Suwannee River Paddle Dec. 14: Day Zero: Packing and Driving to Gainesville

My husband used to play Tom Sawyer as a kid. When I met him he dreamed of one day floating down the Mississippi River. Then, about 15 years ago he heard about the Suwannee River Wilderness Trail. Paddling the Suwannee River and staying at the river camps along the way became his new goal. Finally, we are going to do it.
Our original plan had been to try to canoe the entire river from its beginning at Billy’s Island in the Okefenokee Swamp in Georgia around river mile (rm) 244 to its mouth (rm 0) in the Gulf of Mexico near the town of Suwannee, FL. However, the upper part of the river is rain fed and is too low at the moment to really paddle. If the river is less than 51ft at White Springs then it is considered too low to paddle anywhere upriver of White Springs. Paddling is possible in some places upriver, but there are numerous places portaging is required.
Our new plan is to set off from Stephen Foster Folk Cultural State Park near White Springs, FL. However, when we tried to reserve a campsite at the park, it was completely booked. So, a couple of weeks ago we decided to stay at my sister’s apartment in Gainesville Saturday night and get on the river Sunday.
We packed for about 8 hours straight today. We had been ordering and buying essential trip items, but have been so busy that we have not had time to organize, much less, begin to pack them.
As we started assembling items to pack it seemed impossible that they would all fit in the canoe and kayaks. To our amazement everything fit easily! I chose to leave behind two pairs of pants and a puffy winter coat. They actually would have fit in the canoe, but I couldn’t fit them in my dry bag. Since we are expecting rain, I decided just to leave them.

We arrived in Gainesville around 8:15pm. My sister had purchased a bunch of food from Trader Joe’s for dinner and we helped her prepare it. By the time we finished eating and cleaning up we were exhausted and all went to bed.