Trip Report 8/30/14

As I headed to the Freedom trailhead I saw 7 vehicles at the Bowen ranch. When I got to the trail head there were 2 trucks and a van parked. It was 7 am. When I parked a baby road runner appeared from no where. I stopped what I was doing and sat down next to him. He was very cute, small and @ 15 feet away from me. I sat down and talked with him about why he was here now? He opened his beak did his clucking sound which is beyond humans hearing range but I was tuning in anyway. I told him about the roadrunners around my house. How I hiked around my house with them and sit down and talked with them. More open beak clucking sounds. After @ 15 minutes another large momma bird came over the hill and drove her baby away. I sat there both stunned and amazed at the awesomeness of nature.
This early in the morning and it was already hot enough to sweat. It was 8 am when I got to the springs beach. The first thing that got my attention was the large amount of trash scattered around everywhere. The second thing that got my attention were two dirt bikes parked next to the creek. I intended to confront these 2 young men as I remembered my gun was not loaded. As I hiked toward them one of them said good morning. I replied yes it could be? As I made eye contact he walked to his partner as in a defensive strategy. So I just staired at the dirt bikes. They started their bikes up and left as I contemplated my LOVe toward this place as opposed to my personal safety. It took more than 1hour for these guys just to go up the hill toward the freedom trailhead.
There were 12 - 15 persons around the springs @ half appeared to be campers. I bagged up 2 - 20 gallon bags of trash and that was just @ the springs area there was much more trash scattered about. The big NO CAMPING sign trash pile was only slightly smaller than last week. Some one or perhaps the wind blew two tents uphill into the bushes there so I brought them back to the trash heap and put some weight upon them.
At 2 pm it was the hottest part of the day so I got my thermometer out. The outside air temp was 88 degrees in the shade trees on the beach. All pool temps are taken near the surface and near the center of the pool.
The Arizona pool was very nice and pretty and 111 degrees.
The Anniversary pool was at 110 degrees & nice too.
The Womb pool was at 108 degrees. I found a flash light 2 beer cans and some girls panties on the bottom. I wander how that happened?
The Serenity pool was at 108 degrees also. I do not mean to bum ya out but this pool seemed to be used as an ash tray as I spent a lot of time picking the butts out of there.
The Crab Cooker pool was at 115 degrees as the sun helps heat these pools this time of year. That was why I got there early soaking is more bearable during the wee hours of the morning.
The Contemplation pool was the hottest by my records at 100 degrees.
As most know here I am from Tallahassee Florida, FSU #1 in foot ball was playing Oklahoma. I wanted to see this game so much I left the springs at 4 pm.
As I was leaving a large amount of young people were coming in with sleeping bags and tents. As I got to the top of moto hill a group of African Americans were talking very loud. They were standing in the shade of a large boulder. You can know it is hot when hikers going down hill are sweating profusely. I exchanged pleasantries and continued on. As I got @ 50 yards uphill I spotted a pack of Newport menthol cigarettes. Knowing from experience that Africans like this brand I yelled back to see if one of them had dropped them. One of the large males started toward me. He told me I was going to be in trouble if I did not bring them down to him. I asked him why I was in trouble because he had a bad habit? And headed onward. He acted like he was going to chase me down??? A fat cigarette smoker chasing me oh no? I will let you guess how that turned out.
Except the motorcycles and the butt heads it was another excellent day in paradice.