Azalea Festival

Saturday March 15th

Warm, windy and overcast most of the day. It got up to about 85 by mid afternoon.

After breakfast we went to White Springs to the Azalea festival and visitors center. The festival in quite small but folks seemed to be having a good time looking at the crafts and visiting. There were at least 3 food vendors offering BBQ of one description or another. Suzette and I shared a BBQ Rib sandwich, 3 ribs and 2 slices of white bread. We were not sure how to make a sandwich out of that so we just ate the ribs and then took a couple of bites of the bread. I guess that is kind of an open face sandwich.

There was a crafter making wooden spoons and bowls and I spent some time talking to him and he had me use one of his bowl adz's that he got from Africa. Neat tool. We talked about making spoons and he gave me some tips and advice on tools.

Suzette saw a couple of things she liked in one of the stalls where there was some crochet items which she bought for gifts.

After our lunch we visited with a local outfitter and discussed the current river conditions, 8' above normal and out of it's banks. He said folks were paddling but to stay in the main channel so you don't get clipped by an overhanging branch.

We took a ride to Lake City to get a few items for dinner and desert. On our way back we went by a Wal-Mart with a Murphy station and diesel there was $3.89 so we topped off. Earlier we had seen Shell at $4.05 so we figure Murphy was a deal.

After we returned to the camper we decided that we didn't want to make our first paddle on a swollen river so we will hit more of the bike trails.

A cold front is making it's way through overnight so we will have some lower temps and dryer air. I think the weather folks said it would get down to about 60 overnight.