Untamed Adventures: The Review

Erica and I
The side of the cool make your own pancakes restaraunt on site


So I have been pretty desperate to make friends here in Jacksonville, not only for friends, but to do some outdoorsy things. One day I missed the outdoors and decided to see what groups were out on the internet in my area that did outdoorsy activities. The only group I could find was "Untamed Adventures" Untamed Adventures is a group ONLY for women. I guess when I saw women I did not realize it was really women 60+ in age!!! I didn't want to go alone for my first time and a girl from work named Erica owed me since she always canceled on everything I would invite her to. I invited her to an activity that this group was going to be having to DeLeon Springs State Park which is basically a large spring that empties into the St. John River. I thought that I had never been there before. My mom told me otherwise and then when I got there I remembered going there in Middle School for field trips. We would be busing down to the Springs about a 1.5 hour drive - 2.5 for the old people's pit stops every 45 minutes or hour and the slow bus. While there we were to go on a boat tour and then eat at this restaurant where you make your own all-you-can-eat pancakes. The pancakes is probably what hooked me into going.

So I arrive at the place of meeting at 9:20 AM. All I see are old ladies everywhere! I was afraid to get out of the car. I called my friend Erica who thankfully pulled up in front of me a few minutes later and we both went out together to brave the group. I said "Hello" to everyone and no one answered back. I just thought to myself "Oh this is going to be a long day." There were 2 other women that were older than both Erica and I, but still categorized in what I would call the "Young Ones".

We all sat near each other on the bus. We did a pit stop to pick up this lady about 45 minutes into the trip and everyone took restroom breaks. We finally got on the road again and 10 minutes later, one of the coolers in the bus tipped over. Ice and water went all over the bus. While people were trying to clean that up, the bus driver pulled over at a Rest Stop and asked everyone to exit the bus for safety. I was just thinking "All this for a bunch of ice!" Nope...next thing I hear is that a new bus would be coming to get us because our bus had broken down! I guess the bus started smoking badly and gas scents were on the bus. I had been clueless.

Over an hour later we were on the road again. By that time, Erica and I were thinking "Can we just go home now?" We finally got down to the Park way behind schedule. We ate first and then were going to go on our boat tour and leave. AT our table we sat with a bunch of old ladies - one of them was probably the oldest of them all and she sat at the head of the table while Erica and i sat next to her across from each other. Everyone found out I was a Chef on a Train in Alaska and somehow I became partly the designated pancake flipper. The ancient lady at the head of the table would NOT stop asking me a million questions.
"Which pancake batter is that? Which one tastes better? What does it taste like? What is your favorite thing to cook? What is your cooking specialty? When do you know to flip them?"
ON AND ON AND ON!!! I was going to be driven insane. Not to mention she would clap and cheer anytime I would pour batter or a pancake would be flipped.
the crazy lady clapped a long time at this pancake I made
There were 2 types of pancake batter - this was the unhealthy one - but yet so think and yummy
It was like 2 bucks for that little amount of blueberries - of course I was too cheap to get a fruit to go on my pancakes.

We were relieved for the boat tour. The tour was over an hour long and quite honestly I got bored. We were on the side of the boat away from the boat driver who would only stay close to the shore so things could be seen on his side of the boat. We were told not to crowd onto one side of the boat and that on the way back we would be able to see the other side. Yup that didn't happen, because on the way back he stayed close to our first side of the river and so we weren't able to see anything again. When there was an alligator or turtle we would try to peak over to the other side to see it. However we had the crazy photographer lady in our way. She was moving around like crazy taking pictures and every time Erica tried to take a picture, the crazy lady would step into the shot. Then we had the crazy question lady asking both tour guides a billion questions standing right in front of them. We later found out from the 2 other "Young Ones" that the crazy photographer lady (she was a bigger woman) was food hoard at the her table in the restaurant and was someone you did not want to mess with when it came to food. She even stole someone's bacon!
we went from "You Are Here" to Lake Woodruff on our boat tour
That house has been there since the founding and was owned by the people that owned the land. The hill is actually tons of shells and indian garbage...remember there are no hills really in Florida



The lady in blue was the one who was always asking the tour guide and me a million questions We saw tons of gators
Florida's First Condos
It was a beautiful day


All in all it was a very long day and really quite humorous. I promised Erica that I would let her do the captions on some of my photos. The other "Young Ones" decided that we should create our own "Untamed Adventures" and have a cap for age involvement. We all may go camping - that is if we can force Erica to come too.