Chapter 49 - Northern Florida
Feb 14, 2000
Greetings from Florida. We're finally here, only a year after our originally planned arrival. Last year about this time, we were on our way from California to Florida when we accidentally met up with a bunch of Escapees who had gathered in Laredo, Texas, and were preparing to head deep into Mexico for an Escapees Chapter 8 rally. They talked us into going with them. The opportunity to spend more time with this interesting and enthusiastic group, and to tour a remote portion of Mexico with experienced Spanish-speaking companions, was too good to pass up. So we spent a week frantically preparing for the trip and three fascinating weeks in Mexico. When we got back, winter was over, the south was getting hot, the spring flowers were blooming further north, and it was too late to visit Florida. So we sent apologies to the various people who were expecting us and headed North.
So far, we're just barely in Florida - only 23 miles from the Georgia line by boat, substantially further by land since there are no roads along the swampy, convoluted, coastline. We're at Hanna Park, operated by the City of Jacksonville, on the ocean 20 miles east of Jacksonville. It's a large and attractive park, with 1600 feet of beautiful white sand beach and miles of hiking and biking trails through the semi-tropical jungle in the park. There are 293 large full-hookup campsites, most of them heavily shaded by large live oaks. The campground is not directly on the beach. The closest campsites are about a quarter of a mile from the water, and our site, located near the west end of the park, is about half a mile (but the hiking trails are very nice, so we don't mind the walk).
1/8-1/12 Jacksonville's Cummer Museum of Art is small, but the collection has some very nice things, displayed in an attractive contemporary building. The most flamboyant piece is a huge and unusual Thomas Moran painting called "Ponce de Leon in Florida", depicting Ponce de Leon somewhere along the St. Johns River, amid lush Florida swamp - huge live oaks and palmettos, accompanied by a group of Spanish soldiers in full armor, and a small band of Indians. We also enjoyed several excellent Bouguereau paintings, and others from various 19th century American and European artists whose names were unfamiliar to us.
Jacksonville's original reason for existence is the excellent harbor facilities offered by the St. Johns River. The city is 20 miles up river from the ocean, and the river remains navigable (at least to tugs and large barges), for at least another 125 miles to the Orlando area. A large oil-fired power plant on the river near Orlando gets all of its fuel by barge. The St. Johns is claimed to be the longest north-flowing river in the country. The Jacksonville downtown river front has been thoroughly modernized, now given over to hotels, new office buildings, restaurants, and a couple of museums. We enjoyed walking along the boardwalk which follows the south side of the river for a substantial distance. Just downriver from the city, the river is lined with docking and loading facilities which service a steady stream of commercial shipping. At the mouth of the river, a Navy base and Naval Air Station add to the traffic. This base is the home port for one of the last two non-nuclear aircraft carriers.
A cardinal has been periodically attacking its image in our truck mirrors for the past two days. It is pecking at the mirrors hard enough for us to hear it inside the trailer. Bird-brained, indeed!
1/13 This morning, we hooked up and headed for Orlando. We had hoped to spend a few nights at Blue Spring State Park, one of the best places for Manatee-watching and an unusual state park campground in that it offers full hookups, including sewers. But our timing was bad - we could have stayed only tonight (Thursday), and then the park campsites were fully reserved for the weekend. So we went on to Orlando Green Acres RV Resort, in Altamonte Springs, just a few miles from Helen's brother Merrill's house. It's only a half-hour drive back to Blue Spring, so we'll still be able to spend a day there.
We drove part of the way along SR A1A, getting occasional views of the ocean beach. Along the way, we stopped at Washington Oaks State Gardens, between Highway A1A and the Matanzas River. It spans three distinct ecosystems - vegetated dunes along the beach, lush coastal hammock a bit further inland, and tidal marshes. A 1936 garden has matured into a beautiful setting for exotic plants from around the world with shady footpaths, reflecting pools and fountains. A six-foot brilliant red poinsettia bush was impressive beside a reflecting stream. Mature camellias were in full bloom. The staff member at the entrance gate was quick with good information about where to park our truck and trailer while visiting the gardens. We skipped the beach part of this park, although the brochure made it sound inviting with "400 acres of Florida's original coastal scenery" - exposed coquina rock, shorebirds, starfish in the tidal pools, etc.
1/14 Dave has crawled under the trailer to begin installing our new level sensors on the black (sewage), grey (sink and shower) and fresh water tanks. These 40-gallon plastic tanks enable us to live comfortably and normally for several days without any connection to outside utilities. If we're careful to conserve water, we can get by for at least a week.
But we've always had to depend on guesswork and intuition to know how close to full or empty these tanks really were - which occasionally leads to an unpleasant surprise. Like most RV's, the sensors that were installed in these tanks when the rig was new no longer work reliably. The original sensing system depended on a small electrical current flow through water, between metal electrodes that are inside the tank. The electrodes, and the tank surfaces between them, eventually get covered with dirt and hard water deposits, making the readings erratic. Soaking and flushing the tanks with special chemicals can help, but it's an expensive and short-lived fix.
Last year, I saw advertisements for a new type of sensor that mounts on the outside of the tank, electronically sensing the water level through the tank walls. After some investigation, I bought this new system, and have been waiting for an opportunity to install it. It's a conceptually simple task, but time-consuming. To get at the tanks, I had to remove the aluminum and plastic underbody panels from about half the bottom of the trailer - which entailed removing hundreds of rusty little sheet metal screws. Then, I had to figure out how to route a bunch of new wires from the tanks up into the kitchen where the new indicator panel is to be mounted. The new system works fine. Some additional details of the installation are on our web site.
1/17 Helen's brother and his wife live near here and we visited last night for a baked salmon dinner, expertly prepared by Merrill. Today Merrill picked Helen up and they toured Church Street Station, mostly window shopping. One store had only pewter artwork and the proprietor was quick to tell us about the artists and their methods. The farmer's market in the parking lot had several interesting orchid plants in bloom. A leisurely cup of coffee at an outdoor mart allowed us to soak up the ambience of restored old buildings covered with colorful paint highlighting the architectural details. A circuitous return drive took us through several posh housing developments, about some of which Merrill said: "I could have bought that house" - meaning it was for sale years ago at a much lower price than today. My brothers and sisters will remember our father saying the exact same thing years ago on family drives around town.
We happened across The Albin Polasek Museum and Gardens in Winter Park and it proved interesting for a half hour stop. It is mostly devoted to the art work of one man, and we looked at it all, probably not fully appreciating the talent. The most impressive thing was on the lakefront lawn - a 10' brugmansia (a kind of angel trumpet shrub with 10" long white trumpets) with an incredible number of blooms.
1/17 Years ago, Merrill took his mother on a pontoon boat trip on lakes near Winter Park and she wrote a rave review. Today Merrill took us on that same trip and I can see why mother loved it. The narrated tour goes thru three lakes and a narrow connecting canal. Although the lakes are big, the experience is often intimate. The canal is so narrow that the boat was often rubbing against one side or the other, and goes through the backyards of mansions and through narrow tunnels of trees that meet overhead. The mansions were impressive, with acres of grass and glass. We saw lots of anhingas perched in trees and on boathouses drying their wings and an osprey nest in a snag on an island (too cold for 'gators today). The tour guide did not mention any current owners, only previous owners. We wondered whether the owners have an agreement with the boat company to maintain their privacy?
1/18 I heard an unfamiliar bird this morning. And it provided an opportunity to test the superiority of my new Thayer "Birds of North America" CDROM, compared to the several paper bird handbooks I own. After loading the CD into my laptop, I was able to identify the bird just by clicking a few characteristics on an identification chart. All I could describe for sure was a few characteristics of the voice, the type of terrain, and the state. I guessed from the general timbre of the voice that the bird was in the dove/pigeon family. Those descriptors narrowed the choice to seven birds. I then listened to the call of each of the seven candidates, and only one sounded the same as the bird outside. Subsequently, the bird came back and I was able to get a good look, through the binoculars, confirming the identification - a Eurasian Collared-Dove. I'm now a believer. This CD is a good thing to own.
1/20 A total Lunar eclipse. But the night was very cold - giving a brilliantly clear atmosphere, but too cold to stay out long. We kept an eye on the clock and went outside briefly at the various stages of the event.
1/23 Drove the truck up to Blue Spring State Park. A big festival was going on, but we managed to find a parking spot. Many manatees were swimming near the spring, including a baby and its mother. During the cold weather, they hang around the springs because the water is slightly warmer than the river. About two years ago, we saw many manatees feeding in the near-by swamps while canoeing along the St. John River. But today, the water must have been too cold as again paddled for several hours and saw only one manatee away from the springs. Or perhaps they were scared into hiding by the heavy boat traffic on the river -- fishing boats, tour boats, pontoon boats, even a grey-haired couple on a tiny "personal watercraft".
Even with the traffic, canoeing the St John river near the park was a nice way to spend a day. At first, I thought that spring had arrived as there were tiny fresh green leaves on some of the trees, interesting curved red seeds on the maple trees, and huge pink/white blossoms outlining the branches of the bigger trees along the river. Only when we got a lot closer did the blossoms turn into birds - hundreds of white ibis. Impressive when they all took flight at once.
Egrets and great blue herons were abundant in the reeds. We saw several ospreys, including one that skimmed the water, dipping once into its surface. A one point, we branched away from the river and paddled a mile or so along a narrow old canal. Here, the only traffic was one tiny fishing boat. Still, black swamp water mirrored the rows of tall cypress along the banks. The plop, plop of turtles slipping into the water from their sunny spots as our canoe glided by and the high speed flap of duck wings on the water as they took flight in front of us was nearly the only sound. And spring has indeed arrived. Things were much greener than our November visit of two years ago. (See chapter 12 for our previous visit here).
1/24 The World of Orchids, in Kissimmee, sounded wonderful when reading about it. But the reality didn't live up to the advertising. It is a medium-sized landscaped greenhouse which might have been very nice a decade ago. But it has received inadequate maintenance and is becoming shabby. We saw some nice flowers, but it wasn't worth the trip.
Later, we drove to a nearby Cracker Barrel restaurant, where we had arranged to meet Susan and Mike Keel for dinner. Susan is a long-time participant in the RV-Talk Email list, and is "List -Mamma" of the newer Fulltimer Email list. So we've electronically corresponded for a couple of years and have been anticipating a chance to meet in person. We felt like we already knew Susan - Her in-the-flesh personality and effervescent conversation exactly matches the personality she conveys over the Internet (not true of everyone). Mike doesn't participate in the Internet discussions, and so was an unknown, but proved to be an outgoing and very interesting individual - contributing to a great evening of conversation and laughter. We thank them for introducing us to Cracker Barrel, which we had not previously visited.
1/27 While Dave gave the tripping canoe a coat of protective epoxy, Helen drove to the Orlando Museum of Art. It is interesting to see how the regional interests of museums influence their collections. Each museum likes to have local scenes depicted and the famous American painters of the 19th century visited Florida and recorded their impressions. So we see palm trees and lagoons instead of the snowy mountain peaks and colorful rocks of the West or the sylvan pastoral scenes of the Northeast. The titles here are about Spanish explorers - Ponce de Leon instead of the Indians hunting buffaloes. The Saint Johns River Entering the Atlantic Ocean by Herman Herzog dominated one wall, displaying a red sky behind tall palms, white sand, and reflecting river. And there were several nice American paintings (Moran, Bierstadt, Georgia O'Keefe,) a Bouguereau, and some interesting modern works.
More museums here have significant Pre-Columbian collections, a reflection of the fact that local shell mounds yielded some. The Orlando Museum also had an excellent collection of artifacts from Central America and Northern South America. And big maps on the walls identified the location of the cultures that produced them. from well before the Christian Era up to modern. (A bit strange to see Maria Martinez' 1930-1990 black pottery in the Pre-Columbian collection, but it looks beautiful anywhere.)
Helen is becoming partial to the Pre-Columbian pottery. The pots in the forms of squashes, birds, frogs, houses, monkeys, human hands, bulls, etc. all seem appealing and clever, even humorous, a graceful and distinct departure from their gruesome stelae and temples, with warriors standing on captives heads and intricate feathered serpents. How can a culture produce a humorous pottery scene of ball players casually sitting on a fence kibitzing the game and also those awful battle scenes?
The travelling exhibition of Russian Imperial Splendors was a quick walk-past - mainly cases and cases of filigree and enamel eggs, and some furniture. I did pause at a diamond studded tiara worn by a royal princess at her marriage and at some of the 18th C European paintings.
1/30 We chose mostly secondary highways in moving from Orlando up to Manatee Springs State Park, near Chiefland, Florida, and enjoyed the great variety of views of rural Florida - tree farms, citrus groves, hay fields, pastures, race-horse breeding farms, lakes, hardwood forests, cypress swamps, and small towns.
Roadside farm stands are common along the highways. All are selling citrus, most have local strawberries, and some have other produce as well. We were surprised to find good-looking field-ripened tomatoes. So we treated ourselves to wonderful bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwiches - the first time we've had these in January. We've also been enjoying our breakfast pancakes covered with chopped fresh strawberries instead of maple syrup. The roadside citrus fruit indeed seems better than the grocery-store variety - apparently allowed to ripen on the tree, and therefore juicier and sweeter.
The Spring is a crystal clear turquoise color, with a large volume of water welling up from the limestone formations below, flowing in a fast moving stream several hundred yards to the river.. There are several miles of connecting underwater caves in the limestone, which have been explored by scuba divers. The park is full of sinkholes where these caves have collapsed. One of the sinkholes is full of water, and has a population of catfish which swim in and out through the caves from the spring run or the river.
We watched seven delicate white-tailed deer work their way through the campground at dusk, grazing in the empty campsites. The manatees didn't seem to be in residence, even though the weather is quite cold.
1/31 An all-day cold rain, after an all-night rain - the tail end of one of the storms which have been dumping snow on Georgia and the Carolinas. We hibernated in the trailer, taking one walk around the park during a lull in the rain.
2/1/ The lower Suwanee River meanders through the middle of a broad (typically a mile or two wide) corridor of cypress swamp. Manatee Springs State Park is about 18 miles upstream from the Gulf of Mexico, not counting all the twists and turns of the river. There are no bridges across the river in that entire distance, and in fact we'd have to go upriver from the park another six miles to get to a bridge. The actual driving distances are much greater, since there are no roads along the river for most of the distance.
Today, we explored along the southeast side of the river, taking the main roads down to Cedar Key and then picking our way along the rural roads as close as we could get to the river on the way back to the State Park. Cedar Key is a thriving little town on a low island in the Gulf of Mexico, surrounded by other low swampy islands. Modern, expensive homes, all up in the air on pilings, share the island with rundown old shacks (built before codes were established and not on high pilings). We saw a few small commercial fishing boats, but a small area of restaurants and tourist shops probably accounts for most of the town's revenue. The highest point on the island appeared to be about 10 feet above the water. Most of the island is just a few feet high. Swamps and tidal flats extend in all directions, with open water, dotted by a few tiny islands, visible to the west. Many of the islands, and much of the shoreline, are protected as part of Cedar Keys National Wildlife Refuge. Up the coast to the north, and extending inland for many miles, the Lower Suwanee Wildlife Refuge protects most of the wetlands along the river.
On the way back, we followed a small road down to a small boat launch site on the river, adjacent to a very large shell mound. Shell mounds occur all along the coast, from here down through the Everglades, and were seasonal dwelling sites for prehistoric Indians. The flat tops of the mounds are up to 28 feet above mean sea level, and this particular mound is one of the largest, extending hundreds of feet. It's hard to imagine eating that many shellfish, but they had plenty of time to do it - the site was occupied for three millennia. Mixed in with the shells are various artifacts such as pottery, providing the archaeologists with a few clues about these very early settlements. Recent digs have given this mound occupation dates from 2,500 BC to 1,000 AD. There is no nearby display of artifacts from this site - I suppose we would have to drive to Gainesville to see any.
2/3 This morning, we hitched up and drove to Tallahassee, Florida, about a three hour drive. The first two thirds of the drive was along US 19 and US 221, through pleasantly rural country - mostly tree farms. Lumber trucks were frequent all through this area. It's sparsely populated - averaging 4 people per square mile. The last section of the trip was on Interstate 10, part of which lived up to its reputation of being uncomfortably bumpy.
Along the way, we stopped at Forest Capital State Museum and learned more about tree farming. The tree plantations in this area are mostly slash pine. Like other farm products, these trees are cultivars that have been selectively bred for specific characteristics (rapid growth being the main one). Nursery-grown one-year-old seedlings are planted in plowed fields. Although we saw two lumber mills along the way, the predominant use of these trees is for wood pulp - both for paper products and as feedstock for chemical manufacturing. The entire tree is used - even the stumps and larger branches.
2/4 A walk through Maclay State Gardens, just north of Tallahassee, was nice. Some of the oldest Camellias in the state were in bloom there.
The word plantation evokes antebellum images of fields of cotton and slaves. Pebble Hill Plantation is from a different world -- that of post Civil War wealthy Northerners who spent winters in the South, breeding dogs and racing horses. The house was like any other mansion from the turn of the century (1900, not 1800) showing the ways of the rich and famous. (The oldest portions of the original house are quite beautiful. About 35 beautiful large Audubon Bird Prints are hung throughout the mansion). Unlike most antebellum plantations, the plantation outbuildings were solidly built and still survive here. Besides the gift shop and visitors' center, the extensive brick stables, the laundry and kitchen outbuilding, the fire house, carpenter shop, log cabin schoolhouse, nurse's office, kennels, gate house, cemetery, tennis courts, swimming pool and gardens were all open and in good condition. The "overflow cottage" with additional bedrooms for guests was not open.
Interestingly, the stables were fairly close to the main house, and the garage, full of old cars was substantially further away. The family apparently never sold any of their automobiles. Many were on display - not restored, but carefully maintained and in the same condition as when there were last driven by family members - a 1934 Packard, 1948 Lincoln, 1950's Bentley, etc.
2/5 We hooked up the trailer and drove straight south to the Gulf Coast, and then headed west along US 98. Long stretches of this narrow, winding, highway are adjacent to the water, where we had panoramic views of sparkling blue water, offshore islands, and miles of pure white beaches. This is some of the whitest sand we've ever seen, and the white sand covers the land as well as the beach. Locals call it "sugar sand". Anywhere the thin veneer of top soil has been disturbed, the refrigerator-white sand stands out as though it had recently been spray-painted onto the landscape. When I see it from the corner of my eye, my initial impression is that it is snow.
The road hugs the 100-mile perimeter of a broad peninsula which sticks 30 miles out into the Gulf of Mexico, extending 75 miles wide from Alligator Point on the East to Panama City on the West. Appalachicola and Cape San Blas are at the southernmost part of this bulge, about midway along the drive. The entire area still feels much more rural than the typical Florida coast. Large-scale development is just beginning, much of the shoreline is still empty, and population density is still quite low. Everything is laid-back and informal. I walked through a large, relatively new, marina, looking at the many boats, and saw no gates or fences and not one "no trespassing" sign.
We had no specific destination on this day, intending to investigate any RV Parks that were on the beach or had a good view of the water from their campsites. We'll be coming back through this area at least once more this winter, and will save the information for future use. We saw no fancy "destination resorts" along this coast. The RV Parks and campgrounds are small, informal, and inexpensive. On this Saturday afternoon in February, we found only one beach-front campground that was full (and even here, only the sites near the beach were full).
At 4:00 P.M., we stopped at T.H. Stone Memorial, St. Joseph Peninsula State Park, a huge place occupying the outer 10 miles of the peninsula. Only the first three miles are developed, with roads picnic areas, a campground, boardwalks through the dunes, etc. There's no view of the water from the campground, but the place seemed nice, the beach advertises good shelling, and the sun was getting low, so we picked out a campsite and stopped for the night in time for Helen to spend two hours shelling. Although the park was nearly full, we found a site long enough so that we could park our 55' rig without unhooking the truck. Most of the sites are well separated, with buffer zones of thick shrubs and palmettos between sites. The Gulf beach is just over a sand dune.
After dark, while I was sitting quietly in front of the pay phone at the bath house, watching my Email slowly arrive via the acoustic coupler, a raccoon came running around the corner of the building, suddenly becoming aware of me and screeching to a halt about six feet away. It glared and snarled for a few seconds, then turned tail and disappeared back the way it came. A few minutes later, it came around the other side of the building, which was darker and a bit further from me, followed by two friends, and ran across the street through a row of RVs, heading toward the beach.
2/6 The drive through Panama City and on to Destin was less pleasant. Grayton Beach State Park Campground looked nice, with a few of the sites having a nice view of the lake, and offering a shuttle to Shell Island. As we approached the outskirts of Panama City, the rural impression changed and the coast became overbuilt and littered with small ugly motels, amusement arcades, and other symptoms of low-budget tourism. Further along, this gradually changed to more expensive high-rise hotels and condominiums, largely obscuring the beach.
Somewhere along the way, we drove past a geographical feature identified on our map as "Blue Mountain", and a small community of the same name. There was indeed a noticeable rise in the road, and a small additional rise to the high point, a few hundred yards from the highway. The height of the peak, as given in Street Atlas, is 21 feet above sea level!
We've settled into Camping on the Gulf Holiday Travel Park. We chose a site directly on the beach, where we have the advantages of a great view out into the Gulf and down miles of white beach, and can step directly from our trailer door onto the beach. This comes at a price - the beach sites are very narrow, have no sewer or cable hookup, and cost substantially more than the larger full-hookup sites further back from the water. Immediately surrounding the park, there are large, expensive beach homes, set far enough back in the dunes so that they don't interfere with our view. Further down the beach, there are several very large high-rise condominium complexes, with very interesting architecture designed to give every apartment an unobstructed view of the Gulf. While checking in to the park, we met Jill Raffel, an Email acquaintance from RV-Talk. Jill and her husband Mike are relatively young fulltimers who are work-camping here.
Our first evening treated us to an impressive red sunset reflected in the water, with the tall beachfront condos in the distance looking more like white cliffs than buildings. Later, we had a cold clear night. We are quite far from the highway. The distance, and the constant background noise of the surf covers any vehicle sounds, making us feel fairly isolated.
2/8 Our son Dan flew into Fort Walton Beach yesterday for a business conference. He joined us for dinner tonight. We ate out - a good but undistinguished seafood meal at a restaurant whose name we've already forgotten.
2/10 Dan's conference ended this morning, and he rented a car and drove out to join us in the trailer for a few days. For dinner, we fairly randomly selected Guglielmo's, a northern Italian restaurant five miles or so west of the RV Park. The food and the overall atmosphere turned out to be wonderful. We highly recommend this place.
2/11 The National Museum of Naval Aviation, at Pensacola, Florida, provided a very interesting afternoon. They have a very large number of planes on display, even though the collection is specialized to the Navy and lacks many of the flashier and more familiar planes seen in other air museums. Interpretive displays tell the story of the development of aircraft for the very specialized needs of the navy - both seaplanes and carrier-based planes. One section of the museum contains realistic replicas of portions (flight operations, maintenance) of the interior of a World War II aircraft carrier. Afterward, we had Thai food at the Bangkok in Fort Walton Beach.
2/12 After a lazy morning, Dan body-surfed the waves for a while, then packed up and left for a square dance in Tallahassee, and then a late-night drive to catch a flight back to San Diego. It sure was nice to have had his company these last few days.
2/13 Helen drove to Eden Gardens state Park to tour the gardens and an 1899 Greek Revival mansion filled with antiques. The 10-acre garden, with massive 300-year-old live oaks and ancient camellias, borders Choctahatchee Bay. Azalea hedges and a large formal reflecting pond completed the gardens. Rain began just as I left the garden, and by the time I got back to the trailer, the sky was filled with lightning and thunder and high winds has whipped the Gulf into a noisy seething mass of white-capped waves.
2/14 This morning, we finally met Maureen and Jerry Valley. Maureen is an "Email friend" from the RV-Talk list. They are fulltimers, and will be at this park for another two weeks before moving on. We didn't have long to talk, but will be watching for more opportunities to get together.
While Dave did paperwork, Helen set off for the Indian Temple Mound Museum in Fort Walton Beach and then the Zoo in Gulf Shores. The Mound was real, the temple a reconstruction, the pottery unique. Nearly all the items in this small museum were found within 50 miles of it. This mound, occupied from 900 to 1400 AD. The six-sided pottery plates found in it are unique among pre-Columbian artifacts. But the beautiful pieces were the bowls, gently distorted with small protrusions and indentions that made them into frogs or owls or squashes. All the pottery was deliberately smashed or had holes made in it when buried-- to let out the spirit of the potter. But, surely - from a practical point of view - to also discourage grave robbers.
An intimate zoo -- yes! I was within 5' of a Tiger, 3' of a Wapiti and 10' of a Hippo. The Tiger, the Hippo, and various simians apes were within wire fence enclosures, but the others came right up to the miniature open air train in the wild animal park. The train ride was a photographer's dream, as the animals came to it whenever we stopped. Gorillas cavorting on a three acre island with grass and real trees were often in clear view.
I went to the Zoo to see the Japanese Garden within it, which was ragged and lacking in beauty. But the animal experience was superb, second only to the San Diego Wild Animal Park.
2/15 The weather during our nine days here has spanned a wide range of conditions. When we arrived, we had several days of a cold north wind and clear brilliant blue skies, with temperatures in the 40's at night and in the low 60's during the day. Then, the wind gradually shifted to the south, bringing high humidity and clouds from the Gulf, moderating the temperatures to the high 50's at night and 70's during the day. Then, storm clouds blew in. Under the cloud cover, the humidity was very high, the night time temperature stayed about 65 degrees, and we slept with windows open. The strong winds, blowing over crashing surf, filled the air with salt spray, coating everything. We can't see out of the windows of the trailer, and there's not much point in washing them until we're away from the beach. Yesterday, the wind gradually clocked around to the west, the clouds slowly dissipated, and the air became drier. Today, we're back to north winds and clear skies, although it's warmer than when we first arrived.
We've spent significant portions of the past nine days hanging out on the beach. Beach scenes include:
The very white "sugar sand" squeaks as we walk. The beach is incredibly clean, with no seaweed, no marine life of any sort, not even any shells. There is no sign of human maintenance. Why is it so pristine here, when most other beaches we've seen always have a litter of rotting seaweed, human garbage, shells, dead fish, driftwood, etc., along the high tide line?
We're almost surrounded by the huge Elgin Air Force Base complex. Fighter planes roar overhead several times a day, often in close-space pairs, the "blowtorch" sound quite different than commercial jets.. Low-flying helicopters are frequent. The boom of bombing practice several miles away is barely audible over the surf. The local newspaper publishes the schedule for the bombing practice.
A large flock of seagulls generally congregates on the beach in front of the RV Park. It's a mixed group of laughing gulls and ring-billed gulls, with an occasional royal tern or least tern (?) mixed in. Usually, most members of the flock are asleep often with head tucked under a wing. But a few guards are always awake and alert, quickly alerting the rest when danger or food appears. On our first day here, I fixed a plate of lunch and stepped outside, intending to eat it on the picnic table. Before I had taken three steps, a solid wall of dozens of gulls dived at me, with reinforcements coming close behind. I quickly ducked back into the trailer. Eating on the beach is completely impractical. Later, I watched an old man a few sites away from us have a similar experience. He didn't even have food, but had something in his hands that sort of looked like food. He was met by this aggressive gang of gulls as he came around the corner of his motorhome, and recoiled, cowered, and ran for his door.
Even when the flock moves off to investigate some other food source, they leave sentinels posted in key positions. If food appears, the sentinel squawks and within a minute or so, the entire flock is back.
One morning, a little girl appeared on the beach with a handful of bread, to feed the gulls. She carefully set most of the bread on a picnic table beside her and started tearing up one piece, throwing bit of it to the gulls. When she turned back to the table, there was, of course, nothing there. Within seconds after she laid it down, every scrap of bread was gone, and two fights had broken out on the beach, where one gull had flown off with an entire slice of bread and was trying unsuccessfully to protect it from a horde of others.
We've noticed before that a greedy gull almost never succeeds. When one member of the flock flies off with a big chunk of fish or bread or whatever in its beak. it can't fly as fast or maneuver as quickly as the other, unencumbered, gulls, and so is eventually forced to drop the large piece, allowing the rest of the flock to take turns pecking off small pieces.
Small groups of tiny darting sandpipers move through the flocks of gulls, in constant motion, but rarely flying. Squadrons of pelicans occasionally glide serenely past us, just above the water. On two occasions, a large mixed flock of diving birds swam by, far enough out in the water so that I couldn't get a good identification. They seemed to be following a food source - perhaps a school of small fish.
A fleet of 10 or more Dolphins swam slowly past just offshore, dark bodies gleaming in the sun as they periodically surfaced. At least 30 people were lined up on the beach watching them pass.
15 Feb This morning, we're packing up to begin the drive toward the Everglades. We'll stop in the Tampa and Naples areas to visit friends and relatives and then (hopefully - if we can get reservations from the National Park) spend a week or so canoeing a route through some of the 10,000 Islands and the interior of the Everglades.