Kayaking Kissimmee

Route 192 is a madhouse. Five lanes wide, the highway shuttles roaring cars and trucks past ancient motels boasting color TVs, flickering neon-lit shops hawking knockoff Disney t-shirts, a gallery of fast-food restaurants famous and obscure, and strip malls with signs pleading for motorists to please, please stop in and maybe consider getting a nice, new tattoo.

And above it all looms a procession of enormous billboards offering the services of so many personal injury lawyers you’d expect a lawsuit to result from them all tripping over each other.

This quadrant of Kissimmee, in central Florida, is just the kind of suburban sprawlscape you’d be tempted to speed through pronto. But if you slow down and pay attention, tucked between a Walmart Supercenter and a Ross Dress for Less you’ll spot the weathered sign for Shingle Creek Regional Park, home to a meandering kayaking trail that takes you deep into the wilderness of central Florida.

“Keep an eye out for George,” says the friendly man at the park’s kayak rental desk. “He was spotted a few hours ago about a quarter mile upstream.”

George, he explains, is an enormous alligator that enjoys sunning on the banks of Shingle Creek.

“If he’s there,” the guy adds, “you can’t miss him.”

“Upstream” on Shingle Creek is something of a passive concept: Aside from right after a major rainfall, you’d need to head a few hundred miles north of the flat expanse of central Florida to find the kind of fast-moving stream that would seriously challenge even a first-time paddler.  There are some mild “rapids” to the south on Shingle Creek, where the course narrows and fallen trees create water hazards, but signs warn you to turn back before you can even approach them.

So, we push into the tranquil waters of Shingle Creek, point our kayaks upstream, and venture out, passing first under the highway bridge that carries Route 192 overhead, then into a water trail lined with towering bald cypress trees.

Almost immediately, the hum of traffic is filtered away by the thick stands of trees on both banks, replaced by the quacking of mallards, the pterodactyl-like squawk of herons, the whistle of swallow-tailed kites. The cypress create a partial canopy, leading us to favor the right, shady side of the creek. Occasionally we catch glimpses of landlubbers on the park’s pedestrian trail, which will eventually unspool a 32-mile ribbon through one of central Florida’s remaining wilderness areas.

Shingle Creek is no ordinary watercourse. Just 23 miles long, a few miles south of here it empties into Lake Kissimmee, which empties into the Kissimmee River, which flows into Lake Okeechobee, which spills over into the grassland wilderness of The Everglades. We are floating in the headwaters of what preservationist/poet Marjory Stoneman Douglas memorably called Florida’s River of Grass. From here to the ocean, the water of Shingle Creek flows 350 miles.

The winding course of Shingle Creek’s seven-mile paddling trail prevents us from seeing more than a few hundred feet ahead. Once in a while we cross paths with another pair of kayakers; a family on stand-up paddle boards, engaged in lively conversation, floats in the opposite direction.

“Have you seen George?” I ask.

“Who?” a teenaged girl responds, and I’m guessing they have not.

Kayaking in a Florida creek or river is unlike the same activity up north in that the water, visibilitywise, is nigh impenetrable; stained brown by tannins discharged by layers of decaying vegetation, brewing the water into a kind of pungent tea. As a result, when a turtle pops its head to the surface (or a gator decides to visit) the arrival comes as a complete and delightful (or terrifying) surprise.

It’s not unusual for paddlers to spot eagles, wild turkeys, and deer along the way. On this day the great blue herons, egrets, and ducks seem to be in charge.

We make a turn, Shingle Creek widens — and there, lying like a bumpy gray log on a green grass shore, is George. His eyes are open. He’s a good 12 feet long. And he seems to have absolutely no intertest in these floating intruders.

George sighting accomplished, we turn and head back downstream — past the kayaking rental shed, under a footbridge, and past the preserved remains of a century-old Florida homestead. Low-slung and rustic, the houses and sheds remind me of the place Gregory Peck and Jane Wyman settled in The Yearling, the classic frontier family drama that was set in northern Florida.

Those modest buildings are constructed of cypress wood, the versatile and plentiful local construction material that inspired Shingle Creek’s name.

The creek becomes considerably narrower, occasionally interrupted by fallen trees. Besides cypress, the creek banks down here are also lined with palmetto palms. On one horizontal trunk, a yard or so above the waterline, sit two turtles. Oddly, they are striking the exact same pose: heads extended, their left rear legs raised as if performing some kind of Yertle the Turtle Yoga.

Were they a few miles north of here, at the theme park that changed everything in central Florida, these turtles could well be waving those feet and shouting, “Howdy folks! Keep your hands and arms in the vehicle at all times!”

That kind of vacation is fun. This is heaven.