This weekend, like last year, we went on a backpacking trip. This year we started off at the Hickory Hammock Florida Trail trail head on U.S. 98 between Sebring and Bassinger with the intentions of just walking north until we felt like turning around to come home.

We got a late start on Friday after sleeping in a bit and then driving the two hours north. Before we left we checked the weather and weren’t too pleased with the forecast—rain and then a cold front right behind it. It didn’t start raining until we entered Lake Placid at nearly lunch time. We took some back roads to get to the trail head and then we realized there wasn’t much in the way of food open on New Years Day out in the boondocks. Finally, after driving around for nearly an hour we drove into Sebring and found the Sebring Diner open and hoppin’! We were in luck, they had black eyed peas! We were having a minor dilemma of trying to manage to eat black eyed peas on NYD, though I know we didn’t do that last year.

With a full stomach we made it to the trail head around 1pm; the rain had mostly stopped. We ran into a small group of Florida Trail Association hikers doing a short out and back of six to eight miles and they warned us of the cold weather to come.

At two miles we came across the Hickory Hammock campsite, a beautiful site underneath old live oaks. We stopped for a short snack and pee break and we were on our way. Shortly after we left we passed a hiker and his dog, said a quick hello and we mosied on down the way.

At 4 miles we came across an equestrian campground complete with decent port o potties and non-potable water (you can treat it), we then kept meandering north along the trail. About a mile north we entered the most boring part of the journey. I wouldn’t say it is entirely worthless, but it wasn’t necessarily pleasant. The Montesdeoca Ranch borders the Florida Trail and you have to walk along the fence line for about three to four miles. The area is mowed but the grass is made up of clumps of smut grass and it gets really old trying to walk over the clumps. Also, directly to the east is the Kissimmee River, which can sometimes flood the trail. Luckily, we didn’t have any flooding problems!

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The good part about this section was the amount of wading birds we saw. Sandhill cranes can be heard a good distance away and we caught a few mating dances from afar. A bald eagle flew over us as did a a couple of caracara.

About three quarters of the way up the fence line we were noticing dark clouds in the distance, getting worried that we’d have to put our rain jackets on. Sure enough we saw the rain in the distance, grabbed our jackets just in time to have the rain come down followed by a gust of wind that knocked the temperature down about 15 degrees. Brrrr! We were afraid the front was going to take its time to blow through, but we didn’t have to wait too long for the wind to die down a bit.

It was nearing sunset when we made it to Mosquito Hammock, but the sky had cleared up and we had a beautiful sunset, albeit cold! We kept toasty at night we our new 15* bags—so warm I didn’t want to get out in the morning!

We kept heading north towards the Avon Park Air Force Range, which can be closed to hikers if they are doing maneuvers. About two miles north of Mosquito Hammock is where you run into the range, you have to climb over a stile to get across the fence and there is a board up showing a map, paperwork to fill out and a sign saying the dates of closures and openings. It was open so we kept going north!

The oaks in this area were gorgeous! Ancient oaks covered in Spanish moss make for some dramatic shots! Too bad we didn’t have our good cameras.

We stopped at Hicks Slough campground about three miles or so into the park and took a long lunch, sunning ourselves with a nice cat nap.

Another stile we had to cross in the range.

We stopped at an old orange grove on the way back to look at some rotting oak logs and to snack on some oranges…

I’m employing the Eliana method for eating oranges—very good, you should try it!

I forgot to mention that we saw a barred owl on our way up to Avon Park. We heard many others in the early morning and late evening, too.

We were almost back to Mosquito Hammock for the evening when I spotted a dog. Up in a tree was its owner, Russell. Chris was a few yards ahead of me when I heard Russell ask Chris if he knew a geocacher friend of ours. Once I got up to the tree I recognized the guy as the one we’d seen the day before but also as someone we’d briefly met at Cacheapalooza a few weeks ago. We both had the mutual friend of another guy named Chris, who hiked with us for a day on our Ocean to Lake segment of the Florida Trail over Thanksgiving. Russell was also staying at Mosquito Hammock as was his dog Hickory. Hickory is a trail do for sure—bounding with energy! Poor pup had a ton of Caesar weed in his fur…I bet that will be a pain to get out!

We woke up this morning to temps of 35* and got on the trail to head back to the car. Russell hiked with us until Bluff Hammock parking lot which is 1.6 miles from Mosquito Hammock and we kept going the rest of the way back to our car.

I would recommend this hike for anyone who is interested in old Florida. It is peaceful, beautiful and a part of Florida you just don’t see that often.

And now I’m enjoying some good old fashioned comfort food—Rotel. mmmmmmm! Faux cheesey goodness!

This week: Cayo Costa State Park, Sanibel Sunsets, New Years Eve Sunset and failed moon rise (@%^$ clouds!), and whatever else you feel like hearing from me!

Oh yeah, my friend Meghan is working on a blog/website…check it out here!

And a second oh yeah….my dad asked me today if I took my computer camping so I could post. Nope…it’s a wonderful little object in WordPress that allows you to schedule posts! I can now take one day and write several posts up for the next few days—isn’t that awesome??? I’m all for more free time.

And for the third OH YEAH—-we saw a bobcat this morning!! A very big score!

The Wanderers on Sanibel.

Ok, so the title is slightly kitchy, but it came to me as Belinda Carlisle was singing to me on the way home from work today. Sanibel is heaven on Earth. It is one of the places that furthered my interest in marine biology growing up. We went to Sanibel and Fort Myers beach for vacation a few years when I was growing up and we loved it. I always thought when I moved to Florida that I would be living over there, but we never have. I hardly ever get to go, maybe once a year; it’s a good two hour drive from the house and we are often doing other things.

But, Sanibel is what beaches should be like—full of sea detritus waiting to be explored and poked through. I know I am one of the few, and I do know of others, but I love the smell of things rotting on the beach. Sargassum washed up—-yep, love it. Poking through dead sea urchins…oh yeah! I know, I’m weird, but it is such a good smell. It’s the ocean. The ocean doesn’t smell all floral and pretty, it’s raw and untamed.

Sea star—not star fish.

A live shell—gastropods (snails) build their own shells. When they die, hermit crabs use their shells for a home.

Not the first time I’ve seen something similar to this washed up on the beach. We saw a few pieces of it…I’m wondering if it is blubber of some sort?

A moon snail—not sure on the species. I need to brush up on my shells

Really, I’m pitiful with the identification

A bone we found near the unidentifiable blob…actually several bones. My thought was that they were flipper bones from a whale or dolphin.

Macro algae

I’m thinking this is a sea squirt of some sort or maybe a really odd looking sea cucumber.

The ocean has some beautiful treasures.

When we left Marc and Eliana’s house on Friday night we decided we’d meet them at Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary at 7am on Saturday morning. From our house it is about an hour and a half drive and from theirs, add at least another forty-five minutes.

We weren’t exactly bright eyed and bushy-tailed when we got there. It was early.

Chris and I arrived first and hit the boardwalk after I downed the majority of my coffee since disposable materials aren’t allowed on the boardwalk. He set out for the cypress dome and I wanted to see what I could come up with in the fog that had rolled in across the open prairie. I wasn’t too successful with the fog but I did get some shots that I enjoyed.

Marc and Eliana are birders, something which Chris and I aren’t very good at. Well, we aren’t good at the little birds like finches, warblers and the like. They are pretty good at noticing the calls and it helps that their iphone has a spiffy app for bird calls so they can double check to see what bird it is. I think we racked up a bit of knowledge that day!

We saw a minute amount of wildlife, mostly at the first half of the trail. Eliana and I spotted two Big Cypress fox squirrels in some cypress trees, chewing on the cypress balls. I haven’t seen very many of these squirrels—they’ve been replaced by the more common grey squirrel. They were fun to watch for awhile and I know Chris got a few good photos. As we were going up to tell Marc and Chris about the squirrels they told us about a very docile red shouldered hawk that was being kind enough to sit still for photos. We switched places and started taking photos of the hawk.

This is the area where the super ghost orchid is located. Since it is out of the blooming season we had a bit of a time trying to point out just where it was off in the distance.

I think this is where Marc was looking for the yellow crowned night heron. A volunteer had set up a scope at the pond to let visitors check out the birds. This time of year is peak birding season here in Florida, when all of the migratory birds head south to stay cozy for the winter.

Reflection in the duckweed…

Stay tuned for the rest of the trip….

Does anyone have any good podcast recommendations? I’m looking for some podcasts that are free but of a high caliber. It can be gardening, outdoors, crafts, photography, well, just about anything that you can tell that is of interest to me. Send it my way!

…still doing the Sanibel Stoop.

And when you can’t stoop any longer, find a nice mound of shells, sit down and dig right in.

We had an awesome weekend that continued from Marc and Eliana’s house over to the west coast at Sanibel and Cayo Costa State Park. I have so many photos to go through—I’ll have plenty to write about this week!

Christmas day started off a little bit on the wrong foot. A door was left open or didn’t get closed entirely when Chris left to do an early morning photographic expedition down at Everglades National Park, and three of the cats at Marc and Eliana’s escaped. We only knew about it when one of the cats, Desi, ended up in a fight with a neighborhood stray. I thought he was fighting with another cat in the living room until Eliana knocked on the bedroom door and got me out of bed to look for the third cat, Timber, that they couldn’t find.

It was a long day of walking the neighborhood, putting up some fliers, talking to neighbors and calling the cat. We took a long break after lunch, knowing the cat would lay low in the middle of the day. Around 4:30 Eliana and I were several blocks over when Chris comes zooming up in the car and letting us know that they found the cat in the front yard of the house directly behind them—probably where she’d been all day. *phew*. A huge weight was lifted. I had a feeling she hadn’t gone far, but still, knowing she was out there made for a long day.

Christmas Eve was nice, a quiet evening of pizza, drinking wine and sangria, playing Cranium and listening to Eliana repeatedly sing George Michael’s Last Christmas. Seriously, that song and not something like Carol of the Bells or Oh Holy Night or even Rudolph. Needless to say it ended up in our heads!

Not long after I’d been there Eliana ushered me into their computer room to give me a present. I didn’t have any idea what it was since she said it was for both of us until she started getting all giddy and I saw the size of the box—then I guessed. Glo Bars!. From Oh She Glows.

We tried the Chocolate PeppyMint and they were good! mmmmm!

Then somehow Eliana conned Chris into running out to find a Chia Pet. You see chia seeds are all the rage in the health food world right now and I’d never put two and two together to realize that they are the same plant…duh! Apparently Eliana had been wanting one and had been looking but never found it. So, at 6pm on Christmas Eve we went to Walgreens for a Chia Pet.

We brought her back a dinosaur chia! Oh, and we stopped at a gas station to fill up and Chris came back out and said that
George Michael had been playing over the intercom!

Our Christmas meal was quite non-traditional, a butternut squash pesto pizza. One vegan (vegan cheese—which actually wasn’t bad) and a regular one. Honestly, one of the best pizza’s I’ve had! Really good recipe to try.

After dinner and some relaxing we ended up playing with light painting and photography again and then some crazy jumping in the front yard, but all of those photos are on Chris’ camera and he doesn’t feel like processing them right now. I think there are some very cool shots in there!

Stay warm my cold, snowy friends!

Rarely do we get blessed with such great clouds. The strong wind on Saturday brought rippling effects to the clouds and the sunset for our hike made a beautiful ending to the day.

Which one do you like best?

Ahh, it is so nice to be writing again! My brother has me up and running enough to post, but we still have to work out the widgets (ie: the side archives and categories) and I’ve put everything up until this past week in the archives up there at the top. I’ll eventually re-work my banner, but until then this is what I’ve got. I will also try and fix the font size and color; I already tried to change the visited link color but it hasn’t worked yet.

On Saturday, a day after my dad sat indoors while it poured the entire day and Chris and I had to work, we got outside to stretch our legs and hit Jonathan Dickinson State Park. I know, it seems like we go up there all the time, but we like it. Only this time we didn’t see any animals, just a ton of prints in the wet sand—coyotes, pigs, deer, raccoon, crawfish.

We had a freak two days of rain, heavy downpours and localized flooding. These trails were dry three weeks ago and were now puddled. Dad forgot to bring his hiking boots so he had to carefully traverse the sides of the trail.

We stopped at Kitching Creek for a break and I tried to snap some shots of Dad and while he was talking about how I should get the shine of his bald spot I noticed Chris in the background trying to take a photo, too.

The wind is hard on my ears—sensitive ears to just about any kind of cool wind. So, while I warmed up after some walking, the wind started bothering my ears. Which is why it seems odd to wear that buff in mild Florida, but that’s why.

We went to the old steam engine we found a few weeks ago to find that the area had been burned by a controlled burn. The place was scorched with burn marks up the sides of the pine trees and the palmettos ghostly with their charred trunks sticking up. I think I’ve read that the growth rate for these plants is 1′ per 25 years! So, if you see long trunks, know that those plants can be several centuries old!

A few weeks ago on Flickr I saw someone post a photo that they panned the camera with, creating a painting of sorts with the photo. It was so cool that I remembered it Saturday and tried it myself. I had to turn my f-stop up to I think 22 which was the highest it goes on for ISO 100 and that lens I had, then lowered it to a slow shutter speed to blur upon movement. I had to test it a few times before I learned a quickly flick up was all I needed.

I tried it again in the burn zone and it looks pretty awesome, I think!

Dad had me get a photo of him on the Florida Trail, or a section of it at least!

It was a great outing with a day that ended at a steak restaurant filling ourselves from the caloric deficit of the day and watching the Cowboys beat the Saints!