Appalachicola National Forest, St. Marks marina, “The Brave One”, St. George Island, Pensacola
(posted from Beaner’s Coffee, Ocala, FL)
(this post covers 20-27 February, 2008)
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Wednesday, 27 February-
I nearly froze last night while sitting around the campsite talking with Kjere. Here was this little slip of a woman sitting around in clam-digger pants, and, yes, a down jacket, but she wore a visor for a hat and sneakers-with-no-socks on this windy, 45-degree evening. I finally had to go get my sleeping bag to drape over me to stay out there and finish our fascinating talk.
In the morning I walked over to the bath-house and let the shower run as hot as possible on the cold tile of the unheated shower before venturing in. It wasn’t bad at all, though.
After saying good-bye to Kjere and Denver I headed out, bound for points east. The colder weather here in the Panhandle is supposed to last for a few days and I want to get on to Daytona by the weekend.
I spent the day driving back to the central peninsula. Out of Pensacola I went a bit north to catch Route 20 for a route through the countryside and away from the hideous beach condos of the seaside Route 98.
I dropped I-10 for Niceville and had my first Whataburger — not bad at all and many Whataburger locations have wi-fi; I’ll have to keep my eye open for them in the cities.
I drove along happily listening to Bill Moyers’ Journal, This American Life, and CBC Comedy Factory podcasts.
By 1800 I made it to the Chiefland Wal-mart. I shopped for a few groceries and asked if there’s any wi-fi. I was directed to a coffee shop but I couldn’t get Skype to keep a connection there and even Internet Explorer was having strange problems—something must be wrong with their router. I stopped in at the nearby Holiday Inn Express to use the pay phone to call Labashi (we have a credit card that gives us 30 free minutes a month) but they didn’t have a pay phone. However, when I explained why I wanted the phone, the very nice lady at the desk (Sue) said I was welcome to bring my computer in and use their wi-fi. That worked great and Labashi and I caught things up at home and I spent a long time recounting Kjere’s stories.
Afterwards I spent the rest of the evening updating up the blog offline in the Wal-mart parking lot.
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Tuesday, 26 February-
Today I met a VERY interesting person. She was Kjere (a Norwegian name, pronounced ‘Keri’, which she sometimes spells ‘Kari’, sometimes ‘Keri’). She’s a 60-ish former lawyer, traveling alone and tent-camping with her dog, Denver. She was quite the little sprite of a character. Her face reminds me of Paul Newman. She has the bright, piercing eyes, high cheekbones, sharp chin and slim build. As I was walking back from the bath-house I saw she was making breakfast and jokingly asked ‘what’re we having?”. She was making pancakes for Denver (after, I assume, she had her own) and we easily fell into conversation for a few minutes before we each went on with our days. More on her later.
I spent an hour or two blogging and then realized I wouldn’t get caught up in time to do my update at the library and then move on to another campground. Besides, the night was to be cold and I’d appreciate having electricity for the long, cold evening.
I then dug out the road bike and pedalled over to the office to re-up for another night then took a bike tour of all the park roads. That was only a few miles and I wanted to walk the trails and see the backcountry so I put away the bike and donned my day-pack. I spent the afternoon walking the park’s trails and was happy to find a very interesting and pretty section of rolling white sand dunes among the long-leaf and slash pines and a few saw-palmettos in a remote area of the park. I walked just under three hours and figure I did about eight miles. Though it was airy, I was comfortable in short sleeves until the last mile when an approaching cold front dropped temps enough for me to slip on my jacket.
Back at the van I laid down for a bit and started a cross-word puzzle while enjoying the warm sun streaming in through my open side-doors. After a bit, Kjere appeared and said she had made some extra-good rice with salmon, water-chestnuts, and mandarin oranges and if I didn’t want it she was going to give it to the dog (she’s kind of direct like that). But she didn’t have to tell me twice. I took a chair along over and we sipped a glass of box-wine with our meal and thus began an incredible journey of an evening.
We enjoyed the freedom of talking openly, freely and without consequence, without judging. In other words, we don’t have any common acquaintances, didn’t even know each other’s last names, and would never see each other again and we were enjoying our conversation (you’ll understand why I tell you this in a minute).
Kjere had left her hard-earned profession when she tired of the game of defending criminals; men who she knew had, for the most part, either done the crime they had been charged with or they were guilty of worse. After years in the profession, she just didn’t believe in it any more and tired of the same old excuses, the same old stories. She felt she couldn’t keep doing something which had no importance—it was just a going-through-the-motions existence.
As we talked she eventually told me she had been devastated to learn she has Parkinson’s Disease and we talked at length about it. Parkinson’s is a disease of the brain and nervous system wherein some muscles may become rigid. Kjere explained it from her skiing experience. When skiing down a hill you keep the down-hill leg tense and the up-hill leg limber, then switch back and forth as you turn. But Parkinson’s is like skiing up to a turn and finding that the tense or rigid leg won’t go limber. She had first experienced the problem while hiking the Appalachian Trail in North Carolina and finding her left side becoming rigid. She found herself repeatedly pressing her left hand against her body trying to straighten it out. It became a ‘claw’ hand (assuming a rigid, turned-in shape). She was diagnosed after some time and, as I said earlier, was devastated by the implications for her active life.
Part of the disease for her is insomnia and in lying awake long hours, night after night she became interested in a concept she had read about which I believe she called ‘body-asleep, mind-awake’. And now, after years of study, meditation (and, of course, insomnia) she has had out-of-body experiences. She can, she believes, now begin these out-of-body experiences at will. And these out-of-body experiences are not simply a local separation (such as lifting off above and observing your own sleeping body) but also include long-distance travel akin to flying body-less over terrain. She has 150 hours of private pilot training (and once owned an older Cessna 180) and she likened the out-of-body experience to flying over the terrain of Colorado and Vermont, as she had done in her pilot-training days. Further, she became interested in and studied the concepts of alternate realities and has achieved a sense of her out-of-body mind entering an alternate dimension.
Now, having said this in such a brief, without-adequate-background manner, you may think Kjere’s a nut-case. I don’t. She has had several traumatic experiences, including the sudden coma and then loss of her soul-mate boyfriend to a spinal-cord injury in a mountain-biking accident. And, worse, the subsequent decision of his mother to have him disconnected from life-support without even discussing it with Kjere.
And she has had odd psychic experiences. In her early years as a deputy prosecutor she was once taken to a murder scene by her boss right after the murder happened. A crowd was gathered about the scene and all were detained there while the police went through their initial interviews of this minutes-old shooting. While simply standing around talking with others about the case, she glanced up and immediately knew that a 19-year-old boy standing there in the crowd was the perpetrator. She told her boss, he alerted police to keep an eye on the young man and within a short time he implicated himself, made an abortive suicide attempt and subsequently confessed to the murder.
In another case, she had a dream that a prosecutor she knew was shot in court by a defendant. The next day she was in court for her case and it preceded another case, this one involving the prosecutor she knew. She saw the dream start to play out in front of her. There was the defendant in the defense chair. A large-bodied female bailiff came by with pistols sticking way out from both sides of her body—apparently an easy grab if the defendant tries. Kjere knew a state trooper was in the room but he had been relieved of his gun as a security measure. Kjere saw the pieces all coming together and went over to the prosecutor and said she knew he’d think she’s crazy but she had a dream last night that the defendant had shot him and she was seeing the dream replay in front of her. He was astonished and then astonished her by saying the prosecutorial team had been given a tip that someone was possibly smuggling a gun into the courtroom to the defendant. They had called in an extra policeman for security—the state trooper. But he didn’t know about the trooper’s gun being taken away. That issue was resolved. Later, the defendant went ballistic and had to be removed from the courtroom.
So as you can tell, it was an interesting evening to say the least. Kjere is a bright, articulate, very witty, very-together woman who has been through a lot and is now half-way through a forty-day quest to figure out what to do with the rest of her life. She had been working lately in a well-to-do central-Florida community, taking care of horses for rich people (she had grown up with horses and always knew it as a fall-back). But she found that, too, unfulfilling and, in fact, it became toxic when she agreed to look after the horses of her boyfriend’s mother. Kjere is very independent, is not afraid of being alone, doesn’t have much faith in men (though she would grin widely after saying something very insulting of all men and then say “present company excepted, of course”) and she is looking for meaning, looking for her place. I am humbled that she would share her pains, her joys, her thoughts. I particularly liked her penetrating questions regarding my own past and my goals and beliefs (at one point she asked if I had ever had any psychic or out-of-body experiences and I replied, “Nope. I’m apparently dumb as a stone in those areas” and she cackled uproariously. What a great evening….
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Monday, 25 February-
My night at the Navarre Wal-mart wasn’t so good. It had seemed like a great setup--- well back from the road, not a whole lot of traffic, a nice, big parking lot, etc.--- but there were many late-night noisy pickups and the little foreign-car noisemakers. At three in the morning two young guys decided it was time to park nearby and get out and talk and play their radios loud—but fortunately that only lasted a half-hour. But then the lot-sweeper started.
After sleeping in a little, I continued west through Port St. Joe and Gulf Breeze calling the Big Lagoon State Park to see if I could get in. I had checked the nearby state park at Destin and it was full on a Sunday night so I thought this one might also be crowded but there was a site available.
I made it to the park around 1500 and dropped the boat at my site before taking a familiarization tour and talking with a Gold Wing rider at the launch ramp. He was a former shrimp-boat captain and was talking to some of his old buddies via marine-band radio as they motored up the lagoon.
I saw a bridge off in the distance and figured that must be the Perdido Key bridge and I should be fairly close to an interesting bar I had visited years ago in this area—the Flora-Bama. I had been to the nearby Naval Air Station on business and a guy from the area took several of us on a tour of some local bars. I had remembered the Flora-Bama for it’s ‘Interstate Mullet Toss’ competition. The bar sits on the Florida-Alabama line and each year has a competition whereby the challenge is to run up to the state line and throw a mullet (yep, a fish) as far as possible into the next state. But the real draw for me was the peel-and-eat shrimp and a drink called a Bushwhacker. The former are called ‘Royal-Reds’ and were delicious. The latter was sort of a milk-shake-type drink but was a strong rum drink and was topped by a ‘float’ (a quarter-inch of so) of sinus-clearing 151-proof rum.
So I looked up the Flora-Bama on the GPS and found I was only a few miles away. But things have changed dramatically on Perdido Key and I didn’t recognize the place at all. Giant high-rise condos now dominate the beach and the Flora-Bama looks like a construction site. The building is now surrounded by large tents with picnic tables and two stages. It’s now a biker-week or October-fest- looking place.
But I thought I’d try the shrimp and a Bushwhacker. Years ago the shrimp was a good deal- something like $7 but today it was $13. They sure did taste good, though. And when I asked for a Bushwhacker the bartendress turned to a machine that looked like a soft-custard machine and drew a small (12 oz) cup of milk-shake-looking stuff and said that would be $6.50. I stared at it for a second and said ‘that’s not what I remember a Bushwhacker being!’. I explained it was a mixed drink and, well, it had a 151-float. She laughed and said, “Oh, yeah, we used to do that—until some dumb bitch set herself on fire and they made us quit.” I reluctantly took it but, interestingly enough, it turned out to be a good, strong, and tasty drink. After the Flora-Bama I headed into Pensacola and tried another bar but it too just didn’t seem to have the old-Florida feel so I just had a beer and left. I’m not sure what I was looking for but I was thinking I’d know it when I saw it. The bars we had visited back then were friendly, run-down, yet comfortable and served very strong drinks at cheap prices. At least that’s how I remember them. I’ll have to just keep trying….
Afterwards I went to the Southwest Branch Library which happened to be right across from the entrance to the State Park and had wi-fi. I spent an hour chatting with Labashi and checking up on email before heading for the campsite.
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Sunday, 24 February-
After a perfect night on St. George Island I dawdled the morning away, enjoying the sun, then drove back across the Bay and headed west on 98. I took a short walk and a short driving tour around Apalachicola. Then at Panama City I took a break at the Museum of Man in the Sea, a quirky, older museum which has seen better days. The ‘Man in the Sea’ part refers mostly to working divers (commercial and military) and research supporting them. The museum was crammed with historic old dive gear, sometimes in stacks or in odd corners, each room presenting a new challenge to pick out all the ‘good stuff’. And outside the museum was one of the original Sealab undersea habitats, a bathyscaphe from the Trieste, several helicopter-towed mine sweeping ‘sleds’, SEAL-team swimmer-delivery vehicles, and other wet subs. The nearby Navy’s Experimental Diving Unit is nearby and has contributed much of the historic gear. This is the type of museum that cries out for a major overhaul and new ways of telling the stories of all this gear and the people who used it.
I then continued west to Destin where I wanted to stop at the Bass Pro Shop for a boating item I needed. I was amazed to see how big the mall is and even more surprised to have to park at least ten blocks away—completely outside the mall area—because of all the cars. I was towing the boat so would have needed two end-to-end spots but there were only a few single spots, and no doubles at all until I reached the far-out stone parking lot.
When I left the Bass Pro I walked through the streets of the city-like mall and heard music coming from a town-square area. The square was completely packed and an Elvis-impersonation band was playing to the enthusiastic septo- and octo-genarian crowd.
I checked the nearby Wal-mart but saw no-overnight-parking signs. I checked inside and the greeter told me RVers often stay the night but occasionally the police kick them out. It was only 1700 so I decided to move on, perhaps to one of the many Wal-marts around Pensacola. But an hour later I came to the Wal-mart at Navarre and was welcome to stay overnight there.
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Saturday, 23 February-
Rain, rain, and more rain. This morning I decided I didn’t want to go back to the national forest in an all-day rain so what was I going to do? I could go back to Tallahassee for the big weekend boat show but boat prices down here are absolutely ridiculous and I don’t need any specialized items (read: I’ve already over-spent on what I have!).
So, I headed West.
I followed Route 98 along the Gulf coast and ducked in to several Wildlife Management Areas along the way, looking at rivers and the general look of the area. The Aucilla one looked good and had camping available at Goose Pasture a few miles out but it was still too early in the day for that and I was enjoying the drive. I came to the turnoff for St. George Island and decided to check it out but assumed the campground would be full for the weekend. The campground was indeed full but it was lunch time so I chose to pay the $3 day-use charge, thinking I’d have lunch and possibly take a bike ride. During lunch, the sky suddenly cleared and we had a beautiful day. The white dunes and white beach contrasted so nicely with the clean-green Gulf, the blue of Appalachicola Bay, and the long-leaf pines of the island. I walked a bit and took a bike ride into the campground area before returning to the van and reluctantly heading out.
At the ranger station I stopped and asked once more about camping, thinking it possible some deadline had passed for re-upping for another night. This ranger said the campground was still full but if I was tent-camping he could put me up in the youth-group campground. I’d have bathrooms but no showers unless I went to the main campground and there wouldn’t be anybody else there unless someone else camp in looking for tent camping. Perfect!
The group-camp was along the way to the boat ramp so I drove on back to the ramp and immediately knew I had to kayak: Appalachicola Bay was fantastic. I unloaded the kayak (thanks to the slide!) and was soon paddling away. As I crossed the bight, I saw fish jumping and pelicans diving and the breeze seemed to be picking up. I was actually just emerging from the wind-shadow of the little peninsula and picking up the breeze and wave-fetch from the open bay. I soon had to be a little careful not to swamp. I had foolishly left the spray skirt behind (seeing the flat water at the put-in) and had to be careful. I turned more into the waves and then headed for the end of the peninsula’s wave-shadow, then turning downwind for a nice, easy paddle along the marsh grasses.
Afterward, I drove to the main campground, thinking I’d take my shower now but the early evening was so gorgeous I felt like a walk. A wide walking-trail led off through the pines and I soon found myself jogging, partly to see the trail’s end before it closed at sunset and partly to see how my new Tevas would do. My Nike sandals had rubbed me raw within a short distance at Ginnie Springs but the Tevas had a better design. I jogged about three and a half miles among the very pretty long-leaf pines as the sun slowly set, noticing many robins (I later learned this is a major migration stop-over for robins).
After my shower I drove to the Subway outside the park to pick up a wi-fi signal (as recommended by the ranger) and talked with Labashi for an hour. Then I returned to my campsite and watched the moon on the bay for awhile before falling asleep.
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Friday, 22 February-
Today was pretty much a bust. At the library last night I looked up the nearest Honda Marine dealer and found there are a lot more Yamaha outboards than Hondas in this area—the nearest Honda dealer is 16 miles south. While having my Starbucks pick-me-up I called and spoke briefly with John, the service manager. I liked John right away. He listened briefly, asked good questions, had good answers and told me he’d be happy to work me into the schedule today. On the way down I passed a kayak outfitter (Wilderness Way) and stopped for a quick look around. There I had a nice long chat with Jess and would have liked to stay longer but had to get moving. The Honda Marine dealer was Shield’s Marina in St. Marks. This is a giant boatel operation; boats stacked six or seven high on massive racks— it looked like there were hundreds of them. I spoke first with parts-guy Dennis and then wondered whether I should leave. My problem was very clearly one of cold-starting and he had an opinion about it likely being a bad-gas problem and just didn’t seem to want to listen to any other possibilities. But he did tell me John would be out to talk to me in a few minutes. Once John and I talked again, I knew I was in the right hands. John is an obsessive type and loves to dig into a problem. My only fear was I might see a big bill given the scope of the marina operation and their $80 per hour labor rate.
I spent most of the afternoon in the parking lot and finally John came out and invited me into the shop. They had found no problem but John thought he knew what was wrong. This particular model does not have a choke, it has an ‘enrichment circuit’, i.e., a separate feed of gas to the carb. The problem is we silly owners don’t understand the new circuit so if the motor doesn’t start immediately we start fiddling with the fast-idle lever—a definite no-no for this setup. So the key advice was to not touch the fast-idle lever until the engine is warmed up (which seems ridiculous to me), to make sure the primer bulb is pumped up as hard as possible, and let the system do its thing. John claims he had another customer with this problem who later told him he never had any problems once he followed these directions. We’ll see.
Given the amount of time I sat in the parking lot, I feared an outrageous bill but when John said he’d have to charge me for 20 minutes, that sounded good. The total for my lesson (and checking out the system) was $26.
By that time it was after 1600 and time to figure out where to stay the night. But John had recommend a visit to the nearby old Spanish fort so I spent a fruitful hour there at the San Marcos de Apalache fort—what an amazing history. It seems like St. Marks is well off the beaten path but the original fort had been built by the Spanish, the French had seized it at one point, then the Brits. Later, it became a Civil War fort and was taken by Old Hickory. Today it’s a pretty little park and offers a beautiful view of the confluence of the St. Marks and Wakulla rivers.
As I later stared at the roadmap, I realized I wasn’t far from Crawfordville and its Wal-mart so chose that for the night. I didn’t relish the idea of a noisy Friday night at the Wal-mart and rented a movie. I watched ‘The Brave One’ with Jodie Foster and Terrence Howard. It was okay but there were far too many stereotypes. But then again, it’s a shoot-em-up revenge-flick—just with a female avenger.
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Thursday, 21 February-
After a good sleeping night of colder temps (around 35), I woke to cloudy skies and 50 degrees, with rain due later in the day. I decided I wanted to see the Ochlockonee River so said my goodbyes to the hunters and drove down to the ramp. I launched the fishing boat with only one minor problem—the ramp wasn’t steep enough and I had to push the boat off the trailer. Fortunately, that was in a slow eddy from the main current and wasn’t a problem. I had a hard time getting the boat to start and it finally dawned on me that the choke has never been right on this boat. But I finally got it started and it worked fine after a long, long warm-up period.
I headed upstream for about an hour against a fairly strong current. I figured if I broke down, I could drift back and maneuver enough with a paddle to get back to the trailer. As I motored upstream I listened to the marine forecast for a hint of when the rain would start but without much luck. I finally reached a narrow point in the river where the current was getting extra-strong and there were lots of snags and I had a little rain shower, so I turned around and headed back, moving along easily in the 2-mph current.
I had no problems loading the boat and chatted with an interesting local guy as I tied it down. This guy was camped nearby, also a hunter, and he had just walked down to see what was going on. I noticed he was carrying a Glock pistol on a cross-draw half-holster on his belt (a type I’ve not seen) and we talked Glocks for a few minutes and he told me he was one of 13 kids growing up on the farm before wandering away.
About that point a mid-forty-ish woman came by there at the ramp, walking her little dog. I learned she was camping by herself and had chosen this spot (nearby) because there were other people around and she felt safer (though she thought they might think she’s odd). She said she was tired of Central Florida and was just driving to National Forests and camping there because she could stay cheaply until she figured out what she wanted to do next. She had taught for years in the San Diego school district before moving to Florida. She said she liked teaching kids with developmental problems or mental problems because she had been a problem child herself (and this is where my warning radar started beeping) and had had some mental challenges of her own--- mostly depression. This all started sounding like a few slightly-out-there people we had met in the Ocala National Forest on previous trips so I was wary. But her situation seemed benign enough and she said goodbye and started walking away. But then she asked if I had any gas and my radar went up again. But she apologized and said she was just afraid she was a little low on gas to make it back to town and only needed a little bit for her Neon. I had easily-accessible gas in my outboard tank and she had a little funnel she used for her camping stove, so I gave her about a gallon of gas and she insisted on paying for it. Just another interesting encounter in the Forest.
Shortly thereafter the heavens opened up and it rained, rained, and rained. I spent an hour or two in a pulloff along the road to Whitehead Lake, trying to decide what to do with the rest of my day. I did some organizing and list-making, some map-searching, had lunch, and even did a crossword puzzle or two before deciding I’d go back to the range and shoot again. But instead of taking the pot-holed Forest roads, I’d take the longer-but-much-faster hard roads and I would shoot from under the roofed-in area. But I still had to cross several miles of dirt road and that became an adventure. With the deluge, I now had several very large puddles to ease through and two heavily-rutted areas that looked scary but turned out to be easily passable. At the range, though, I now had a thunderstorm overhead. Rain was coming down very hard and the lightning/thunder delay said the lightning was less than a mile away so I bagged it and drove on to Tallahassee.
Back in the Capital City I went directly to the library north of the city (Lake Jackson area) but couldn’t pick up a strong-enough signal from the parking lot. But I found a quiet corner of the library so I could Skype with Labashi and we caught up for an hour or so before I returned to the west-side Wal-mart for the night.
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Wednesday, 20 February-
I only had a fair night at the Tallahassee Northeast Wal-Mart parking lot last night—lots of rice-burners running through the lot until after midnight then the lot-cleaner guys decided to do an extra-thorough job with their leaf-blowing machines. But the price was right! Otherwise this was a near-perfect Wal-Mart. There’s a library across the street with wi-fi I could pick up from the parking lot and next door there’s a Starbucks for a pick-me-up while reading the local paper.
I then headed out into the wild—in this case the Appalachicola National Forest. My first goal was to see what the shooting range is like. The range lies back five or six miles of dirt road and I had heard the roads were badly pot-holed in the Forest but the drive in was relatively smooth and dust-free. The range looked good—shaded shooting positions for pistol and rifle (separated by a concrete-block wall) with large dirt backstops. Target-holders were simple 2x4 frameworks which could be moved to a different distance if desired. But the range was in use. On the far end was a group of testosterone-crazed young guys blasting away and near me was a middle-aged guy with his wife, son, and the son’s girlfriend. The latter were on their first trip to the range and the woman confided in me that they were a little nervous about the young-guns down on the end. I asked “But you have a gun, don’t you?” and she smiled and said, “Well, yeah, I guess we do”. I just watched for awhile to see how the group did their cease-fire to go hang new targets—but it never happened. They all just kept blasting away for the better part of a half-hour at the same targets. And I saw some interesting things. One guy with the young-guns was apparently so new to this that he waved the gun around carelessly between magazines. But I was happy to see one of the other guys immediately jump on that and made sure he kept the muzzle pointed down-range at all times. The other interesting thing I saw was an “ND” or negligent-discharge. The middle-aged Dad accidently shot into the dirt just a few yards out from the firing line. He apparently was intending to let the hammer down on his new gun and let it get away from him. Not good. He blanched, then looked at the gun like it had done something wrong. To his credit, he then called the rest of his group together and told them what happened and (hopefully) how to avoid a repeat.
I finally got to hang my four targets and shot 80 rounds, enough to get a feel for these backlit sighting conditions due to the overhead shade and bright, sunlit range. Afterwards I went to the nearby pit-toilets and found the doors badly shot-up by large-caliber guns, courtesy of your local Floridiots (though, come to think of it, maybe that was done by us tourist yay-hoos!)
Afterwards I drove west across the National Forest and found the pot-holes I had heard about. The roads weren’t actually that bad if you didn’t mind keeping your speed under ten miles an hour, weaving around the truck-swallowers and easing very slowly through the big pools. The good news was the sand was good for travel and you could ease into a big pool with some confidence of coming out the other side.
I took the opportunity to go see a ‘hunt camp’. I had seen them on the maps of the Osceola National Forest and the Appalachicola National Forest (but, oddly, not on the Ocala National Forest). As it turns out a ‘hunt camp’ is a clearing with a few fire-rings. A few have porta-pots and dumpsters, others nothing but the fire-rings.
I made it to Pine Landing on the Ocklockonee River by late afternoon and went to look at the boat launch. The river was running high and I wasn’t sure I wanted to launch the fishing boat with that much current going by. If anything went wrong, I’d have a mess getting the boat back to the trailer. But since it was getting late in the day anyway, I decided I’d better look for camping and decide on the boating or perhaps kayaking tomorrow. I had passed a small hunt-camp back a half-mile or so and went to check it out. There I came upon a friendly group of hunters, which surprised me… I had heard hunting was over until Spring Turkey starts up in a few weeks down south. But it was the last week of muzzle-loader season for deer and these guys and their wives had a wagon-train-circle of camping trailers and small motor-homes taking up most of the camp. And that’s where I met Billy, Elroy, and Bart, three of the nicest self-declared Florida red-necks around. I just stopped to say hi and ask about the hunting season and before long we were old buddies, I was served a strong crown-and-seven-up (with lime!) and I was invited for dinner. The boys had been out for the morning and most of the afternoon but hadn’t gotten any shooting. After a while we were joined by Dean and Sue, then Gwen (Elroy’s wife), then Art and Helen, and, well after dark, Butch and. I didn’t catch ’s name but I was very interested to hear about the two bobcats he had seen earlier today, one as he was driving to the stand and one sunning itself near his tree stand.
After a wonderful supper of rice with beef and gravy, spiced pork, home-style green beans, banana-pudding, and chocolate cake, we sat around the campfire watching the eclipse. I’ve seen an eclipse before but this was a great one from my vantage point around the fat-wood campfire, the eclipse unfolding minute-by-minute, until the moon turned reddish as it neared full eclipse. The stories of growing up, hunting, and working for Publix (four of the men were retired truck drivers and safety officers from the Publix supermarket chain) were great. A few may not have been completely politically correct but most were good-hearted. And funnier-n-hail, (as they say).
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(posted from Beaner’s Coffee, Ocala, FL)
(this post covers 20-27 February, 2008)
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Wednesday, 27 February-
I nearly froze last night while sitting around the campsite talking with Kjere. Here was this little slip of a woman sitting around in clam-digger pants, and, yes, a down jacket, but she wore a visor for a hat and sneakers-with-no-socks on this windy, 45-degree evening. I finally had to go get my sleeping bag to drape over me to stay out there and finish our fascinating talk.
In the morning I walked over to the bath-house and let the shower run as hot as possible on the cold tile of the unheated shower before venturing in. It wasn’t bad at all, though.
After saying good-bye to Kjere and Denver I headed out, bound for points east. The colder weather here in the Panhandle is supposed to last for a few days and I want to get on to Daytona by the weekend.
I spent the day driving back to the central peninsula. Out of Pensacola I went a bit north to catch Route 20 for a route through the countryside and away from the hideous beach condos of the seaside Route 98.
I dropped I-10 for Niceville and had my first Whataburger — not bad at all and many Whataburger locations have wi-fi; I’ll have to keep my eye open for them in the cities.
I drove along happily listening to Bill Moyers’ Journal, This American Life, and CBC Comedy Factory podcasts.
By 1800 I made it to the Chiefland Wal-mart. I shopped for a few groceries and asked if there’s any wi-fi. I was directed to a coffee shop but I couldn’t get Skype to keep a connection there and even Internet Explorer was having strange problems—something must be wrong with their router. I stopped in at the nearby Holiday Inn Express to use the pay phone to call Labashi (we have a credit card that gives us 30 free minutes a month) but they didn’t have a pay phone. However, when I explained why I wanted the phone, the very nice lady at the desk (Sue) said I was welcome to bring my computer in and use their wi-fi. That worked great and Labashi and I caught things up at home and I spent a long time recounting Kjere’s stories.
Afterwards I spent the rest of the evening updating up the blog offline in the Wal-mart parking lot.
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Tuesday, 26 February-
Today I met a VERY interesting person. She was Kjere (a Norwegian name, pronounced ‘Keri’, which she sometimes spells ‘Kari’, sometimes ‘Keri’). She’s a 60-ish former lawyer, traveling alone and tent-camping with her dog, Denver. She was quite the little sprite of a character. Her face reminds me of Paul Newman. She has the bright, piercing eyes, high cheekbones, sharp chin and slim build. As I was walking back from the bath-house I saw she was making breakfast and jokingly asked ‘what’re we having?”. She was making pancakes for Denver (after, I assume, she had her own) and we easily fell into conversation for a few minutes before we each went on with our days. More on her later.
I spent an hour or two blogging and then realized I wouldn’t get caught up in time to do my update at the library and then move on to another campground. Besides, the night was to be cold and I’d appreciate having electricity for the long, cold evening.
I then dug out the road bike and pedalled over to the office to re-up for another night then took a bike tour of all the park roads. That was only a few miles and I wanted to walk the trails and see the backcountry so I put away the bike and donned my day-pack. I spent the afternoon walking the park’s trails and was happy to find a very interesting and pretty section of rolling white sand dunes among the long-leaf and slash pines and a few saw-palmettos in a remote area of the park. I walked just under three hours and figure I did about eight miles. Though it was airy, I was comfortable in short sleeves until the last mile when an approaching cold front dropped temps enough for me to slip on my jacket.
Back at the van I laid down for a bit and started a cross-word puzzle while enjoying the warm sun streaming in through my open side-doors. After a bit, Kjere appeared and said she had made some extra-good rice with salmon, water-chestnuts, and mandarin oranges and if I didn’t want it she was going to give it to the dog (she’s kind of direct like that). But she didn’t have to tell me twice. I took a chair along over and we sipped a glass of box-wine with our meal and thus began an incredible journey of an evening.
We enjoyed the freedom of talking openly, freely and without consequence, without judging. In other words, we don’t have any common acquaintances, didn’t even know each other’s last names, and would never see each other again and we were enjoying our conversation (you’ll understand why I tell you this in a minute).
Kjere had left her hard-earned profession when she tired of the game of defending criminals; men who she knew had, for the most part, either done the crime they had been charged with or they were guilty of worse. After years in the profession, she just didn’t believe in it any more and tired of the same old excuses, the same old stories. She felt she couldn’t keep doing something which had no importance—it was just a going-through-the-motions existence.
As we talked she eventually told me she had been devastated to learn she has Parkinson’s Disease and we talked at length about it. Parkinson’s is a disease of the brain and nervous system wherein some muscles may become rigid. Kjere explained it from her skiing experience. When skiing down a hill you keep the down-hill leg tense and the up-hill leg limber, then switch back and forth as you turn. But Parkinson’s is like skiing up to a turn and finding that the tense or rigid leg won’t go limber. She had first experienced the problem while hiking the Appalachian Trail in North Carolina and finding her left side becoming rigid. She found herself repeatedly pressing her left hand against her body trying to straighten it out. It became a ‘claw’ hand (assuming a rigid, turned-in shape). She was diagnosed after some time and, as I said earlier, was devastated by the implications for her active life.
Part of the disease for her is insomnia and in lying awake long hours, night after night she became interested in a concept she had read about which I believe she called ‘body-asleep, mind-awake’. And now, after years of study, meditation (and, of course, insomnia) she has had out-of-body experiences. She can, she believes, now begin these out-of-body experiences at will. And these out-of-body experiences are not simply a local separation (such as lifting off above and observing your own sleeping body) but also include long-distance travel akin to flying body-less over terrain. She has 150 hours of private pilot training (and once owned an older Cessna 180) and she likened the out-of-body experience to flying over the terrain of Colorado and Vermont, as she had done in her pilot-training days. Further, she became interested in and studied the concepts of alternate realities and has achieved a sense of her out-of-body mind entering an alternate dimension.
Now, having said this in such a brief, without-adequate-background manner, you may think Kjere’s a nut-case. I don’t. She has had several traumatic experiences, including the sudden coma and then loss of her soul-mate boyfriend to a spinal-cord injury in a mountain-biking accident. And, worse, the subsequent decision of his mother to have him disconnected from life-support without even discussing it with Kjere.
And she has had odd psychic experiences. In her early years as a deputy prosecutor she was once taken to a murder scene by her boss right after the murder happened. A crowd was gathered about the scene and all were detained there while the police went through their initial interviews of this minutes-old shooting. While simply standing around talking with others about the case, she glanced up and immediately knew that a 19-year-old boy standing there in the crowd was the perpetrator. She told her boss, he alerted police to keep an eye on the young man and within a short time he implicated himself, made an abortive suicide attempt and subsequently confessed to the murder.
In another case, she had a dream that a prosecutor she knew was shot in court by a defendant. The next day she was in court for her case and it preceded another case, this one involving the prosecutor she knew. She saw the dream start to play out in front of her. There was the defendant in the defense chair. A large-bodied female bailiff came by with pistols sticking way out from both sides of her body—apparently an easy grab if the defendant tries. Kjere knew a state trooper was in the room but he had been relieved of his gun as a security measure. Kjere saw the pieces all coming together and went over to the prosecutor and said she knew he’d think she’s crazy but she had a dream last night that the defendant had shot him and she was seeing the dream replay in front of her. He was astonished and then astonished her by saying the prosecutorial team had been given a tip that someone was possibly smuggling a gun into the courtroom to the defendant. They had called in an extra policeman for security—the state trooper. But he didn’t know about the trooper’s gun being taken away. That issue was resolved. Later, the defendant went ballistic and had to be removed from the courtroom.
So as you can tell, it was an interesting evening to say the least. Kjere is a bright, articulate, very witty, very-together woman who has been through a lot and is now half-way through a forty-day quest to figure out what to do with the rest of her life. She had been working lately in a well-to-do central-Florida community, taking care of horses for rich people (she had grown up with horses and always knew it as a fall-back). But she found that, too, unfulfilling and, in fact, it became toxic when she agreed to look after the horses of her boyfriend’s mother. Kjere is very independent, is not afraid of being alone, doesn’t have much faith in men (though she would grin widely after saying something very insulting of all men and then say “present company excepted, of course”) and she is looking for meaning, looking for her place. I am humbled that she would share her pains, her joys, her thoughts. I particularly liked her penetrating questions regarding my own past and my goals and beliefs (at one point she asked if I had ever had any psychic or out-of-body experiences and I replied, “Nope. I’m apparently dumb as a stone in those areas” and she cackled uproariously. What a great evening….
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Monday, 25 February-
My night at the Navarre Wal-mart wasn’t so good. It had seemed like a great setup--- well back from the road, not a whole lot of traffic, a nice, big parking lot, etc.--- but there were many late-night noisy pickups and the little foreign-car noisemakers. At three in the morning two young guys decided it was time to park nearby and get out and talk and play their radios loud—but fortunately that only lasted a half-hour. But then the lot-sweeper started.
After sleeping in a little, I continued west through Port St. Joe and Gulf Breeze calling the Big Lagoon State Park to see if I could get in. I had checked the nearby state park at Destin and it was full on a Sunday night so I thought this one might also be crowded but there was a site available.
I made it to the park around 1500 and dropped the boat at my site before taking a familiarization tour and talking with a Gold Wing rider at the launch ramp. He was a former shrimp-boat captain and was talking to some of his old buddies via marine-band radio as they motored up the lagoon.
I saw a bridge off in the distance and figured that must be the Perdido Key bridge and I should be fairly close to an interesting bar I had visited years ago in this area—the Flora-Bama. I had been to the nearby Naval Air Station on business and a guy from the area took several of us on a tour of some local bars. I had remembered the Flora-Bama for it’s ‘Interstate Mullet Toss’ competition. The bar sits on the Florida-Alabama line and each year has a competition whereby the challenge is to run up to the state line and throw a mullet (yep, a fish) as far as possible into the next state. But the real draw for me was the peel-and-eat shrimp and a drink called a Bushwhacker. The former are called ‘Royal-Reds’ and were delicious. The latter was sort of a milk-shake-type drink but was a strong rum drink and was topped by a ‘float’ (a quarter-inch of so) of sinus-clearing 151-proof rum.
So I looked up the Flora-Bama on the GPS and found I was only a few miles away. But things have changed dramatically on Perdido Key and I didn’t recognize the place at all. Giant high-rise condos now dominate the beach and the Flora-Bama looks like a construction site. The building is now surrounded by large tents with picnic tables and two stages. It’s now a biker-week or October-fest- looking place.
But I thought I’d try the shrimp and a Bushwhacker. Years ago the shrimp was a good deal- something like $7 but today it was $13. They sure did taste good, though. And when I asked for a Bushwhacker the bartendress turned to a machine that looked like a soft-custard machine and drew a small (12 oz) cup of milk-shake-looking stuff and said that would be $6.50. I stared at it for a second and said ‘that’s not what I remember a Bushwhacker being!’. I explained it was a mixed drink and, well, it had a 151-float. She laughed and said, “Oh, yeah, we used to do that—until some dumb bitch set herself on fire and they made us quit.” I reluctantly took it but, interestingly enough, it turned out to be a good, strong, and tasty drink. After the Flora-Bama I headed into Pensacola and tried another bar but it too just didn’t seem to have the old-Florida feel so I just had a beer and left. I’m not sure what I was looking for but I was thinking I’d know it when I saw it. The bars we had visited back then were friendly, run-down, yet comfortable and served very strong drinks at cheap prices. At least that’s how I remember them. I’ll have to just keep trying….
Afterwards I went to the Southwest Branch Library which happened to be right across from the entrance to the State Park and had wi-fi. I spent an hour chatting with Labashi and checking up on email before heading for the campsite.
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Sunday, 24 February-
After a perfect night on St. George Island I dawdled the morning away, enjoying the sun, then drove back across the Bay and headed west on 98. I took a short walk and a short driving tour around Apalachicola. Then at Panama City I took a break at the Museum of Man in the Sea, a quirky, older museum which has seen better days. The ‘Man in the Sea’ part refers mostly to working divers (commercial and military) and research supporting them. The museum was crammed with historic old dive gear, sometimes in stacks or in odd corners, each room presenting a new challenge to pick out all the ‘good stuff’. And outside the museum was one of the original Sealab undersea habitats, a bathyscaphe from the Trieste, several helicopter-towed mine sweeping ‘sleds’, SEAL-team swimmer-delivery vehicles, and other wet subs. The nearby Navy’s Experimental Diving Unit is nearby and has contributed much of the historic gear. This is the type of museum that cries out for a major overhaul and new ways of telling the stories of all this gear and the people who used it.
I then continued west to Destin where I wanted to stop at the Bass Pro Shop for a boating item I needed. I was amazed to see how big the mall is and even more surprised to have to park at least ten blocks away—completely outside the mall area—because of all the cars. I was towing the boat so would have needed two end-to-end spots but there were only a few single spots, and no doubles at all until I reached the far-out stone parking lot.
When I left the Bass Pro I walked through the streets of the city-like mall and heard music coming from a town-square area. The square was completely packed and an Elvis-impersonation band was playing to the enthusiastic septo- and octo-genarian crowd.
I checked the nearby Wal-mart but saw no-overnight-parking signs. I checked inside and the greeter told me RVers often stay the night but occasionally the police kick them out. It was only 1700 so I decided to move on, perhaps to one of the many Wal-marts around Pensacola. But an hour later I came to the Wal-mart at Navarre and was welcome to stay overnight there.
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Saturday, 23 February-
Rain, rain, and more rain. This morning I decided I didn’t want to go back to the national forest in an all-day rain so what was I going to do? I could go back to Tallahassee for the big weekend boat show but boat prices down here are absolutely ridiculous and I don’t need any specialized items (read: I’ve already over-spent on what I have!).
So, I headed West.
I followed Route 98 along the Gulf coast and ducked in to several Wildlife Management Areas along the way, looking at rivers and the general look of the area. The Aucilla one looked good and had camping available at Goose Pasture a few miles out but it was still too early in the day for that and I was enjoying the drive. I came to the turnoff for St. George Island and decided to check it out but assumed the campground would be full for the weekend. The campground was indeed full but it was lunch time so I chose to pay the $3 day-use charge, thinking I’d have lunch and possibly take a bike ride. During lunch, the sky suddenly cleared and we had a beautiful day. The white dunes and white beach contrasted so nicely with the clean-green Gulf, the blue of Appalachicola Bay, and the long-leaf pines of the island. I walked a bit and took a bike ride into the campground area before returning to the van and reluctantly heading out.
At the ranger station I stopped and asked once more about camping, thinking it possible some deadline had passed for re-upping for another night. This ranger said the campground was still full but if I was tent-camping he could put me up in the youth-group campground. I’d have bathrooms but no showers unless I went to the main campground and there wouldn’t be anybody else there unless someone else camp in looking for tent camping. Perfect!
The group-camp was along the way to the boat ramp so I drove on back to the ramp and immediately knew I had to kayak: Appalachicola Bay was fantastic. I unloaded the kayak (thanks to the slide!) and was soon paddling away. As I crossed the bight, I saw fish jumping and pelicans diving and the breeze seemed to be picking up. I was actually just emerging from the wind-shadow of the little peninsula and picking up the breeze and wave-fetch from the open bay. I soon had to be a little careful not to swamp. I had foolishly left the spray skirt behind (seeing the flat water at the put-in) and had to be careful. I turned more into the waves and then headed for the end of the peninsula’s wave-shadow, then turning downwind for a nice, easy paddle along the marsh grasses.
Afterward, I drove to the main campground, thinking I’d take my shower now but the early evening was so gorgeous I felt like a walk. A wide walking-trail led off through the pines and I soon found myself jogging, partly to see the trail’s end before it closed at sunset and partly to see how my new Tevas would do. My Nike sandals had rubbed me raw within a short distance at Ginnie Springs but the Tevas had a better design. I jogged about three and a half miles among the very pretty long-leaf pines as the sun slowly set, noticing many robins (I later learned this is a major migration stop-over for robins).
After my shower I drove to the Subway outside the park to pick up a wi-fi signal (as recommended by the ranger) and talked with Labashi for an hour. Then I returned to my campsite and watched the moon on the bay for awhile before falling asleep.
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Friday, 22 February-
Today was pretty much a bust. At the library last night I looked up the nearest Honda Marine dealer and found there are a lot more Yamaha outboards than Hondas in this area—the nearest Honda dealer is 16 miles south. While having my Starbucks pick-me-up I called and spoke briefly with John, the service manager. I liked John right away. He listened briefly, asked good questions, had good answers and told me he’d be happy to work me into the schedule today. On the way down I passed a kayak outfitter (Wilderness Way) and stopped for a quick look around. There I had a nice long chat with Jess and would have liked to stay longer but had to get moving. The Honda Marine dealer was Shield’s Marina in St. Marks. This is a giant boatel operation; boats stacked six or seven high on massive racks— it looked like there were hundreds of them. I spoke first with parts-guy Dennis and then wondered whether I should leave. My problem was very clearly one of cold-starting and he had an opinion about it likely being a bad-gas problem and just didn’t seem to want to listen to any other possibilities. But he did tell me John would be out to talk to me in a few minutes. Once John and I talked again, I knew I was in the right hands. John is an obsessive type and loves to dig into a problem. My only fear was I might see a big bill given the scope of the marina operation and their $80 per hour labor rate.
I spent most of the afternoon in the parking lot and finally John came out and invited me into the shop. They had found no problem but John thought he knew what was wrong. This particular model does not have a choke, it has an ‘enrichment circuit’, i.e., a separate feed of gas to the carb. The problem is we silly owners don’t understand the new circuit so if the motor doesn’t start immediately we start fiddling with the fast-idle lever—a definite no-no for this setup. So the key advice was to not touch the fast-idle lever until the engine is warmed up (which seems ridiculous to me), to make sure the primer bulb is pumped up as hard as possible, and let the system do its thing. John claims he had another customer with this problem who later told him he never had any problems once he followed these directions. We’ll see.
Given the amount of time I sat in the parking lot, I feared an outrageous bill but when John said he’d have to charge me for 20 minutes, that sounded good. The total for my lesson (and checking out the system) was $26.
By that time it was after 1600 and time to figure out where to stay the night. But John had recommend a visit to the nearby old Spanish fort so I spent a fruitful hour there at the San Marcos de Apalache fort—what an amazing history. It seems like St. Marks is well off the beaten path but the original fort had been built by the Spanish, the French had seized it at one point, then the Brits. Later, it became a Civil War fort and was taken by Old Hickory. Today it’s a pretty little park and offers a beautiful view of the confluence of the St. Marks and Wakulla rivers.
As I later stared at the roadmap, I realized I wasn’t far from Crawfordville and its Wal-mart so chose that for the night. I didn’t relish the idea of a noisy Friday night at the Wal-mart and rented a movie. I watched ‘The Brave One’ with Jodie Foster and Terrence Howard. It was okay but there were far too many stereotypes. But then again, it’s a shoot-em-up revenge-flick—just with a female avenger.
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Thursday, 21 February-
After a good sleeping night of colder temps (around 35), I woke to cloudy skies and 50 degrees, with rain due later in the day. I decided I wanted to see the Ochlockonee River so said my goodbyes to the hunters and drove down to the ramp. I launched the fishing boat with only one minor problem—the ramp wasn’t steep enough and I had to push the boat off the trailer. Fortunately, that was in a slow eddy from the main current and wasn’t a problem. I had a hard time getting the boat to start and it finally dawned on me that the choke has never been right on this boat. But I finally got it started and it worked fine after a long, long warm-up period.
I headed upstream for about an hour against a fairly strong current. I figured if I broke down, I could drift back and maneuver enough with a paddle to get back to the trailer. As I motored upstream I listened to the marine forecast for a hint of when the rain would start but without much luck. I finally reached a narrow point in the river where the current was getting extra-strong and there were lots of snags and I had a little rain shower, so I turned around and headed back, moving along easily in the 2-mph current.
I had no problems loading the boat and chatted with an interesting local guy as I tied it down. This guy was camped nearby, also a hunter, and he had just walked down to see what was going on. I noticed he was carrying a Glock pistol on a cross-draw half-holster on his belt (a type I’ve not seen) and we talked Glocks for a few minutes and he told me he was one of 13 kids growing up on the farm before wandering away.
About that point a mid-forty-ish woman came by there at the ramp, walking her little dog. I learned she was camping by herself and had chosen this spot (nearby) because there were other people around and she felt safer (though she thought they might think she’s odd). She said she was tired of Central Florida and was just driving to National Forests and camping there because she could stay cheaply until she figured out what she wanted to do next. She had taught for years in the San Diego school district before moving to Florida. She said she liked teaching kids with developmental problems or mental problems because she had been a problem child herself (and this is where my warning radar started beeping) and had had some mental challenges of her own--- mostly depression. This all started sounding like a few slightly-out-there people we had met in the Ocala National Forest on previous trips so I was wary. But her situation seemed benign enough and she said goodbye and started walking away. But then she asked if I had any gas and my radar went up again. But she apologized and said she was just afraid she was a little low on gas to make it back to town and only needed a little bit for her Neon. I had easily-accessible gas in my outboard tank and she had a little funnel she used for her camping stove, so I gave her about a gallon of gas and she insisted on paying for it. Just another interesting encounter in the Forest.
Shortly thereafter the heavens opened up and it rained, rained, and rained. I spent an hour or two in a pulloff along the road to Whitehead Lake, trying to decide what to do with the rest of my day. I did some organizing and list-making, some map-searching, had lunch, and even did a crossword puzzle or two before deciding I’d go back to the range and shoot again. But instead of taking the pot-holed Forest roads, I’d take the longer-but-much-faster hard roads and I would shoot from under the roofed-in area. But I still had to cross several miles of dirt road and that became an adventure. With the deluge, I now had several very large puddles to ease through and two heavily-rutted areas that looked scary but turned out to be easily passable. At the range, though, I now had a thunderstorm overhead. Rain was coming down very hard and the lightning/thunder delay said the lightning was less than a mile away so I bagged it and drove on to Tallahassee.
Back in the Capital City I went directly to the library north of the city (Lake Jackson area) but couldn’t pick up a strong-enough signal from the parking lot. But I found a quiet corner of the library so I could Skype with Labashi and we caught up for an hour or so before I returned to the west-side Wal-mart for the night.
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Wednesday, 20 February-
I only had a fair night at the Tallahassee Northeast Wal-Mart parking lot last night—lots of rice-burners running through the lot until after midnight then the lot-cleaner guys decided to do an extra-thorough job with their leaf-blowing machines. But the price was right! Otherwise this was a near-perfect Wal-Mart. There’s a library across the street with wi-fi I could pick up from the parking lot and next door there’s a Starbucks for a pick-me-up while reading the local paper.
I then headed out into the wild—in this case the Appalachicola National Forest. My first goal was to see what the shooting range is like. The range lies back five or six miles of dirt road and I had heard the roads were badly pot-holed in the Forest but the drive in was relatively smooth and dust-free. The range looked good—shaded shooting positions for pistol and rifle (separated by a concrete-block wall) with large dirt backstops. Target-holders were simple 2x4 frameworks which could be moved to a different distance if desired. But the range was in use. On the far end was a group of testosterone-crazed young guys blasting away and near me was a middle-aged guy with his wife, son, and the son’s girlfriend. The latter were on their first trip to the range and the woman confided in me that they were a little nervous about the young-guns down on the end. I asked “But you have a gun, don’t you?” and she smiled and said, “Well, yeah, I guess we do”. I just watched for awhile to see how the group did their cease-fire to go hang new targets—but it never happened. They all just kept blasting away for the better part of a half-hour at the same targets. And I saw some interesting things. One guy with the young-guns was apparently so new to this that he waved the gun around carelessly between magazines. But I was happy to see one of the other guys immediately jump on that and made sure he kept the muzzle pointed down-range at all times. The other interesting thing I saw was an “ND” or negligent-discharge. The middle-aged Dad accidently shot into the dirt just a few yards out from the firing line. He apparently was intending to let the hammer down on his new gun and let it get away from him. Not good. He blanched, then looked at the gun like it had done something wrong. To his credit, he then called the rest of his group together and told them what happened and (hopefully) how to avoid a repeat.
I finally got to hang my four targets and shot 80 rounds, enough to get a feel for these backlit sighting conditions due to the overhead shade and bright, sunlit range. Afterwards I went to the nearby pit-toilets and found the doors badly shot-up by large-caliber guns, courtesy of your local Floridiots (though, come to think of it, maybe that was done by us tourist yay-hoos!)
Afterwards I drove west across the National Forest and found the pot-holes I had heard about. The roads weren’t actually that bad if you didn’t mind keeping your speed under ten miles an hour, weaving around the truck-swallowers and easing very slowly through the big pools. The good news was the sand was good for travel and you could ease into a big pool with some confidence of coming out the other side.
I took the opportunity to go see a ‘hunt camp’. I had seen them on the maps of the Osceola National Forest and the Appalachicola National Forest (but, oddly, not on the Ocala National Forest). As it turns out a ‘hunt camp’ is a clearing with a few fire-rings. A few have porta-pots and dumpsters, others nothing but the fire-rings.
I made it to Pine Landing on the Ocklockonee River by late afternoon and went to look at the boat launch. The river was running high and I wasn’t sure I wanted to launch the fishing boat with that much current going by. If anything went wrong, I’d have a mess getting the boat back to the trailer. But since it was getting late in the day anyway, I decided I’d better look for camping and decide on the boating or perhaps kayaking tomorrow. I had passed a small hunt-camp back a half-mile or so and went to check it out. There I came upon a friendly group of hunters, which surprised me… I had heard hunting was over until Spring Turkey starts up in a few weeks down south. But it was the last week of muzzle-loader season for deer and these guys and their wives had a wagon-train-circle of camping trailers and small motor-homes taking up most of the camp. And that’s where I met Billy, Elroy, and Bart, three of the nicest self-declared Florida red-necks around. I just stopped to say hi and ask about the hunting season and before long we were old buddies, I was served a strong crown-and-seven-up (with lime!) and I was invited for dinner. The boys had been out for the morning and most of the afternoon but hadn’t gotten any shooting. After a while we were joined by Dean and Sue, then Gwen (Elroy’s wife), then Art and Helen, and, well after dark, Butch and
After a wonderful supper of rice with beef and gravy, spiced pork, home-style green beans, banana-pudding, and chocolate cake, we sat around the campfire watching the eclipse. I’ve seen an eclipse before but this was a great one from my vantage point around the fat-wood campfire, the eclipse unfolding minute-by-minute, until the moon turned reddish as it neared full eclipse. The stories of growing up, hunting, and working for Publix (four of the men were retired truck drivers and safety officers from the Publix supermarket chain) were great. A few may not have been completely politically correct but most were good-hearted. And funnier-n-hail, (as they say).
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posted by Bezabor&Labashi | 23:59
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