Tomka SP - Day 4 & 5

 As the lady told us the day before at the outpost that the early bird gets the worm with rental boats, I was up around 7:30, but my little princess likes her beauty rest and we let her sleep a bit as it was fairly chilly first thing. We rousted her by 10:30ish and made her get up.  We had breakfast and pumped up the crappy bike tire.  It would hold air for about 3 hours max.   Good thing Lucy had a hand pump that was easily carried.  Only issue with it is that it can only handle about 20-25 psi, so the tire is pretty spongy.

Of course me being the heaviest person, got stuck with it as it's my bike.  Usually, my daughter takes it because it's the better bike, lol.  Then we are lunch before we went, so we wouldn't have to bring food.  

Anyway, totally not listening to advice, we finally got over there close to 1PM.   We got the last tandem kayak they had so we were lucky.   

Hanging out on the dock, waiting for Dad.  Sit inside tandem.

To make life on the return trip better, we paddled against the tide, and the wind.   It was work, but we made it up to Strickland Creek in about an hour.

Looking at the map above it looks like we paddled half to three quarter of a mile up to the creek entrance.   We wrongly assumed when we got in the creek the wind would die down.   It didn't as it was running right down the creek in our face.   We passed a number of others paddling back.  Had we gone earlier the tide would have helped carry us toward the creek, but it was already running against us when we started.

We went up the creek for about 5 minutes and decided to turn around.  We found a little hole and scooted through that to see what we could find and it was a dead end.  Lucy got tangled up a bit and got it on camera.

Not wanting to lose my camera I left it back at the coach.  Lucy had her waterproof one and her phone in a bag.

Heading back from the creek toward the bridge on the map above (Old Dixie Highway).

We explored some of the grassy areas off to the left of the picture and followed one to a dead end that Naya remarked looked alot like a gator nest (it did), so we didn't stick around there too long.

The way back I only paddled to steer the boat and work from getting blown to the left of the picture.  Holding the paddle I could feel the breeze pushing on it and used it like a little sail, which was minorly effective due to the small size of the 'sail'.  

We were out for all of 2 hours which was fine as it was an hourly rental.  Worked out to about $70-75 for the two kayaks.  We bought a couple other little things so don't have the exact number.

After that we took Naya over to see the statue and walk around.  Again the sun was dropping so we headed back to the site and started getting dinner ready.  

Last meal of the trip was big shrimp on skewers with mushrooms and orange bell pepper over the fire, with couscous.  It was delicious.   More campfire action and loaded up the bikes and started to prep for an early departure the next morning.....

DAY 5

I got up near my normal work time (5:50) around 6.   Got up and made some coffee and started getting things ready to roll out.   We got all the gear stored and the beds put away and AMAZINGLY was rolling out of the campsite at 7:59AM Thanksgiving morning.   A quick stop at the dump station and we passed the ranger station at 8:08AM.     

I had looked at google the night before and it routed my back toward the NW to I-95, vs. down through Ormand Beach downtown and out SR40.   I'm thinking on the holiday morning it would have been faster with no traffic as the way we went added about 8 miles (but was show 11 min faster the eve before).  Jury is out on that one, but the way we went was a country drive, vs. town with traffic lights so it was enjoyable.

Then a 4 hour blast down I-95 with one stop in Cocoa for gas (5 min pit stop) and we were in my driveway at 12:10.   Somewhere around Titusville I looked over at the northbound traffic and saw another GMC coming from the south.   I yelled "Hey a GMC!", and it flashed its lights at me as I stuck my arm out the window to wave.  Then I realized it was my good buddy Mike with my twinsie coach heading up to the Daytona Turkey Run.

Once home we quickly unloaded, realized my house AC was broken (compressor not kicking on), and quick shower and out the door at 1:10PM to collect my Mom for Turkey Dinner at my sisters.

Overall, she ran like a champ, although I need new mufflers, I think one is cracked as it's quite raspy. On the one tank I did mileage on (mix of highway and country road driving), it got 9.3 mpg