Florida Wilderness St Mark's NWR

I was standing on the river bank watching the sunset. A family was fishing from the boat ramp pier downstream, but I couldn't see them, only their reflected shadows.

 It was a worthwhile moment to be standing there even as temperatures plummeted. Rusty enjoyed 41 degrees, his fur came into its own.

It looked to me more like a bayou in Louisiana than Florida backwoods. North Florida as everyone likes to say is more south Alabama than part of the tropical toe of the peninsula. This however was a different place altogether. I liked it very much. St Mark's National Wildlife Refuge was created in 1931, 68,000 coastal acres set aside by the Department of the Interior to benefit migrating birds. There had been a  lighthouse on the coast for a hundred years but now the focus was moving from commerce to coastal protection. 

I didn't see many birds until I stood on the bank of the Aucilla River  and watched flights of geese streaming overhead.  The original human inhabitants of these estuaries fished and hunted and did well for themselves until the Spanish came along and took over. After the Louisiana Purchase when Spain sold the western regions to France and two years later after minimal involvement later France did the biggest real estate flip ever and sold the unseen lands on to the US for $15 million. Spain figured Florida was now a useless appendage and in 1819 sold the territory for five million dollars to the US and set an agreed eastern boundary to their territories in Texas. Which ultimately got taken by Mexico in their revolution and so it goes. 

The point being that the US now had a convenient shipping port on the Gulf Coast close to the crops in Alabama and points inland. Cotton was king but only as long as it was exported so they built Port Leon on the St Mark's river starting in 1838 . It was a town of 500 people until a traveler from Key West brought yellow fever off a ship in 1841. 140 people died and 70 more left the coast and the remaining two hundred soldiered on until a  hurricane in 1843 put paid to every last trace of Port Leon. Wakulla County needed a new county seat which is now firmly inland in the uninspired town of Crawfordville. As we nudge our way out of our pandemic and plan hurricane tactics every single year it's worth remembering how hard they had it two hundred years ago.

My wife and I failed completely to make the tourist rounds after we found peace and quiet on the banks of the Aucilla River which is on the eastern boundary of the refuge. We had feeble Verizon internet which came and went so my research on this area had to wait until we were back in range and besides that we parked at the river to find stillness, to stop traveling and to take time to do nothing of great moment. My wife painted and I walked the camera with Rusty and that was all we wanted to do

Of course now I have read about the St Mark's river and lighthouse I'd like to make another visit to this least visited part of Florida, the bit one usually rushes past on I-75 or Highway 98, and of which rushing I have been guilty too of course. I think an off season, Spring or Fall vacation exploring the estuaries could be great fun. Covid has apparently closed the visitor center but the dirt roads and views are still open to visitors, most of whom congregate at the light house area.

For us the boat ramp was ideal and with 60 degree days and 41 degree nights boating was for the hardy, not pansies like me. Normally you will see campers and motorhomes loaded with external gear, bicycles, motorcycles, canoes kayaks and all the variants you can imagine. We have decided to go our own way as usual on this subject. We neither of us want impedimenta hanging off the van and furthermore if we did go kayaking or cycling we'd have to leave Rusty behind which you can probably imagine is a non starter for us. I'd rather walk with Rusty than bicycle. Yes he could run alongside but as I indicated relaxation is the key and while walking I can manage camera and dog. Add a bicycle and the equation starts to look too hectic for me. Besides I like walking. 

I am not a fan of bicycles and in our litigious Facebook fueled world I need to specify I don't hate cyclists. I just don't find bicycle riding to be as relaxing as walking. Bicycles are extremely useful and should be encouraged and were I in a city I would undoubtedly ride one to get things done instead of driving. However a bicycle is a vehicle and as such requires concentration as it puts the rider in the flow of traffic. Walking is inefficient and slow and contemplative. If I can't walk there or take my 21 foot camper there I shall either have to use a cab or bypass it, whatever it may be.

For the first time we will be traveling with income thus our journey will not be circumscribed by a diminishing supply of capital. As we have contemplated our pension situation we have come to realize we will be able to rent facilities as we go, a with no time penalty on the length of the trip. Previously we used to celebrate "No Dollar Days" as a way to extend our trip. This time we will be able to tailor our budget to include renting facilities we don't carry with us.

I see a rising trend requiring four wheel rive vans as the "ultimate" travel vehicles. Naturally I don't agree and not because I am simply perverse but because I don't want to take our home rock climbing. My idea is if we come across say an archeological site worth visiting but only accessible by four wheel drive we stop and plan a day trip by hiring a local guide with suitable transport, When I suggested this approach to my wife, the family tight wad/accountant, she thought I was a genius. If she thinks its a good idea I must be on to something.

So instead of listening to seventy pounds of kayak bouncing over the road we will rent them as needed. This plan, thanks to the monthly income, is subject to change but one firm rule in our lives is to buy only after the need has revealed itself. Its not an easy rule to follow and like diets it fails us from time to time but overall we have managed to cut back stuff quite well by pining for stuff rather than anticipating the need for it. We have a rigid throw it away policy too if we don't need it. Collecting stuff for the sake of it is not my way or my wife's luckily as 70 square feet of living space does not allow for much collecting.

Twenty years ago I could see the first glimmers of a useful transformation in society that I knew was coming even though I had no idea how far reaching electronic wizardry would transform our lives. On the one hand miniaturization ahs gone beyond my wildest hopes.  On the other electronic communications are changing the way the younger generations live which may or may not be bad for them but for us older folk there is reason to worry, especially if you are a parent or grandparent. For us older people the Web has given us a whole new virtual world to live in. Lucky us with our life experiences already in place.

For a loose cannon like myself the ability to take pictures, develop them and store them for almost no money and with no space constraints is utterly brilliant. I appreciate the joy of printing especially as self important Real Photographers view the masses as beneath contempt if they don't print, but for a hermit like me with no wall space printing pictures is an absurd proposition. Google stores them for me, unlimited storage for one hundred dollars a year, and my two bridge cameras between them cost a thousand bucks with no ability to use extra lenses or much of any accessory. And with my van loaded with electricity I am set. It is mind boggling how small and comfortable my life can be nowadays.

The problem as an adult is that the promise of electronic living is dependent on human ability to keep it working. Our electronic overlords have created the expectation that electrons are at our beck and call and when they aren't we are helpless. I have a paper atlas in the van, I carry a paperback, usually a book not available on Kindle, and our van systems are as simple as they can be with back ups built in. We have made conscious choices and I feel lucky that we can sit down with experience to know what we want and what we can discard. My wife often says she would never have agreed to not have hot running water had she not lived on a boat with the amenity and never found it satisfactory in use. She is happy to use a solar shower as a result of the boating life we lived.  We travel with knowledge and in hope.

These are not the woods Rusty and I typically walk. Tall trees! Firm ground! Slanting light! No sweating! A different world outside the van.

We parked on the edge of the boat ramp field, at the edge of the river. swatting no see 'ums at dusk, listening to the silence after the last pick up truck drove away. 

In the morning Rusty and I would get up around five and leaving my wife sleeping we would be alone in the field in the wood. We had a street lamp positioned over  the boat ramp which meant I didn't need to use my flashlight much as the weak yellow lamp cast enough light for us to see each other.  I kept an eye on Rusty as he ran back and forth chasing smells, closing in only when I had to clean up after him. He would spend an hour happily chasing his tail and then we went back to the van where I'd make tea and open my paperback and he would climb into bed and join the hump under the sheets snoring. I could have stayed a week but we only had two and a half days. We made the most of them. 

26 December

Back in the Keys after a week away, back at work. A few pictures to celebrate our cold windy sunny return.

I like the Transit Loop which used to be "Free and Frequent" and was then changed to require a dollar per ride so now the tourist buses traveling in an Old Town loop are simply "...and frequent."  Slightly odd looking.

I hope you will forgive my obsession with giant fronds drooping all over city fences. They are in my face and I cannot resist them, in the style of Edward Weston, an extraordinary photographer. I find myself attracted less to people than to still life pictures. I went the same way on vacation chasing shadows and shapes. Weston was a genius as a quick Google search will reveal.

Weston took pictures of banal objects, fruit, vegetables and still life, not to mention humans too, and rendered them extraordinarily abstract and yet simultaneously dense. I read a biography of Ansel Adams who crossed paths with Weston and ended up supporting him at the end of his life as the genius Weston was a photographer and didn't have the genius for publicity that made Adams a wealthy man and widely known  by the end of his life.

I have no facility for self promotion so I have a rather soft spot for Weston though I am glad my wife pushed me to get properly pensioned for the last stage of my life as living in a  van voluntarily seems infinitely preferable to being forced to do it by dint of circumstances. Not everyone is so lucky in these months of weird. and sudden change.

I wonder how cooks and chefs are making out across the country these days, the artists of the kitchen, many of whom find redemption from a  life of dissipation in cooking commercially. In the usual way our society lurches from fad to fad and for a while there cooking was the highest of social and artistic attainments. Now one has to wonder how the artists of cookery are making out in this viral recession. I can't help but think that losing a generation of chefs would be a huge loss, not just in terms of cooking but in the artistry involved in understanding our tastes pushing boundaries and creating beauty and peace at tables across the country. Well, not right now they aren't. Bummer.

I really like the way Key West looks with all the plant growth brought on by relatively cheap abundant piped water from the mainland. Old photos of Key West show much less ornamental shrubbery as rainwater was too precious to pour onto plants. This is a thoroughly modern scene:

Good to be back and wander.  Rusty is always happy to be home, but there again he doesn't have to go to work the idle bugger.

Aucilla River Pictures

Merry Christmas! 

I'm back at work tomorrow so I'm happy to have some pictures to keep alive the memory of a...memorable week away.

Rusty and I prowled the woods looking for shadows and light and colors as usual. No mangroves here.

North Florida Winter

Twenty three years ago my wife and I were preparing ourselves, our two large dogs and our Gemini catamaran to take off from San Francisco Bay, our sailing base, and go south to the winter heat of Southern Mexico. It was a weekend much like another, whittling down lists, staring down shrinking storage spaces and struggling to figure out what we might need in an improbable new life in an unlikely new place. All while the Labrador and the Husky sunbathed, oblivious, in the weak California sun. A boat drew in to the slip next door, a small crowd gathered with much cheering. We stood there like the wedding guests with the albatross around our necks peering at the unremarkable boat now next door. One of the invitees took pity on our puzzlement and explained the boat had left a few years ago on a tour of the Pacific and had just returned and had got their exact same old slip back! Lucky them was the sentiment. We bent back to our labors pondering the value of being back where you started after such a journey.

Our odyssey ended up in Key West whence we never left, we sold our Santa Cruz home and settled down boat-free to our new life of earning pensions and all the rest of the daily catastrophe of life. That lesson about ending up where you start has never left us and now we plan a road trip we convince ourselves  will be open ended, we will adapt and remain flexible and use our home's wheels to alter our circumstances as needed. All this by way of explanation to justify our arrival in a place we had never previously heard of...the Aucilla River. I have previously traveled Highway 98 across the Big Bend of Florida but I had never explored any of the estuaries and now that we have made a start on that I want more!

This is depressed Florida, not at all similar to the tropical vibrant south, much more similar to the struggling small towns of nearby Alabama, a land of empty store fronts and highly charged political hopes dashed it seems by every party in Washington. I'm not a Trump supporter but I can see why these people are as they haven't got much help from anybody over the decades and even though he failed to follow through on his promise to bring jobs back to this country hope obviously springs eternal. The next President is going to have to respond to this plea or the switch back will be pretty swift I reckon. We have all had enough of bullshit one way or another.

In the absence of dispersed camping in the national Forest my wife said let's go to Apalachicola and in looking for a place to spend at least a couple of nights I searched my iOverlander app, an excellent tool for the armchair traveler incidentally, and the reviews were in on a wild camping spot or two in the Big Bend area. I picked one spot at random and the photos confirmed it could be what we were looking for, a place to stay for a couple of nights without moving. A boat ramp no less.

Parking is free but the ramp is five bucks for a single boat launch so we trundled  down the packed gravel road and found our free spot in the sun. We chose a corner away from the ramp itself close to the water's edge and as it turned out that was the right choice as the trucks and trailers that poured in during the day radiated from the ramp, lined up like they were at the start of a Le Mans style race. They sure drove the approach road like the fish were going to get away...Rusty and I had to step to the side in a hurry as they rattled their trailers down the hard packed gravel road

I think the Ford dealer in Perry must make a killing as almost every one of the trucks was built Ford tough and by our third day we must have seen fifty or sixty trucks and trailers come in around seven in the morning with the last one leaving by dusk when temperatures dropped and I could see my breath in a huge plume of white smoke that swirled around my head and actually obscured my view in the still night air. You'd think the place would have been chaotic but it wasn't at all. I got up before dawn and patrolled the lot with Rusty all by ourselves. The trucks arrived at first light, launched and were left as silent sentinels neatly lined up across the field. The occupants were almost without exception middle aged white men, no families, no picnics as there were no facilities, no noise, no nothing. It was rather unusual but it worked perfectly for us. Arrive, launch, park, disappear. Over and over again with the reverse procedure in the evening and the rest of the time we were alone.

The spot itself was quite lovely and for me totally different from what I am used to...Spanish moss hung everywhere, trees were changing color, the grasses were thick and wet with dew.  Rusty spent his days between walks into the mysterious woods, laying in the sun alongside the van watching the trucks come and go, sleeping, rolling over and shifting into the shade when needed. Internet access was feeble but our booster gave us occasional access if we sat inside the van and were patient. It was a remote and lovely place where we spoke to no one aside from exchanging cheerful waves from some passersby and with one woman a few words as she showed up at the pier fishing with her family and made friends with Rusty patrolling on his long leash. Masks in west Florida are symbols of slavery apparently and social distancing is part of the plot but after nine months of isolation we gave up none of our cautious approach to coronavirus avoidance. No one gave us a hard time over our  Covid eccentricity.

It was a time to slow down and do not very much. My wife did her water colors, I wandered with the camera behind Rusty who found the trails in the forest fascinating and a little overwhelming. The Aucilla Boat Ramp in the St. Marks Wildlife Nature Reserve we rated a find worth revisiting. I'd like to come back and not stand out by virtue of a mask, or to travel unable to sit down in a diner and shoot the breeze with the waitress in the way one did when traveling before the pandemic.

I don't suppose we will be back here. Let's face it there are a ton more such spots along Florida's remotest coastline and I don't want to be like the guy coming back to his boat slip after years away rejoicing in being back where he started. If we are to explore we have to explore and stay one step ahead of the comfort zone. For that I am grateful to the general Gun Season in the National Forest for pushing us forward and discovering new places to enjoy.