Wekiwa Springs, Florida

A few months ago my cousin decided to join the navy. But before she left we decided to start completing as many bucket list events as possible in the short amount of time that we had before she had to go. And so this is where we start. We decided that the easiest bucket list item was canoeing. But we didn’t want to go to the springs JUST to canoe, so we set up a whole plan. And here’s how it was going to go:

1. Enter the springs
2. Grill some food
3. Go canoeing
4. Make some s’mores.

Unfortunately, nothing ever really goes to plan!

We entered the springs, and it was no problem. We chilled. We had fun. But we did have a small predicament that wasn’t really a predicament until later on. Dogs (and pets in general) are not allowed in the water or anywhere near the swimming area. My cousin brought her friend along, who has a service dog. On the website it said that service dogs were allowed in every area of the park. So we assumed, okay so we CAN bring him in the water. He loves swimming so this is going to be great.

And it went great too. Everyone loved him, he was sweet. He had A LITTLE trouble swimming, but we used some of the giant rocks that were inside the springs to help prop him up so he could breathe and rest a bit.

Eventually, an hour into swimming, we decided that we were starving so we went to get make some grub. Unfortunately, grilling was a lot harder than we thought it was, because we couldn’t get a fire going. We tried everything from coals, leaves, branches, and even calling park rangers for some help. It started up, but never stayed. So what we had to do was go to the concession area and buy some coals that would easily fire up.

This is where the predicament with the service dog comes in. One of the workers in the concession area began to complain (they didn’t see the dog, because he stayed behind with someone) among their coworkers about an entitled person brought their service dog into the water and how they shouldn’t have brought them in if they were trained. Which is really confusing. Service dogs are supposed to stay with their owners at all times unless told otherwise by their owner. We quickly bought the bag of coals and lighter fluid, and made our way back to the dinner table.

Then we began to season our chicken breast and once we got that done we lit that baby up. And guess what? IT STAYED LIT! Best moment of the day at that point.

We quickly ate our food, threw our trash away, cleaned up after ourselves, and put everything back in the car.

Then we walked all the way back to the concession stand together and paid for a canoe. They took my cousins ID as collateral, and gave us a small paper saying how many people were going, and the dog.

We walked all the way to the back of the concession store and there standing was a girl taking the tickets and sending people off on the canoes/kayaks. We approached her with reluctance. As soon as we stood in front of her and gave her our ticket, she gave us a dirty look and said, “there’s three of you and a dog?”

We gave her a look and said, “uh, yes.” That was rude.

“Does the manager know?”

We shrugged at that and said yes. But the girl looks at a coworker and goes, “hey, are they allowed to bring dogs with them?” The guy shrugged and the girl looks at us and smiles, “I’m just going to go ask my manager really fast,” and she walks away as slow as possible.

My cousin, her friend, and I looked at each other in slight disgust at her attitude. We understood she wanted to be sure, but the way she said it was unnecessary.

When she finally came back she said her manager knows and she got us on the canoe. She explained how to work it way too fast to comprehend, so by the time we managed to push ourselves out of there, we just went with it. When we managed to turn the boat around we finally figured out how to work it on our own. We managed to crash into the side of river to the trees and bushes, but we handled it.

Multiple times we had to avoid crashing against large logs in the river or branches and trees. On that occasion we also saw alligators, which really made everything much more nerve-wrecking than necessary.

As we canoed, we rowed past people, vacation homes, alligators, and houses. At one point we had to stop cause the dog kept moving.

Note: Canoeing is really hard with a dog when they have a hard time sitting still.

We stopped under an abandoned bridge and climbed off, getting comfortable and switching seats.

We then began to row back, because by then it was already an hour into rowing, and we had to get back by the time the park closed or we would have to pay an extra five dollars.

Unfortunately, the dog was still uncomfortable, and thank god we were in shallow water because he ended up jumping off and the boat flipped over.

It took us 20 minutes to get enough water out of the boat to climb back on and get us out of there. By then we had already been there for a far longer time than we were supposed to be. People were gonna be piisssssed.

Rowing up the stream was a lot harder than rowing down. The current was against us, making our efforts feel like we weren’t going anywhere. But after another hour of rowing and almost crashing into a VERY LARGE tortoise (and almost having a breakdown, because I didn’t want to crush it) we finally saw the beginning of where we started.

Oh the joy!

When we saw the shore, we also saw two workers standing there with their arms crossed over their chests as they watched us row up. We were embarrassed, but also laughing. We landed and quickly got up.

They told us to go get our ID from concession, and I watched as they turned the boat over, spilling the water and the dog treats that were floating inside the boat.

We didn’t have time to make s’mores. But it was still an eventful day. Next time we want to try kayaking. But without the dog.