Joyous. hahahaa...I know. it's not that frightening of a name, but at 9am, my mind couldn't come up with any better. :) At least our leader into the swamps and trip-y cypress knees is good-looking ... that way when a gator heads our way, we can yell - "GO for the GOOD-LOOKING ONE!!" and wham-0!! hahaha!

Hahaha hahah HAHA .... ha .... *cough* Sorry, o fearless and joyous one. Moving on.

The Sugar Mill with an old cog from the mill ... years back.

'Twas a lovely morning ... calm, quiet. Oh except the huge amounts of people that decided to camp out and go to the restaurant that morning too. :) But we had a wonderful time anyways.

Sweet girlie Lynnae. :)

Ok. So see this caterpillar? We don't know what it is. I spent about an hour last night scrolling through hundreds of pictures of caterpillars and none of them turned out to be this guy. I posted this picture on FB, and asked my friends ... dead end. So if someone knows, leave a comment!! :D

Ok, and remember that comment about me shrieking because it was squirting juice?

Ta- DAA!! Yep. You poke it, it squirts. Quite far too ... a couple feet at least. :) I touched it, sticky and slimy juice. I didn't die, so that's good news. Especially since I ate bacon with my caterpillar juice hands and then didn't realize that until lunch later when I was eating ....

but we will touch on that subject later.

The beauty of DeLeon Springs. I think I want to go back sometime and take a canoe out. Any takers to go with me? :D Preferably someone who has more experience than say ... 3 trips?

A White marked Tussock Moth. These were everywhere ... apparently this is their season and they adore oak trees. I know, because I was trying to climb an oak and there were about 5 for every 18" ... I was sore none pleased, because those trees are my favorite. Ah, well.

Daddy - Boy. Me loves.

*insert Pirates of the Caribbean theme song* Duh DUH dun dun dun DUH Dunn!

This is the part from the post where I almost fell out of the tree, like ... 4 times, and Dad's like: "Try not to fall forward", since there were a couple more limbs that would hurt to smash into, and I'm like: "Ok. thanks for that.". But look! You can see ME on my skirt! Cool, eh?