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Archive for May, 2011If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
So long ago, yet not. See who else is making it to the mental half way point this year. A few weekends ago, on our Sunday off, Chris and I went to the Watson Preserve. It’s about an hour from Beaumont and well worth the drive. In fact, it has such a diversity and beat the Sundew Trail at the Big Thicket that day for having more blooms and plants worth seeing. I’d love to meet Geraldine Watson sometime (you must watch the video that is the link!). If you are ever in the area I highly recommend stopping by this place and checking it out. I’m breaking the trip down into several posts as I took a zillion photos. The photos on this post are with three areas on a section of upland trail near the parking area, mesic slope forest, arid sandyland and longleaf pine upland. Check the map on the link to the website.
Lots more to show you in more posts in the future! Holy Moly it is hot! Heat paired with humidity and oof, it is going to be a long summer. In Florida I would’ve hibernated for much of the summer. I remember going a few weeks not mowing our backyard because I just didn’t feel like doing it. The grass would get tall and inch up between the container garden and then at the end of the summer we’d do a gigantic trim from the humongous growth that had occurred. Texas is similar in heat and humidity, though the humidity varies depending on the region. Since we’re working on the coast the heat might not be too high, 90s instead of 100s but the humidity sucks the life out of you. Our field work has switched habitats just recently from shadier areas to open cut grass marshes (and yes it does cut you, worse than saw grass) that are in full sun. The balance to the sun will be that we’ll be wading in water/mud/floton much of the day. I’m hoping we get to a floton area so I can get a video of us bouncing on a layer of thick vegetation with water underneath. It’s pretty cool until you fall through it! Today was our day off, thankfully, and we took a trip out to a tract at Trinity River National Wildlife Refuge and only did a three mile loop but it was hot and there was a profusion of sweat. Not much wildlife either, I think they were in the shade somewhere. Now we’re bathing in the air conditioning of our hotel and relaxing as much as possible. I’ve got plans to finish up most of the hollyhock pastel today so I can get working on my scarf again. A few things of note: Anyway, I’m glad I was able to get this book and will have to crack it sometime in the next few weeks. I’ve got some other books on the agenda and one I need to finish. It is as thick as a Diana Gabaldon book so I know it will be slow going. Thanks for the book SR! Let’s see, what else…. Think that’s it for this week! I’ve got a week of blogs already scheduled so I am going to kick back and do some Trail Tale blogs for next week (three more left on the FT! *sniff sniff*), get some art and crochet in and maybe start actually running. I’ve a hankering to train for a 5K and maybe get the guts for a 13.1. I just like walking so much—running…well, I lose motivation much easier! Happy extended weekend (I’ve gotta work! BOOOO!)!
This is another plant I learned in my Coastal Plant Ecology course in college, Borrichia frutescens. Found in dunes and salt marsh areas this is a colorful favorite for those areas. This salt tolerant coastal native is a perennial and has a slight succulent feel if you pierce the leaf. This large colony was found at Texas Point NWR, but anywhere along the Texas coast you can find sea ox-eye daisy. I imagine that the yellow flowers are great wildlife attractors, particularly butterflies and the brown seed heads would make interesting inclusions to cut flower arrangements. If you’ve got a bright sunny spot in your garden and are looking for natives, this is a great one to take a look at. Propagation by seed seems to be the method of choice, though cuttings are also listed in several sites. There’s a similar plant, Borrichia arborescens which according to the USDA plant database only grows in Florida. +Dave’s Garden page
I go back and forth from thinking I’m doing ok to wanting to say it sucks. If I look across the room at it I think “oh, it looks good”, and then I look at it up close I think “who am I kidding?” So there it is. I’ve had the photo I am working from printed for maybe three years. Yep. It’s been on the horizon to work on that long. I’m using some cheap pastel pencils and some cheap pastels. All my ‘good’ stuff is in storage. Still. It works. I’m having fun. I like short sentences! heh! I’ll repost when it is finished. Still have the crochet to work on and some books I want to read. Man, being bombarded with creative ideas is difficult. Preparing for our first 30 mile day, we got up well before dawn to start hiking in the dark. We’d informed the motel managers that we’d leave the key in the room since we were leaving so early. It was pitch black when we left the hotel, our headlamps on full blast. This was our first night hiking adventures since summiting Katahdin back in August. We followed S.R. 20 for a mile or so before trying to locate a bike path that went through the north end of Blountstown, through neighborhoods. The sky was starting to lighten as we made it to the edge of town and we finally extinguished our headlamps. We were attempting to make it halfway to a gas station/grocery store for an early lunch. The main road out of town was fairly busy with morning commuters and a few school buses picking up rural kids. The sky was cloudy for some of the day and seemed to threaten some sprinkles, which we did feel for a short minute or two later on in the morning. All along the road walk I kept looking for places that would be good stealth sites but it was quite lacking. After the busy road we mostly followed quiet farm roads that were mostly pleasant to walk on. We would rarely have to ditch to the side of the road but it was funny to see several cars pass us several times throughout the day. Some of them must’ve thought we’d gone incredibly slow. Road walking makes you take notice of trash and debris on the side of the road. By far the most drank beer in the countryside was Natural brand and the most smoked cigs were 305s. Not sure why these are the choice of Florida country folk, but this was by far the most common type of litter we saw. At about 10:30, maybe a little earlier than that we arrived at Shelton’s Store on the northwest corner of the intersection of SR 73 and CR 274. It was definitely a country store, the bathrooms on the outside of the building and vintage gas pumps out front. The inside looked to be lost in the 70s with items that might have been that old lining the shelves, particularly beauty products and car reapair parts. The food items were sketchy looking hot dogs and microwaveable burgers. I went for the burger because at least it was frozen for awhile.
Our afternoon break was next to a ditch by someones house. The owner, a man, drove up shortly after we sat down and chatted with us for a second. Moseying down the road we came to a road crossing at SR 167, crossed it and followed a dirt road before getting to US 231, a four lane divided highway. At the intersection was a shop, I can’t remember if it was auto repair or something else, but the workers noticed us and chatted with us for a second having seen us road walking several times throughout the day. We crossed the highway easily and found ourselves down a another dirt road where there were signs for several churches where we thought we might try to refill our water but found the churches were quite a ways off the trail. We passed trailers and rowdy dogs tied to chains, homes you didn’t want to linger by. Finally we found the Econfina Creek WMA where we decided to make camp right inside the gate. Speaker had thought we’d really done 31 miles since we’d started outside of Blountstown that day.
This section of trail was great, mostly worth the ridiculous roadwalking. We found several drive up type campsites that would have been great spots for a backpacking campsite as well, complete with trash cans at the sites. Most of the morning was spent just meandering along this creek and at one point we came out of the creek to the top of the bluffs and into a clear cut area. It was hot up there and we were glad when we finally ducked back into the woods.
We took lunch in the middle of a planted pine forest where the pine needles created a great cushion for napping. We were just short of the Little Porter Pond campsite but had no idea. We’d finally left the creek areas and started climbing up onto large, old sandhills in planted pine and scrub areas. At one point, almost out of the WMA, I looked back over where we’d hike to see hills! Hills, people, in Florida! This wasn’t like the hills of Ocala, this was much more terrain than we’d seen so far. Back on SR 20 we continued our road walk west, seriously hoping for the promised gas station at SR 77 and SR 20. The book had said that we might get permission to stay behind the gas station but when we arrived and asked the cashiers they promptly said no and looked at us like we had two heads. We instead filled up on chicken tenders and thick cut french fries, soda and bought a gallon of water to refill our water. We’d scouted some potential stealth areas along the way, all on private property but with potential to duck far enough in to not be seen. After the gas station we walked about a quarter mile before we saw a thick pine plantation where we waited for the traffic to quiet down before ducking into the woods. We walked in quite a ways and set up our tent where we made a second dinner and got ready for bed. Our stealth rules were to not use our headlamps unless it was on red and to be very, very quiet.
The night went well and we were up and gone relatively quickly in order to bypass getting caught by an angry landowner. Off we went for more of our roadwalk. At this point we weren’t sure if Speaker was nearby or ahead of us as there was no way of really following footprints on the road. The book explained that the trail had once gone through a private pasture but had asked the FTA to remove the trail from their property, instead making it a roadwalk. We’d failed to look carefully at the map and the book to see where the trail been rerouted so whereas the book said the trail followed the road through Ebro, where we had a maildrop, the map reflected the trail entering the Pine Log State Forest. We’d planned to do the east section of Pine Log despite it being a bit out of the way, and then roadwalk up S.R. 79 to Ebro to pick up our maildrop.
We came up to S.R. 79 where a great pedestrian bridge for the trail had been built. The road was still under construction so we had the east side of the road to ourselves as we walked north to the post office. At the post office Chris picked up the box and the woman running the office had said she was getting worried for us since the ETA on the box was for several days prior to when we’d actually arrived. Oops! I’d forgotten to tell my mom what date to put on when I told her to ship it. It was our last maildrop on the trail. We sat in the parking lot sorting everything out, dumping things we had too much of and carrying a few extra things than needed. It was not fun having a heavy pack again! We’d just left the post office and was heading back towards the S.R. 20 intersection when we saw Speaker walking towards us. He’d stayed on the roadwalk instead of following the trail into the forest and had stayed the night before back in the woods of Econfina Creek, so he’d had even more of a roadwalk that morning than us. He was looking for the library, which we said we didn’t see, so we went to the intersection and found a Subway at the gas station and had a sandwich for lunch. We were making good time for the morning and had decided to walk past where we’d thought to stay for the night, somewhere near Bruce, potentially behind the cafe. We left the Subway and crossed the Choctawhatchee River where on the bridge we heard a high pitched sound and found bats tucked into a hole in the side of the bridge. Pretty cool! I wish I’d gotten photos of them! Since we were ahead of schedule we took an extended break on the side of the road and then another longer break with dinner at the Ebro Cafe. The Ebro Cafe is a very small mom and pop restaurant with red and white checked table cloths. The locals inside asked us about our hike and of course had all sorts of questions. After eating and refilling our water Chris and Speaker checked out the gas station/grocery across the street for ice cream and other goodies and then we went on our way down the road. The trail splits from S.R. 20 and up S.R. 81 where we were searching for a place to camp for the night. We kept passing places that just looked not so great and weren’t as far as we wanted to go for the night. Eventually we saw a man come out of the woods on an ATV from the east, cross the road and go to a house across the street. After we’d passed this man’s land, a fence, we found a few paths leading into the woods on the east and decided to make that our campsite for the night. It was probably the more nervewracking sites we chose because after we’d set up a truck drove past down the dirt road on the other side of the fence, luckily not spotting us. The next morning we got out as quick as possible despite the threat of rain and a small bit of rain before we got out of the tent. We ate quickly and got the heck out of there before the guy made his morning round of his property. The last thing we wanted was him to alert whoever owned the property we were on that we were there! Down the road we went for the Nokuse Plantation. Similar posts: Swamp Work & More Swamp Work. More happenings in the woods and swamps of SE Texas:
Love what I’m doing just wish it was 8-5 (or 4), weekends off, permanent with insurance, vacation and holidays! Should be working this through sometime in June and who knows what we’re doing after that! Apalachicola National Forest is a wonderful little place in the panhandle of Florida that has a very unique ecosystem. Carnivorous plants can be found and vast ti-ti sloughs stretch across the area. The day had started off drizzly and cloudy at St. Marks NWR but by the time we’d entered ANF it was clear and beautiful. We knew that there was potential for being wet in this entire section, particularly in Bradwell Bay, a well known swamp that the trail goes through. Chris and I had been arguing about doing it or not and during the afternoon we played phone tag with the ANF office trying to find out the water levels. The difference in water from Big Cypress where we did get into some water is that that area does tend to dry up in the winter and that the panhandle and south Florida have very different climates in winter. While that is the dry season in south Florida, winter can be another wet season in the panhandle. Plus, it didn’t help that the guidebook said that extreme care should be taken in the swamp as it could be ‘as deep as a tall man’s chest’. Hello, a tall man’s chest is over my head! So, when we called the office and they said it was closed we wondered if they meant the whole area or just the wet area. Apparently they’d just burned and finally at the campsite that night the park ranger had left a message informing us to stay out of the entire area. Score for me! Chris had wanted to follow the FT until the blue blaze off the Monkey Creek came up but I didn’t see the reason to bother hiking all of that out of the way instead of following forest roads around to the west side of Bradwell Bay. Speaker had already decided that was what he was doing and the phone call about it being closed sealed the deal that we’d do the same, too. The night before skirting Bradwell Bay we stayed at the Sopchoppy River, near a dirt road and bridge where the river goes by. It was a perfect little campsite and only one or two people drove by that night. The following morning we did our best to piece together a way to follow the forest roads to get back to the Florida Trail. Part of the legend covered the roads on the map so we had to figure out based on the direction the roads turned. Speaker left before we did and so we followed his arrows in the dirt. Soon enough we’d caught up to him.
When we arrived at the other end of Bradwell Bay we saw a sign posted on that end that the area was closed and not far down the trail we saw water. I was glad we’d bypassed that area. I was glad until later on I found out it didn’t matter all that much. We entered the forest again on the FT and followed rutted out trail from pigs and it was overgrown as well. Then we entered a ti-ti slough where we tried to hop from mound to mound or find logs to bounce around on but many times our shoes dipped into the water along the way. We emerged to the other side wishing for bog boards. A forest road with a wide field at the end was our lunch spot for the day and as we dried out in the sun I noticed small objects moving a few hundred yards down the road. We finally decided they were pigs and more than likely piglets.
The bad thing about the campsite was the plethora of hunters and a group of rude hunters that made noise late in the evening, well after 9pm and well before dawn, turning their generators on to cook food and talking like no one was sleeping. It was quite annoying, especially to be wakened earlier than expected.
The following morning we crossed SR 65 and found the area directly across the street had been burned the day before and was still smoldering in places. Signs along the road notified work crews of proper turn around areas. We entered back into the woods and found tape across the entrance but no sign saying we couldn’t go in so off we went. Very inconsistent with how they notify areas of being burned. Most of the area we walked through wasn’t burned and we followed along the edge for the most part. I was a little annoyed at these little weave like jumps the trail would do, just to follow the perimeter of the ti-ti only to get right back on the road it had left. I just looked at the aerial and it is really ridiculous.
Eventually we decided it was time to move on, following trail that Chris and I had done when we’d camped up here. We’d done a large loop, following the FT and then a blue blaze to the east, reconnecting with the FT to the south. As we’d come up to Camel Lake I’d remembered some of the trail and would try to estimate where we were. I did the same for the north section until it was time to split and take new trail. It stayed dry for a good while until we ended up in titi sloughs again, inching along the edge of the trail trying to skim the water or walking on top of bunching grasses. We found one area that couldn’t be skimmed and off our shoes went. Then we found one slough that had a fresh bridge built over it and we were again astounded as to why bridges weren’t built before. I understand that it is all volunteer efforts and funding for the most part, but geez, this is a known wet area and you’d think some bog boards would be placed. More water kept following when we’d least expect it and we realized we made a good decision to keep hiking as close to the road as possible to camp for the night. If we’d camped further out the next morning we’d of had to wade through. When we got to the road we contemplated trying to hitch up the road to get dinner and Speaker sat by the road for an hour to no avail, finally giving up and setting up camp on the blue blaze trail that leads to the parking area and trail head for this section. Overnight we’d left our fly off the tent like we’d done the previous night but this time the dew from the trees started dripping sometime early in the morning so Chris and I got up to put the fly on. We had a road walk the next morning to get into Bristol and Blountstown, the start of a 40+ mile road walk. We followed CR 12 through rural communities as large trucks and morning commuters whizzed past us. It was foggy but an hour or two later the fog cleared and the sun came out. As we got closer to Bristol we found the store we had planned to hitch to the night before and found it closed. Good thing we didn’t try! It’d been closed for quite awhile, too, as the gas prices were still rather cheap. Once in Bristol we started talking about the food we wanted to eat in town as we made a beeline for the library. The Bristol library was very friendly and easy to use, no i.d. required! After we had our fill of internet we made our way to Apalachee Restaurant, a down home cooking buffet. Mmmmm! We picked a booth in the back hoping to keep our stench away and to avoid weird conversations but someone sat in the booth in front of us an the inevitable questioning happened. Everyone was always friendly about it, despite some of the curious looks. The buffet was great, typical buffet food, but I really liked the cobbler. With full bellies we continued on our way down S.R. 20 where we were looking forward to getting an extra hour in the day as we crossed the Apalachicola River.
The Airport Motel, our destination for the night, came closer than expected. We knew it was on the outskirts of town but it seemed a bit further outside of town than we thought. The hotel was mostly deserted and the Indian-American owners were very friendly and when we asked for a ride into town for a resupply they were obliging since they had an errand in town, too. We got showered up and ready for the trip to town for laundry and resupply.
After a well rested night we got ready for our first 30 mile day! Lots of good things I’ve read in the past week or so on the ‘net. Thought I’d share: +Dr. Who Regenerations: A compilation of all of the Dr. Who’s through the years. I’m personally fond of David Tennant and Christopher Eccleston. That’s when I first started watching, however sporadically I watch. I think that’s about it. Just working around here and inching away on the moss fern shawl. I’m getting a lot of blogs written early this week so I can focus on doing some art. Been craving it and it has been well over a year and a half since I’ve drawn anything! Will be whipping out several more Florida Trail Tales. What are you doing this week? Share your favorite links with me, too!  |
