The MOTHER of all field trips!

[Ben Belton]

Put me down to tentatively do whatever Ricky is doing.

He and I have talked about this a couple times this week.

See you tomorrow G.
Ben

[Ghazanfar Ghori]

Ok - so it looks like we've got 4 'Ayes' and 2 'Mebbe'.
That's 6 people - one minivan. We need to leave room
for all the dwood. Someone grab some bungee cords
to tie the dwood to the roof rack!

[Ricky]

I'll start talking to the DFWAPC group at the next meeting and online so hopefully we can get a good crowd together.

Ricky Cain
www.aquatic-plants.org

[Jonathan Kalmes]

If it's Thursday, I won't be able to make it. Sorry, I'm presenting at a conference in Atlanta and can't get out of it. Won't be done until Thursday afternoon.

[Ghazanfar Ghori]

I spoke with Ricky and Ben and they're saying that
they had more fun at the Rainbow Springs anyway.
The Ichtucknee was too cold for them Texans and
it has a strong current. That I'll agree with,
the current is pretty strong there, making it
impossible to swim against to check out something
closer up. An additional plus for Rainbow Springs
is that there's a patch of crypts growing
wild in a cove there somewhere - maybe we can
check that out. That part of Tom Barrs plant
fest is scheduled for Saturday - so if we can keep
the same schedule and leave on Friday.

[Jonathan Kalmes]

I think what I'm actually going to do is meet you down there instead. It'll be a lot easier for me to just pack for one big trip instead of trying to repack the day I get back from Atlanta. The other advantage to that is that we'll have another truck, another cooler or two and lots of space for driftwood (will a six foot covered truck bed do?) <img border="0" src="smileys/smiley1.gif" border="0">

I'll still chip in on the cost of minivan, unless you get enough people to fill it without wasting my spot. We'd just need to work out where we could meet up and pass around a couple of cell phone numbers to make sure we can arrange the time correctly in case one of us is late for some reason.

[Ghazanfar Ghori]

Jonathan - whatever is convinient for you man. I do
like the idea of having more space to haul stuff back!
Don't worry about splitting the cost of the van. If
you're not riding in it - you're not paying for it.

Rodney Conway just emailed me...he's taken a spot on
the van.

[Jonathan Kalmes]

Cool. It would definately be easier for me to just drive down from Atlanta. We can arrange a meeting point once we get a more firm schedule of what we're doing and when.

[Jonathan Kalmes]

Just a thought... would anyone be opposed to camping at Rainbow Springs? I know the area and can say that there isn't too much in the way of hotels around there unless you head back in to Ocala.

The campground is fairly secluded and has full facilities and I think it would be an entertaining evening. Plus, it would allow us to have some kind of "home base" for the day and allow those who wish to do a bit of individual exploring without having to worry about having to keep to a strict schedule to meet up for the van. Just a thought.

[Ghazanfar Ghori]

I'm open to that idea if others are. The only problem
is - I don't have any camping equipment.

On another note - Bob Bock will be coming along
on the field trip too!
Bob has LOTS of experience collecting natives, and
also wrote an article a while back on non-natives
in Florida. He mentioned that there's a location
in Florida with a breeding population of
Chocolate gouramis! Wouldn't those be neat to collect!
He's going to try and dig out that information.
Hopfully Bob will also post some links / info on what
equipment would come in handy in case we want to collect
and bring some of these fish back with us.

This will be fun! I'm really excited!

For the sake of organization and planning, we'll
probably stop taking on any more people for the trip
by the end of this month.