Cedar Key, “Bubba Ho-Tep”, Shired Island, Steinhatchee, White Springs, Suwannee River, Habitat For Humanity International Center, Jimmy Carter National Historical Site, Andersonville Prison, FDR Little White House, Cherokee National Forest-- and home
(posted from home)
(this post covers the period 23 March to 1 April, 2007)
Sunday, 1 April –
Today we woke around 06:00 in Mocha Joe and yet managed to fritter away the time and not get up until almost 08:00; Sundays are SO nice! We drove into town with Maypo and had a nice long breakfast. Labashi and I retrieved the Miata from its winter storage garage and headed for home, me driving the Miata, she driving Mocha Joe. We arrived home about noon and the very first thing Labashi saw was her daffodils. She had planted 500 bulbs last November but in December we had a warm spell and had seen some of them sprout. We were concerned they may have been damaged but apparently not; they’re looking great!
We didn’t have any house problems and everything came back up quite easily—we were pretty much back to normal within two hours. We spent the afternoon calling family who may have been concerned about us in our travels and doing our email and blogging chores. I also made an emergency run to the video store. We only watched two movies the entire time we were away but it seems important to have one tonight.
That evening we watched 'Borat'. We're not fans.
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Saturday, 31 March –
We started hearing the fishermen going by at about 0600 but there were only a few and we soon fell back asleep. We were surprised to find only one pickup parked within sight since we had a very nice stretch of stream behind us; it would have been a nice day to have a Tennessee fishing license. But we had places to go.
We breakfasted and got organized and were on the road by 0830, heading downstream until a turn pointed us back up a steep and twisty dirt road to connect back to the hard road. We came out not far from Tellico Lake and by late morning we were skirting Knoxville. There we connected up with Interstate 40 which runs into Interstate 81 and it was time to put the pedal to the metal. We fired up the iPod and plugged in our earbuds and that put us into zone-out mode for crossing the 75 miles of I-81 in Tennessee, then the 324 miles of it in Virginia, then 23 miles in West Virginia and 11 in Maryland to get us to PA. We spent the evening in Chambersburg with Maypo, catching up on his adventures fishing that morning on our new boat.
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Friday, 30 March –
Today we turned northward once again, crossing from Georgia into Tennessee by mid-day. I had simply plotted our course by looking for dotted-line roads heading somewhat northerly. Dotted-line roads are scenic roads and in the past I’ve found I agree they are well worth doing. This time I had picked out a dotted-line road to pick up the Cherahala Skyway, a 40+ mile scenic route from Tellico Plains, TN into Robbinsville, NC. I don’t know where I’ve heard of it but I recognized the name. The Cherahala Skyway is in the Cherokee National Forest so we soon came to a ranger station. There I bought a detailed map of the Forest and gathered info about the campgrounds, thinking I’d come back sometime, perhaps this fall. But as we traveled along I wanted to at least sample it now so we turned off onto Forest Road 35, a dirt road (of course!) toward a cheapie campsite about three miles away. We soon started a steep, winding descent and came out to a creek and an informal campsite which seemed awfully crowded for an Friday early afternoon. We soon learned that trout season starts tomorrow. Actually, trout season has been going on for two weeks but in this area it closes on Thursdays and Fridays while crews stock the streams and then the season re-opens on Saturdays. Given the crowd at the first campsite we thought we were in for a stampede later today and tomorrow morning but as we kept going, the crowded feeling evaporated. We eventually came to ‘Jake Best campsite’, a nice little 7-site campground which had recently been refurbished and had a brand-new iron ranger (fee station). The camping fee was only $6 but the campground also had a strict no-alcohol policy. I thought those two factors might work to our advantage tonight. The rowdier fishing groups might want to press on to the free sites (which also didn’t have the no-alcohol signs).
We first walked the narrow dirt road down about a mile to the next (free) campground, all the while watching the gin-clear stream for signs of fish. We found a few likely fishing holes but didn’t see any fish and returned to the van by about 15:00. After supper we then walked a gated mountain road up to the top of the mountain, a lung-filling hike of about an hour each way, then we explored the creek behind our van and relaxed until dark and reading time. We turned off the light about 2130 and right after that a car came in and the fishermen set up a tent but we didn’t even see them; we only saw their lights as they worked. So much for a crowded campground!
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Thursday, 29 March –
This morning we first took care of registration for our late-arrival last night at the state park. The clerk attempted to charge us $22 for a tent site for the night and changed it to $20 when I objected and pointed out the $17-19 rates quoted in the AAA tourbook. She said the camping fees had gone up from $18 to $20 at the first of the year and she learned in the training session for this year’s camping season that the reason the fee is going up is the state parks are turning people away and therefore they are not charging high-enough fees. With logic like that ruling the state, I’ve stayed in my last Georgia State Park.
We then drove into Pine Mountain to check out the town but it was a little too early in the day. Given our experience at the State Park, we were in no mood to wait around and skipped the Calloway Gardens and moved on.
We then spent a delightful three hours at the FDR Little White House in Warm Springs. In Fall 2005 we had visited Campobello Island, New Brunswick where FDR had a summer home and we loved seeing the old-time classic summer ‘cottages’ there. FDR had begun traveling to Warm Springs in order to bathe in the 99-degree spring waters after he contracted polio. He made some 41 visits there and it was in this place that he died unexpectedly of a stroke on April 12, 1946 while spending the day preparing for an upcoming Jefferson-Day speech and sitting for a portrait. The undelivered speech and unfinished portrait are on display.
Later in the day we continued winding our way northward and drove to Cartersville. There we visited the Etowah Indian Mounds, the best-preserved site of the Mississippian culture. We climbed the mounds but they are merely grass-covered mounds while the accompanying museum is where the interesting stuff is —i.e., where we learned the history of the mound culture and saw the artifacts found on site by archeological digs. Perhaps most surprising are the gorgets found at the site. They are elaborate disks displaying Mayan-like etched images and are worn dangling from a neck cord.
After Etowah, we drove on into Cartersville and shared a rack of baby-back ribs at a Longbranch restaurant before retiring for the night at the local Wal-Mart.
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Wednesday, 28 March –
This morning we toured the Habitat for Humanity International Center in Americus, GA. This turned out to be the most unique site we’ve visited the entire trip. It’s a walking tour, showing a re-created South African shanty-town followed by an example of each of the housing types Habitat does around the world. The shanty-town was eerily realistic; it looked like the residents had just walked out to another part of town for the day. The houses were complete down to the appliances, dishes, furniture, and so forth. Each house demonstrated the local materials used and appeared ready to move in. Each also had a price tag, generally ranging between 3000 and 7000 US dollars. In the intro film we learned Habitat has built more than 200,000 homes and will double that by 2008--- an amazing record of achievement.
After the Habitat visit, we drove to Plains, GA, home of our 39th president, Jimmy Carter. After lunch at the Welcome Center, we visited the Plains High School building, which now houses an extraordinarily-good museum dedicated to the Carters and their lives. We then drove into Plains to the old Carter Warehouse where we each had an excellent peanut ice cream and sampled the fried peanuts. We then drove west of town to the Jimmy Carter Childhood Farm for a walking tour. I have to say I’m impressed by both Mr. and Mrs. Carter and, for that matter, the little town of Plains.
After Plains we drove northeast to Andersonville, the site of the infamous Civil War prison in 1864-1865. A relative in my paternal line died at Andersonville during the War and we hoped to learn more about him. Unfortunately only the bare bones of the facts are there, i.e., what unit he was in and the fact that he’s reported to have died there. Now I really, really need to research the genealogical information which first told me he had been there and see if I can glean more from that. We had arrived late in the day so were a bit rushed but did manage to see the very good film, to peruse the books, and to walk the north end of the grounds. It’s hard to believe that 30,000 men were held there in the broiling sun, dying at a rate of some 130 per day.
After Andersonville I decided we’d drive on through to F.D. Roosevelt State Park for the night and then see FDR’s Little White House tomorrow. That turned into a longer-than-planned drive. We enjoyed the beautiful Spring countryside, the azaleas, wisteria, irises, daffodils, and a beautiful budding trees everywhere but we didn’t get to our campsite until almost dark so we were tired out from that. We took a wind-down-for-the-day walk around the campground after dark and then slept like babes.
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Tuesday, 27 March-
Today we arose early, around 0715, and dressed for a walk on the Florida Trail. We had a quickie breakfast and were on the trail an hour later, following it south along the banks of the Suwannee. What a fantastic walk! The trail stays atop the right bank and overlooks the tannin-rich river below. The river looks as black as ink in places but it has many sand islands and there you see the tea-colored waters over the white sand. Our sandy path wound through the palmettos lining the river-bank, a park-like setting with many opportunities for picture-perfect campsites.
We walked for almost two hours and turned around a little earlier than planned when we came upon two canoes of campers on the far bank. They hadn’t seen us and we knew they believed they were far away from civilization so we didn’t want to break the spell for them. We had only planned to walk south for another ten minutes anyway so turning back early was no problem.
We returned to the van by lunch time and then had a quick shower before heading out.
We drove the afternoon away, ending up in Americus, Georgia. Labashi had noticed a Habitat For Humanity International Center on the Tourbook listing for Americus so we thought we’d check it out tomorrow, after staying at the local Wal-mart tonight.
As we drove through Americus, we noticed something odd—many of the buildings are closed or damaged. The McDonalds and Chevron gas station have their sign panels almost all blown out, some entire buildings appear to have been collapsed and a dozen or so buildings are only half-there; the top half is missing. It occurred to us both at the same time; there must have been a tornado here recently. After we reached our Wal-mart for the night (all the while hoping it hadn’t been closed because of the tornado), we saw the story in the newspaper-boxes. Each had a story about some aspect of the tornado. It had come through Americus on March 1st.
We spent the evening reading papers and then reading and blogging.
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Monday, 26 March –
After a blissfully-quiet night at the Shired Island county park we took a nice, long morning walk on the beach. The park is not really what you’d expect of a park. There’s no sign telling you it’s a park, for instance. You just travel down the hard road to the end and notice there are a couple of dumpsters at the end of a dirt road about a hundred yards before the dead-end. If you are curious enough, you drive back the dirt road and are rewarded with a magnificent sandy beach, lots of sabal palms, and some picnic pavilions. If you look closely, you notice electrical outlets and water spigots beside the picnic pavilions—gee—this must be a campground! We had the great advantage of having a county map courtesy of our buddy Joe-the-retired-fireman at Old Town Campground so we at least knew there was supposed to be some kind of campground in the area.
On our morning walk we noticed many markers (white poles) out in the water and we finally realized what they are—those are the markers of the clam farms.
We had learned how Cedar Key has a large clam aquaculture industry and this was apparently part of it. Otherwise, it seemed like we were marooned on a Pacific atoll. We had a beautiful view far out into the Gulf of Mexico, we had sandy beach, lightly-swaying palms, a spectacular sunrise, and it was all FREE. We had asked Robert and Mary-Jo (the Oregonians) whether anyone comes around to collect a camping fee and they said someone comes occasionally to clean the restrooms but nobody collects any fees. The downside of this wonderful spot is it is apparently party-central on weekends. We were lucky to have arrived on Sunday for Saturday night the place was packed with Crackers, and, worse, Crackers with airboats. They had spent most of the night Saturday roaring around just off the beach on the airboats and using lights to attract fish, then shooting the fish with a bow and arrow only to discard the fish and shoot another. Thank goodness we missed that spectacle.
After our walk we said our goodbye to Mary Jo and headed west again, this time toward Steinhatchee. We had decided we’d go see Steinhatchee and declare it the western-most point we visited on this year’s trip. Then we’d start winding our way home.
But first we had another backcountry adventure. We tried following the map Joe had given us but the sandy two-track soon split, and then split again. Before long we realized we were driving south when we should be going north. After a few mis-cues we finally took a road that looked too narrow and sandy to be the main road—but was the only one we hadn’t tried. It was of course unmarked and had No Trespassing signs on both sides of the road. But we also know the signs can be a ploy by local landowners to keep visitors off a public road bordering their property. After a mile or so, we finally did see a handmade road-sign confirming we were on the Pump Main Line road, which showed on the map as a public road. It was barely wide enough for Mocha Joe to get through and had some potholes which looked big enough to swallow him, but we pressed on anyway. Soon we came upon large equipment working. They were clear-cutting the area and at first it didn’t make sense. But after several miles of it we came to a tee intersection where we started seeing real-estate-for-sale signs. They are developing this area and it’s one heck of a development. We drove for miles seeing signs on our left saying “Rock Level Members Only”. And in the middle of nowhere—“SW 392nd St”. It reminds me of the Golden Gate development in Naples.
We eventually came out to Jena, a little crossroads town below Steinhatchee. We drove into Steinhatchee and decided it’s quite a nice little town. We stopped at the little community center park for lunch and there learned that the Steinhatchee River and the bay at its head. Deadman’s Bay, appeared on Spanish maps of the 1500’s. This makes a lot of sense when you realize there aren’t many breaks on the coastline of Florida’s Big Bend so any exploring vessels would have made note of them. We also learned the name Steinhatchee had come from the Native American words ‘esteen’ (meaning ‘man’), and ‘hatchee’ (meaning ‘river’), i.e., ‘River of Man’. But why locals chose to use ‘stein’ rather than ‘steen’ is unclear. Our friend Joe had called it ‘steenhatchee’ and we presume that’s the local pronunciation (we didn’t hear any other locals pronounce it).
After lunch we drove up along the Steinhatchee and stopped at the Steinhatchee Falls, which were only about 18” high but very pretty. It was at the Falls that Andrew Jackson had crossed on his way to seek out Native Americans in the Second Seminole War--- and it was also here that De Sesoto visited in the 1500’s.
We continued up FL51 through Live Oak and on to White Springs. There we entered Stephen Foster Folk Culture State Park on the Suwannee River. We parked Mocha Joe in a campsite and set up the bikes, then went exploring. We visited the museum, which was dedicated to Stephen Foster and his music. It was a bit jarring to have come from walking the beach and then bouncing along the sandy roads in the backcountry to the museum mansion where we saw romanticized dioramas and paintings about Foster’s most popular songs, a collection of pianos and a replica of Foster’s maloedeon, a miniaturized, portable piano.
We then visited the carillon and watched the mechanical bells-control system pound out the hour. After a short visit to the Craft Center and Gift Shop we returned to Mocha Joe for supper. Then we took another bike ride around the park and campgrounds just to enjoy the ultra-pleasant evening before going to bed.
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Sunday, 25 March –
Today we drove to the town of Suwannee for a short drive-through and then took the Dixie Main Line (a dirt road) along the Lower Suwannee Wildlife Refuge. We stopped for lunch at Salt Creek and as we drove out Labashi spotted two feral pigs and we attempted to get pictures but no luck there. We spent the afternoon driving slowly across the Wildlife Refuge but there wasn’t much water and therefore not much wildlife. We saw only one gator, a raccoon, a brown watersnake, and a couple of anoles. We then drove to Shired Island, then to Horseshoe Cove, all the time looking for wildlife and finding little. At Horseshoe Cove Café we took a break for pie and ice cream. We then checked out the little county campground there but it had no shade and no privacy at all so we returned to Shired Island and its unmarked and unsigned county campground. There we walked the beach and after supper met Robert and Mary-Jo, a young full-timing-RV couple originally from Oregon but on the road for the last three-and-a-half years. They are traveling in a Bigfoot truck camper and pulling a utility trailer with two dual-sport bikes and a canoe. We had a very nice evening with them, talking away about our respective adventures. The most interesting thing we learned is they do not recommend Alaska—they suggest doing the Far North in Canada. They say the Canadians are much friendlier. They felt the Alaskans only wanted to deal with you if you were there to fish or hunt or do the expensive tourist gimmicks.
We spent the latter part of the evening blogging and reading.
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Saturday, 24 March –
This morning we walked the Shell Mound trail near Cedar Key to see the Calusa Indian shell mounds, then returned to the State Park to see the St. Clair Whitman House and walk the nature trail there. We drove into the Lower Suwanee National Wildlife Refuge where we walked the nature trail and boardwalk. Then we drove north to Chiefland where we shopped for supplies at the local Wal-Mart and tried unsuccessfully to get a campsite at the Manatee Springs State Park. We then tried two campgrounds listed in our old ‘Free Campgrounds of the East’ book but one was closed for construction work and the other had closed the campground. We decided we’d had enough of the find-the-cheapest-campground game so selected the Old Town Campground listed in the AAA book as a special value. And it was—our AAA discount gave us a campsite for $13.50 plus $1.00 tax. There we met owner Joe, an early retiree of the Trenton, NJ Fire Department and a great guy. Joe took good care of us and it was a joy to talk with him. He gave us tips of things to see and do in the area and visited us twice that evening at the campsite to be sure we had everything we needed and to joke with us for a few minutes.
That evening we watched an excellent movie, “Bubba Ho-tep”. This one is a film-festivals favorite from 2002 and it’s difficult to synopsize. There’s this guy in a nursing home, see, who is the real Elvis. Years ago, Elvis was getting tired of living the high-life and so traded places with an impersonator—the very best of the best—who, it turned out, had a bad heart. But to pay the bills, the real Elvis impersonated himself for years but eventually ended up in a nursing home with, of all people, President Jack Kennedy (played by Ossie Davis) who had also not really died. Together they learn that the residents of the home are having their souls stolen by a mummy they call ‘Bubba Ho-tep’ and they try to stop him. GOOD flick!
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Friday, 23 March –
This morning we explored the Withlacoochee State Forest, starting by driving down Nobleton Road to check out the Withlacoochee River. The forest road parallels the Withlacoochee State Trail and the river. The Trail is Florida’s longest paved bicycle trail, some 46 miles in length. We followed along until Forest Road 6 which we wanted to drive to get a sense of the types of trees and undergrowth. This particular road is paved but all the intersecting ones were sandy two-track and looked very narrow. But we are on one of Florida’s ridges so the going is at least dry (i.e., no deep mudholes).
The Forest folks have done a good job in interlacing different trails through the area. If you overlay the hiking trail map over the mountain-biking trail map and then lay on the horseback trail map and the Forest Roads map, I’d think you’d never be more than a hundred yards from some type of trail yet you’d feel like you are in a fairly remote area. After checking out the trail heads I thought we’d try Forest Road 5, one of the shorter ones. Once again things started off well and deteriorated from there! Actually, it wasn’t all that bad. The sand here wasn’t as ‘sugary’ as the sand at the OK Slough so the van tires didn’t sink in so easily. We had one place where I had to get out and walk it to decide whether to press on or turn back. I think we were plowing a little sand with the undercarriage of the van in that area so we were relieved to finally reach the paved road. The problem with these roads is you spend more time watching the road than the scenery around you when the track gets ‘iffy’. On the other hand it’s rewarding to work on your skill in determining what challenges you can take on and which you have to leave to the four-wheel-drive guys.
After FR5, we again drove down Nobleton Road, this time to the Silver Lake. Silver Lake had a picnic area and three campgrounds, two with full hookups and one a primitive campground, all bordering the Withlacoochee. We considered staying at the primitive one but it seemed too early in the day to stop roaming about so we pressed on.
The one thing we wanted to be sure to do today was to connect to the web so we continued on south to the East Hernando Library at Brooksville for that. We spent about two hours catching up on mail, uploading the blog, and catching up on weather and news. Labashi has started ‘West with the Night’ (the remarkable Beryl Markham memoir) and wanted an atlas of East Africa to follow the story so she spent her time making copies of key maps for her reading.
At that point we decided we would leave the Croom Tract of the State Forest and pass through the Citrus Tract on our way to Cedar Key. We spent the hot part of the day (low 90’s) driving to Cedar Key via Crystal River. We arrived in Cedar Key by 16:00 and visited a small historical state park where we learned about the amazing history of Cedar Key. This little out-of-the-way town was at one time a thriving port of commerce and had vessels regularly sailing to Mexico and points throughout Central America. At the State Park the ranger told us we’d find the best camping deal in the area at the county campground at Shell Mounds. We were amazed to find a nice little campground with a killer view for $5.10. We then returned to Cedar Key for a dinner of crab bisque and shrimp pie, then we walked the town streets until dark before returning to our campsite.
(posted from home)
(this post covers the period 23 March to 1 April, 2007)
Sunday, 1 April –
Today we woke around 06:00 in Mocha Joe and yet managed to fritter away the time and not get up until almost 08:00; Sundays are SO nice! We drove into town with Maypo and had a nice long breakfast. Labashi and I retrieved the Miata from its winter storage garage and headed for home, me driving the Miata, she driving Mocha Joe. We arrived home about noon and the very first thing Labashi saw was her daffodils. She had planted 500 bulbs last November but in December we had a warm spell and had seen some of them sprout. We were concerned they may have been damaged but apparently not; they’re looking great!
We didn’t have any house problems and everything came back up quite easily—we were pretty much back to normal within two hours. We spent the afternoon calling family who may have been concerned about us in our travels and doing our email and blogging chores. I also made an emergency run to the video store. We only watched two movies the entire time we were away but it seems important to have one tonight.
That evening we watched 'Borat'. We're not fans.
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Saturday, 31 March –
We started hearing the fishermen going by at about 0600 but there were only a few and we soon fell back asleep. We were surprised to find only one pickup parked within sight since we had a very nice stretch of stream behind us; it would have been a nice day to have a Tennessee fishing license. But we had places to go.
We breakfasted and got organized and were on the road by 0830, heading downstream until a turn pointed us back up a steep and twisty dirt road to connect back to the hard road. We came out not far from Tellico Lake and by late morning we were skirting Knoxville. There we connected up with Interstate 40 which runs into Interstate 81 and it was time to put the pedal to the metal. We fired up the iPod and plugged in our earbuds and that put us into zone-out mode for crossing the 75 miles of I-81 in Tennessee, then the 324 miles of it in Virginia, then 23 miles in West Virginia and 11 in Maryland to get us to PA. We spent the evening in Chambersburg with Maypo, catching up on his adventures fishing that morning on our new boat.
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Friday, 30 March –
Today we turned northward once again, crossing from Georgia into Tennessee by mid-day. I had simply plotted our course by looking for dotted-line roads heading somewhat northerly. Dotted-line roads are scenic roads and in the past I’ve found I agree they are well worth doing. This time I had picked out a dotted-line road to pick up the Cherahala Skyway, a 40+ mile scenic route from Tellico Plains, TN into Robbinsville, NC. I don’t know where I’ve heard of it but I recognized the name. The Cherahala Skyway is in the Cherokee National Forest so we soon came to a ranger station. There I bought a detailed map of the Forest and gathered info about the campgrounds, thinking I’d come back sometime, perhaps this fall. But as we traveled along I wanted to at least sample it now so we turned off onto Forest Road 35, a dirt road (of course!) toward a cheapie campsite about three miles away. We soon started a steep, winding descent and came out to a creek and an informal campsite which seemed awfully crowded for an Friday early afternoon. We soon learned that trout season starts tomorrow. Actually, trout season has been going on for two weeks but in this area it closes on Thursdays and Fridays while crews stock the streams and then the season re-opens on Saturdays. Given the crowd at the first campsite we thought we were in for a stampede later today and tomorrow morning but as we kept going, the crowded feeling evaporated. We eventually came to ‘Jake Best campsite’, a nice little 7-site campground which had recently been refurbished and had a brand-new iron ranger (fee station). The camping fee was only $6 but the campground also had a strict no-alcohol policy. I thought those two factors might work to our advantage tonight. The rowdier fishing groups might want to press on to the free sites (which also didn’t have the no-alcohol signs).
We first walked the narrow dirt road down about a mile to the next (free) campground, all the while watching the gin-clear stream for signs of fish. We found a few likely fishing holes but didn’t see any fish and returned to the van by about 15:00. After supper we then walked a gated mountain road up to the top of the mountain, a lung-filling hike of about an hour each way, then we explored the creek behind our van and relaxed until dark and reading time. We turned off the light about 2130 and right after that a car came in and the fishermen set up a tent but we didn’t even see them; we only saw their lights as they worked. So much for a crowded campground!
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Thursday, 29 March –
This morning we first took care of registration for our late-arrival last night at the state park. The clerk attempted to charge us $22 for a tent site for the night and changed it to $20 when I objected and pointed out the $17-19 rates quoted in the AAA tourbook. She said the camping fees had gone up from $18 to $20 at the first of the year and she learned in the training session for this year’s camping season that the reason the fee is going up is the state parks are turning people away and therefore they are not charging high-enough fees. With logic like that ruling the state, I’ve stayed in my last Georgia State Park.
We then drove into Pine Mountain to check out the town but it was a little too early in the day. Given our experience at the State Park, we were in no mood to wait around and skipped the Calloway Gardens and moved on.
We then spent a delightful three hours at the FDR Little White House in Warm Springs. In Fall 2005 we had visited Campobello Island, New Brunswick where FDR had a summer home and we loved seeing the old-time classic summer ‘cottages’ there. FDR had begun traveling to Warm Springs in order to bathe in the 99-degree spring waters after he contracted polio. He made some 41 visits there and it was in this place that he died unexpectedly of a stroke on April 12, 1946 while spending the day preparing for an upcoming Jefferson-Day speech and sitting for a portrait. The undelivered speech and unfinished portrait are on display.
Later in the day we continued winding our way northward and drove to Cartersville. There we visited the Etowah Indian Mounds, the best-preserved site of the Mississippian culture. We climbed the mounds but they are merely grass-covered mounds while the accompanying museum is where the interesting stuff is —i.e., where we learned the history of the mound culture and saw the artifacts found on site by archeological digs. Perhaps most surprising are the gorgets found at the site. They are elaborate disks displaying Mayan-like etched images and are worn dangling from a neck cord.
After Etowah, we drove on into Cartersville and shared a rack of baby-back ribs at a Longbranch restaurant before retiring for the night at the local Wal-Mart.
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Wednesday, 28 March –
This morning we toured the Habitat for Humanity International Center in Americus, GA. This turned out to be the most unique site we’ve visited the entire trip. It’s a walking tour, showing a re-created South African shanty-town followed by an example of each of the housing types Habitat does around the world. The shanty-town was eerily realistic; it looked like the residents had just walked out to another part of town for the day. The houses were complete down to the appliances, dishes, furniture, and so forth. Each house demonstrated the local materials used and appeared ready to move in. Each also had a price tag, generally ranging between 3000 and 7000 US dollars. In the intro film we learned Habitat has built more than 200,000 homes and will double that by 2008--- an amazing record of achievement.
After the Habitat visit, we drove to Plains, GA, home of our 39th president, Jimmy Carter. After lunch at the Welcome Center, we visited the Plains High School building, which now houses an extraordinarily-good museum dedicated to the Carters and their lives. We then drove into Plains to the old Carter Warehouse where we each had an excellent peanut ice cream and sampled the fried peanuts. We then drove west of town to the Jimmy Carter Childhood Farm for a walking tour. I have to say I’m impressed by both Mr. and Mrs. Carter and, for that matter, the little town of Plains.
After Plains we drove northeast to Andersonville, the site of the infamous Civil War prison in 1864-1865. A relative in my paternal line died at Andersonville during the War and we hoped to learn more about him. Unfortunately only the bare bones of the facts are there, i.e., what unit he was in and the fact that he’s reported to have died there. Now I really, really need to research the genealogical information which first told me he had been there and see if I can glean more from that. We had arrived late in the day so were a bit rushed but did manage to see the very good film, to peruse the books, and to walk the north end of the grounds. It’s hard to believe that 30,000 men were held there in the broiling sun, dying at a rate of some 130 per day.
After Andersonville I decided we’d drive on through to F.D. Roosevelt State Park for the night and then see FDR’s Little White House tomorrow. That turned into a longer-than-planned drive. We enjoyed the beautiful Spring countryside, the azaleas, wisteria, irises, daffodils, and a beautiful budding trees everywhere but we didn’t get to our campsite until almost dark so we were tired out from that. We took a wind-down-for-the-day walk around the campground after dark and then slept like babes.
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Tuesday, 27 March-
Today we arose early, around 0715, and dressed for a walk on the Florida Trail. We had a quickie breakfast and were on the trail an hour later, following it south along the banks of the Suwannee. What a fantastic walk! The trail stays atop the right bank and overlooks the tannin-rich river below. The river looks as black as ink in places but it has many sand islands and there you see the tea-colored waters over the white sand. Our sandy path wound through the palmettos lining the river-bank, a park-like setting with many opportunities for picture-perfect campsites.
We walked for almost two hours and turned around a little earlier than planned when we came upon two canoes of campers on the far bank. They hadn’t seen us and we knew they believed they were far away from civilization so we didn’t want to break the spell for them. We had only planned to walk south for another ten minutes anyway so turning back early was no problem.
We returned to the van by lunch time and then had a quick shower before heading out.
We drove the afternoon away, ending up in Americus, Georgia. Labashi had noticed a Habitat For Humanity International Center on the Tourbook listing for Americus so we thought we’d check it out tomorrow, after staying at the local Wal-mart tonight.
As we drove through Americus, we noticed something odd—many of the buildings are closed or damaged. The McDonalds and Chevron gas station have their sign panels almost all blown out, some entire buildings appear to have been collapsed and a dozen or so buildings are only half-there; the top half is missing. It occurred to us both at the same time; there must have been a tornado here recently. After we reached our Wal-mart for the night (all the while hoping it hadn’t been closed because of the tornado), we saw the story in the newspaper-boxes. Each had a story about some aspect of the tornado. It had come through Americus on March 1st.
We spent the evening reading papers and then reading and blogging.
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Monday, 26 March –
After a blissfully-quiet night at the Shired Island county park we took a nice, long morning walk on the beach. The park is not really what you’d expect of a park. There’s no sign telling you it’s a park, for instance. You just travel down the hard road to the end and notice there are a couple of dumpsters at the end of a dirt road about a hundred yards before the dead-end. If you are curious enough, you drive back the dirt road and are rewarded with a magnificent sandy beach, lots of sabal palms, and some picnic pavilions. If you look closely, you notice electrical outlets and water spigots beside the picnic pavilions—gee—this must be a campground! We had the great advantage of having a county map courtesy of our buddy Joe-the-retired-fireman at Old Town Campground so we at least knew there was supposed to be some kind of campground in the area.
On our morning walk we noticed many markers (white poles) out in the water and we finally realized what they are—those are the markers of the clam farms.
We had learned how Cedar Key has a large clam aquaculture industry and this was apparently part of it. Otherwise, it seemed like we were marooned on a Pacific atoll. We had a beautiful view far out into the Gulf of Mexico, we had sandy beach, lightly-swaying palms, a spectacular sunrise, and it was all FREE. We had asked Robert and Mary-Jo (the Oregonians) whether anyone comes around to collect a camping fee and they said someone comes occasionally to clean the restrooms but nobody collects any fees. The downside of this wonderful spot is it is apparently party-central on weekends. We were lucky to have arrived on Sunday for Saturday night the place was packed with Crackers, and, worse, Crackers with airboats. They had spent most of the night Saturday roaring around just off the beach on the airboats and using lights to attract fish, then shooting the fish with a bow and arrow only to discard the fish and shoot another. Thank goodness we missed that spectacle.
After our walk we said our goodbye to Mary Jo and headed west again, this time toward Steinhatchee. We had decided we’d go see Steinhatchee and declare it the western-most point we visited on this year’s trip. Then we’d start winding our way home.
But first we had another backcountry adventure. We tried following the map Joe had given us but the sandy two-track soon split, and then split again. Before long we realized we were driving south when we should be going north. After a few mis-cues we finally took a road that looked too narrow and sandy to be the main road—but was the only one we hadn’t tried. It was of course unmarked and had No Trespassing signs on both sides of the road. But we also know the signs can be a ploy by local landowners to keep visitors off a public road bordering their property. After a mile or so, we finally did see a handmade road-sign confirming we were on the Pump Main Line road, which showed on the map as a public road. It was barely wide enough for Mocha Joe to get through and had some potholes which looked big enough to swallow him, but we pressed on anyway. Soon we came upon large equipment working. They were clear-cutting the area and at first it didn’t make sense. But after several miles of it we came to a tee intersection where we started seeing real-estate-for-sale signs. They are developing this area and it’s one heck of a development. We drove for miles seeing signs on our left saying “Rock Level Members Only”. And in the middle of nowhere—“SW 392nd St”. It reminds me of the Golden Gate development in Naples.
We eventually came out to Jena, a little crossroads town below Steinhatchee. We drove into Steinhatchee and decided it’s quite a nice little town. We stopped at the little community center park for lunch and there learned that the Steinhatchee River and the bay at its head. Deadman’s Bay, appeared on Spanish maps of the 1500’s. This makes a lot of sense when you realize there aren’t many breaks on the coastline of Florida’s Big Bend so any exploring vessels would have made note of them. We also learned the name Steinhatchee had come from the Native American words ‘esteen’ (meaning ‘man’), and ‘hatchee’ (meaning ‘river’), i.e., ‘River of Man’. But why locals chose to use ‘stein’ rather than ‘steen’ is unclear. Our friend Joe had called it ‘steenhatchee’ and we presume that’s the local pronunciation (we didn’t hear any other locals pronounce it).
After lunch we drove up along the Steinhatchee and stopped at the Steinhatchee Falls, which were only about 18” high but very pretty. It was at the Falls that Andrew Jackson had crossed on his way to seek out Native Americans in the Second Seminole War--- and it was also here that De Sesoto visited in the 1500’s.
We continued up FL51 through Live Oak and on to White Springs. There we entered Stephen Foster Folk Culture State Park on the Suwannee River. We parked Mocha Joe in a campsite and set up the bikes, then went exploring. We visited the museum, which was dedicated to Stephen Foster and his music. It was a bit jarring to have come from walking the beach and then bouncing along the sandy roads in the backcountry to the museum mansion where we saw romanticized dioramas and paintings about Foster’s most popular songs, a collection of pianos and a replica of Foster’s maloedeon, a miniaturized, portable piano.
We then visited the carillon and watched the mechanical bells-control system pound out the hour. After a short visit to the Craft Center and Gift Shop we returned to Mocha Joe for supper. Then we took another bike ride around the park and campgrounds just to enjoy the ultra-pleasant evening before going to bed.
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Sunday, 25 March –
Today we drove to the town of Suwannee for a short drive-through and then took the Dixie Main Line (a dirt road) along the Lower Suwannee Wildlife Refuge. We stopped for lunch at Salt Creek and as we drove out Labashi spotted two feral pigs and we attempted to get pictures but no luck there. We spent the afternoon driving slowly across the Wildlife Refuge but there wasn’t much water and therefore not much wildlife. We saw only one gator, a raccoon, a brown watersnake, and a couple of anoles. We then drove to Shired Island, then to Horseshoe Cove, all the time looking for wildlife and finding little. At Horseshoe Cove Café we took a break for pie and ice cream. We then checked out the little county campground there but it had no shade and no privacy at all so we returned to Shired Island and its unmarked and unsigned county campground. There we walked the beach and after supper met Robert and Mary-Jo, a young full-timing-RV couple originally from Oregon but on the road for the last three-and-a-half years. They are traveling in a Bigfoot truck camper and pulling a utility trailer with two dual-sport bikes and a canoe. We had a very nice evening with them, talking away about our respective adventures. The most interesting thing we learned is they do not recommend Alaska—they suggest doing the Far North in Canada. They say the Canadians are much friendlier. They felt the Alaskans only wanted to deal with you if you were there to fish or hunt or do the expensive tourist gimmicks.
We spent the latter part of the evening blogging and reading.
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Saturday, 24 March –
This morning we walked the Shell Mound trail near Cedar Key to see the Calusa Indian shell mounds, then returned to the State Park to see the St. Clair Whitman House and walk the nature trail there. We drove into the Lower Suwanee National Wildlife Refuge where we walked the nature trail and boardwalk. Then we drove north to Chiefland where we shopped for supplies at the local Wal-Mart and tried unsuccessfully to get a campsite at the Manatee Springs State Park. We then tried two campgrounds listed in our old ‘Free Campgrounds of the East’ book but one was closed for construction work and the other had closed the campground. We decided we’d had enough of the find-the-cheapest-campground game so selected the Old Town Campground listed in the AAA book as a special value. And it was—our AAA discount gave us a campsite for $13.50 plus $1.00 tax. There we met owner Joe, an early retiree of the Trenton, NJ Fire Department and a great guy. Joe took good care of us and it was a joy to talk with him. He gave us tips of things to see and do in the area and visited us twice that evening at the campsite to be sure we had everything we needed and to joke with us for a few minutes.
That evening we watched an excellent movie, “Bubba Ho-tep”. This one is a film-festivals favorite from 2002 and it’s difficult to synopsize. There’s this guy in a nursing home, see, who is the real Elvis. Years ago, Elvis was getting tired of living the high-life and so traded places with an impersonator—the very best of the best—who, it turned out, had a bad heart. But to pay the bills, the real Elvis impersonated himself for years but eventually ended up in a nursing home with, of all people, President Jack Kennedy (played by Ossie Davis) who had also not really died. Together they learn that the residents of the home are having their souls stolen by a mummy they call ‘Bubba Ho-tep’ and they try to stop him. GOOD flick!
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Friday, 23 March –
This morning we explored the Withlacoochee State Forest, starting by driving down Nobleton Road to check out the Withlacoochee River. The forest road parallels the Withlacoochee State Trail and the river. The Trail is Florida’s longest paved bicycle trail, some 46 miles in length. We followed along until Forest Road 6 which we wanted to drive to get a sense of the types of trees and undergrowth. This particular road is paved but all the intersecting ones were sandy two-track and looked very narrow. But we are on one of Florida’s ridges so the going is at least dry (i.e., no deep mudholes).
The Forest folks have done a good job in interlacing different trails through the area. If you overlay the hiking trail map over the mountain-biking trail map and then lay on the horseback trail map and the Forest Roads map, I’d think you’d never be more than a hundred yards from some type of trail yet you’d feel like you are in a fairly remote area. After checking out the trail heads I thought we’d try Forest Road 5, one of the shorter ones. Once again things started off well and deteriorated from there! Actually, it wasn’t all that bad. The sand here wasn’t as ‘sugary’ as the sand at the OK Slough so the van tires didn’t sink in so easily. We had one place where I had to get out and walk it to decide whether to press on or turn back. I think we were plowing a little sand with the undercarriage of the van in that area so we were relieved to finally reach the paved road. The problem with these roads is you spend more time watching the road than the scenery around you when the track gets ‘iffy’. On the other hand it’s rewarding to work on your skill in determining what challenges you can take on and which you have to leave to the four-wheel-drive guys.
After FR5, we again drove down Nobleton Road, this time to the Silver Lake. Silver Lake had a picnic area and three campgrounds, two with full hookups and one a primitive campground, all bordering the Withlacoochee. We considered staying at the primitive one but it seemed too early in the day to stop roaming about so we pressed on.
The one thing we wanted to be sure to do today was to connect to the web so we continued on south to the East Hernando Library at Brooksville for that. We spent about two hours catching up on mail, uploading the blog, and catching up on weather and news. Labashi has started ‘West with the Night’ (the remarkable Beryl Markham memoir) and wanted an atlas of East Africa to follow the story so she spent her time making copies of key maps for her reading.
At that point we decided we would leave the Croom Tract of the State Forest and pass through the Citrus Tract on our way to Cedar Key. We spent the hot part of the day (low 90’s) driving to Cedar Key via Crystal River. We arrived in Cedar Key by 16:00 and visited a small historical state park where we learned about the amazing history of Cedar Key. This little out-of-the-way town was at one time a thriving port of commerce and had vessels regularly sailing to Mexico and points throughout Central America. At the State Park the ranger told us we’d find the best camping deal in the area at the county campground at Shell Mounds. We were amazed to find a nice little campground with a killer view for $5.10. We then returned to Cedar Key for a dinner of crab bisque and shrimp pie, then we walked the town streets until dark before returning to our campsite.
posted by Bezabor&Labashi | 23:59
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