Five minutes after laughing about this, a hiker passed us coming the other way on the trail telling us that a bear had been spotted by other hikers nearby! We made it to the top of the trail unmolested by nature.
...and found ourselves in the midst of Finn Slough, a community of thirty houses, floating houses, house boats and stilt-houses right on ,or in some cases, IN the river.
Percy also pointed out a yellow flower, which if made into a tea, acts as a natural antidiuretic, earning it the local name "Piss-a-bed plant." Hahaha.
Later that afternoon, we took a drive to go to another crazy outdoor Florida mall that had the most hardcore landscaping I've ever seen. They had a whole fake river running around the place!
At the north end of the beach, there's a river that's pouring into the Pacific. It was still high tide so we had to take off our shoes and wade waist-deep through it!
Even at low tide, there is a hip-deep river you have to wade through. Maddie had to carry her dog because the current was moving too quickly fro him to swim!
Around 8pm, a fire boat showed up and anchored near the barges. It was shooting off its water cannons and two of the streams were shooting red and blue water!
Towards the end of our tubin' adventure, the river actually went partially underneath one of the giant karsts! Check out the view! Right after we came through this underpass, someone was waiting by the edge of the riverbank with a so to take everyone back to the hotel.
At another bend in the river, we were greeted by two more dogs who were excited to see people in the river. They were running back and forth and barking like crazy - and even went so far as to wade into the river to get a better look at us. It was really cute.
The river was so pretty. It ran all the way back into the woods and got really close to some of the karsts that we had seen in the distance from the hostel.
Every time Meredith would start to put her tube down and get in the water, Crookjaw would start furiously barking at her! He didn't want to be left alone!
...and head our way. No matter how many times I've seen an elephant in real life, it never gets any less shocking. Every time I'm like, "Holy shit, that's a big animal!"
And then we headed back into the national park to visit an elephant conservation center! It sorta seems counter-intuitive, but the way they raise money for their cause is by selling elephant treks, where you get to go for like an hour ride on an elephant through the jungle. Here's us way up high in this tower watching the elephant that we're going to ride cross the river...
