CP10

 On Thursday, March 14th (also known as Pi Day for those unfamiliar), after eating lunch with Hayley at the newly opened Gaines Street Pies, a pizza joint started by some friends, I picked up Mahdi from the Pitaria near CIES. The three of us headed back to my house and were soon joined by my friends Danny and Henry. 

I had sent this picture to Mahdi earlier in a text message, asking if he would like to go to this place. Unfortunately the water was not so clear, as it has been raining lately and the runoff into the sinkholes makes the water more turbid (cloudy), and the foliage not as green - this picture was taken in midsummer, but the forest is quite a bit more bleak in winter; though spring is upon us and I'm sure it will look like this in less than a few months.

We all crammed into my car for the journey. In the interest of time and being able to enjoy the water while the sun was still above the horizon, we parked at Teddy's house and walked the short way to River Sink, after checking out Whiskey Still Sink behind the pyramid. We had to cross a flooded cypress swamp to continue on the trail - Danny and I weren't wearing shoes, Henry and Hayley took theirs off, but Mahdi stubbornly kept his on, soaking them with tannic swamp water. I was proud of Hayley and Mahdi for trekking through the woods; although Hayley has lived in Woodville right next to the sinks for years, she had never been there, and Mahdi certainly had never seen anything like it, as he has spent most of his life in Kuwait. They were both in unfamiliar territory but refused to give up, and we all made it safely to (what I like to call) paradise, with minimal complaining.

There was a fire going in the dead stump of a huge pine tree that used to tower over the entrance to the spring (just to the right of the cooler in the above picture). Someone had burned the base a long time ago and killed the tree, and it finally fell and its stump made a natural fire pit. It was fortuitous for us that whoever had been enjoying the springs before had left their fire going for us, as there was no danger of it spreading. We didn't even have to start one! Mahdi and Hayley chose not to swim, but they still expressed their appreciation of the beauty of this natural wonder. Henry, Danny and I, however, could not imagine coming to such a place and not jumping in! Here's a video of Danny doing a sweet free-fall backflip from the rope-swing tree (to the right in the picture above).

I hope everyone enjoyed their experience, and I'm excited for the next time I can show the springs to someone who has never seen their splendor.