When we came back to town I asked my brother and dad where some good places to hike were and one place they mentioned was Tandy Hills. This park is very close to where my parents grew up in E. Ft. Worth and where my grandad still lives and I had no idea this park even existed. It is tucked away in the Meadowbrook subdivision, which is a nicer, historic part of the area (go a few blocks and it might not be so great of an area) and once you get in to the park you don’t realize you are surrounded by the city. Well, except from some trash that you come across.

I went to their website to scout the park out and found out they had trout lilies and the nodding ladies tresses orchid. Very cool! So, yesterday we went off to find the trout lilies since Chris hadn’t gotten to see them fully open. After doing some research the ones we found appear to be Erythronium albidum.

There were hundreds of them in the area we found them in.

This is what the park area looks like…

and then to the west is downtown Fort Worth.

Not sure what these red berries are, but they were very pretty.

We went to the Fort Worth Botanic Garden on Thursday…those photos are to come.

This week will be full of ‘last’ trips. Every time I go somewhere or drive somewhere I wonder if it will be the last time I’ll drive by it. When we left Fakahatchee yesterday I was reading a magazine and when I looked up and realized it’d be the last time for awhile I said goodbye while watching the evening sun glisten across the fields.

I wanted to go for one last trip there but my idea was to go see some variegated Guzmania monostachia. Instead Chris and his hiking friend Rich wanted to go to a very distant population of Cranichis muscosa, the moss loving orchid. It was lost for a century when another population was found elsewhere in the Strand. Chris and a group went down to this population about three years ago and let me tell you—it is in the boonies. The tram we took used to be clear-ish apparently, but not this time around. We waded through ferns up to our shoulders and ducked under, over and around Brazilian pepper bushes. Two + miles of that. And the water was still fairly high out there for this time of year, not to mention cold!

These are the little plants. They grow on floating logs in the water or in cypress knees in some areas.

This is my favorite shot. I used the reverse lens technique on my 18-55mm lens.

The flowers are very tiny; the whole plant is not but a few inches tall. They are very non-descript if you walked by them in their non-blooming state.

We didn’t see any animals other than a cottonmouth that swam in this area that Chris is at in the photo. It came out of nowhere, but I heard it splash and saw it go over the log and off into the woods. Very creepy! Oh, and a smaller cottonmouth, very tiny baby that wasn’t going to move because it was too cold. But other than that, only bear scat and nothing else!

Brazilian pepper is one of the worst plants in the world. Ok, in Florida. I’m sure in Brazil it is lauded as beautiful and awesome. But, not here. However, I was eyeing a seed pod on a strap leaf fern and thought that it looked pretty cool.

And so I thought this might be the only nice way I would enjoy a Brazilian pepper.

When we left we caught Mike Owen and Karen Relish and a few other Fakahatchee explorers in the park office. It was good to chat with them since it would be the last time to see them in awhile. There was another person there who took a group photo of us but I don’t remember his name, but I do know his friend read my blog at one point. If you are reading this—send me an email! I’d love to have a copy of that photo!

So, goodbye Fakahatchee Strand Preserve State Park. I’ll miss you…but not your mosquitoes.

It’s best if you pick a big one—they are the lucky ones to have survived being logged. Hug ‘em tight.

Kathy in Little Slough, hugging a cypress

It was bittersweet taking our last ghost orchid trip to Little Slough. When Chris found our slough in 2007 (you’ll have to scroll down to May because I didn’t link titles back then) we’d been searching for ghost orchids for several years. We’d tromped all around Fakahatchee Strand looking for various plants and just exploring, not really knowing any different orchids.

When we found this orchid, Campylocentrum pachyrrhizum after a geocaching camping event, we were super excited because we thought it was a ghost orchid. Only, it wasn’t. Close—but no cigar. Sadly, this orchid isn’t even there anymore, it was taken by someone right off the tree. Bummer.

We looked for years and then we ended up knowing someone who’d been to a place and he tried to give us a description of where it was and finally Chris went out there in late April 2007 to try to find it. I stayed home because I had a cold, but when he called me to say he’d found what he thought was several hundred ghost orchid, I was excited! Later, when we got the coordinates from our friend for the original area, we discovered that we’d found a completely new and undiscovered batch of ghost orchids.

We spent that summer documenting the orchids and ended up counting 607 individuals. More or less. Now, probably less, as several have died. We would be tying ribbon on the trees and we’d see, one, two, three–no, wait, seven or eight on a tree. It was insane. That was a pretty awesome and interesting summer.

The next summer we spent several nights out video taping to see if we could get the pollinator of the ghost orchid on video. We ended up being successful. It was pretty insane sitting in the dark with the bugs and having a huge moth buzz your ear. And then we got it on tape—even more awesome!

So, on our trip out last Sunday we were a bit worried for our babies. The freezes we had a few weeks ago were severe enough to knock back mangroves down in the Naples area. It was really bad in the central part of the state. Luckily, they survived for the most part.

Two old spikes from last year.

I will miss visiting them.

A new spike is already forming on this ghost—to the left.

This is one that is on the way out.

We’ve entrusted the slough to our friends Kathy and Randy and a very small handful of others who know the location.

Goodbye Little Slough! We’ll be coming to visit in a few years.

After going through the rest of my photos of Dinner Island I realized I didn’t have enough macro shots to warrant a separate post. Alas, you’ll get a mix of macro and sunset. I love looking at the little details…

Lichen holding on…

I think this is one of my favorite shots. It can be difficult to get light coming in like this, but I love it!

Probably my favorite sunset shot out of the set.

I didn’t think this one was going to turn out that great when I looked at it in the camera, but I think I like it!

A few things:
-Does anyone else have horrible spam comment issues with Wordpress? I NEVER had this problem with Haloscan (which is now closing its doors, so go download all of your comments now!), but I get at least one a day if not more and it is usually on the same post. I don’t want to moderate every comment but this is getting ridiculous!

-We now have a Trail Journal page. It has an RSS button as well. I am planning on copying and pasting on each. I did three posts, repeats of what was on here in order to get the journal listed on TJ, and you can do HTML so it will be easy to c&p. But, TJ has a gear section and we are slowly adding our gear to it. I will let you know when we’ve got it finished and you can have a gander at it.

-We went to Little Slough today to check on the ghost orchids and make it a farewell trip. The ghosts did much better than we thought. A few were already on their way out from a dry spring last year, but only a few had some yellowing on their roots. One even already has a spike! So, things are good there. I’ll bring photos of those later this week. It was a bit bittersweet leaving it, but we have some friends who will keep a good eye on it.

I could blame Eliana. After all it was practically this time last year when we went to Payne’s Prairie and met up with them after their epic adventure across North America.

She gave me a few magazines to read on the way home and one of them was Backpacker. I didn’t read it until a few days later, but inside was an article on the Appalachian Trail. It took all of finishing the article for me to develop a plan. When Chris got home from work I brought up my great idea: Thru-Hiking the Appalachian Trail. He looked at me with a quizzical brow (ok, it was more like, whaatttt?) but we went to dinner and decided it was do-able. The biggest thing was coming up with the money to do it.

We took a few days to sit down and read about it. A magazine article wasn’t going to cut it. We scoured the Appalachian Trail Conservancy website, read Trail Journals and came up with a game plan: save a bunch of money and start doing a lot of hiking. We broke the news to our parents the following weekend and I think they were pretty much stunned. I think they thought we were insane.

Sure, we were giving up jobs that we’d gotten comfortable in. But, he’s 30, I’m going to turn 30 on the trail, we have no real responsibilities other than the cats (which are joining their cousins at my parents house for a few months), no mortgage, no children. We finally reached a point where we had some ability to use our money instead of scrimping and saving and paying off bills. It was now or waiting until we were 60 and our kids went to college. Sure, there are the brave souls who travel the world with their children and take them hiking on all sorts of adventures, but I don’t think I have the money or the patience for that.

Throughout the summer we slowly bought new and better gear. We couldn’t walk in our hand-me-down Kelty external frame pack—well, we could, but the name of the game is light-weight. We tested out different things, and slowly bought everything we would need. We won’t be the lightest pair on the trail, but we’ll be doing 25-30lbs starting out of town each time. Summer time should get us down to 20-25 lbs possibly. The ultra-light hikers do 10-15lbs and sometimes even less than that! But, we choose some comforts over ultra light packing.

So, where does that leave us at present? Well, packing. And selling our plants and a lot of our furniture. We had a plant sale back in November and are having another one tomorrow. It is hard to be getting rid of a lot of them, but I know we can start over again later, especially when we have a house that they can go in the ground. Part of my emotional week from hell last week (the week Ashleigh was born) was also because I gave my boss my four week notice. After nearly six years on the job it was difficult to part ways. That is another post later on, a post about our time in Florida.

We’ve quit our jobs and we have two weeks until we hit the road west to Texas. We’ll stay in Texas for three weeks or so and start probably the second week of March on the AT. We’re bouncing back and forth between my parents and Chris’ mom’s house and trying to get some hiking in while we are there. Texas actually has some hills so that will be good training as opposed to flat Florida.

Where we will end up after the trail is up in the air at the moment, but it will be more than likely Texas. But, like South Texas or somewhere like that. Not Houston. Been there, done that. And we’ll find jobs again, or maybe we’ll actually do something with our photography and try to get something off the ground in that aspect. Who knows? The trail is going to help us out a bit on that part.

As for the trail, here is a brief run-down of what to expect here on the blog:

-I’ll be posting when I get to town, at libraries or hostels, but that will be every 3-5 days and then who really knows if I’ll have the time or not. We’ve decided not to carry an iphone or Blackberry, so we’ll be free from the ‘net a bit.

-When I do post I’ll try to break it down into several posts so that you are entertained. Photos, lots of photos. And videos.

-We are sleeping in a tent. For six months. There are shelters every 8-12 miles, but especially at the beginning they tend to get very crowded. And there are mice. And they run over your face. The tent sounds nicer, now, right?

-It’s going to be hard. There will be up and down days, just like in real life. The trail is a lot of physical work, but it is mostly mental. It rains a lot, it’ll snow, there will be bears. Things will get to you. You just have to let it go and take it one day at a time. You can’t hike 2,178 miles in a day. You do 10 miles to start and work your way up to 20 mile days in Virginia and the more flat states and go from there.

-I’m going to smell. WOO! I’m trying to convince Chris to grow a beard out. Maybe get some shaggy hair going. I wonder if I can grow my leg hair out long enough to braid? haha, I will be taking a razor.

-Food…whatever is light and packs the most calories. This isn’t a time for dieting. We’ll be eating a lot and sometimes we’ll be running a deficit, no matter how much junk we can pack in at town. This is great…I need to lose 20 lbs! We’ll be supplementing with dehydrated meals that we’ve bought online, Mountain House is one of the brands, but we’ll also be eating a lot of sealed chicken and salmon with those Lipton/Knorr rice and noodle packs. And ramen noodles. Dried fruits…that sort of thing.

-We adopt trail names on the trail. Gone are Misti and Chris. I’m going to be Ridley, I think…Chris hasn’t decided yet. Most people let someone on the trail pick the name.

-Really, I can’t cover it all here, but if you have questions, post them and I’ll do a FAQ post.

-Some of my favorite blogs that I’ve read: Postcard (a 2010 hiker), All Right and Half Left (another 2010 hikers and from Florida), Wags (2009 hiker and excellent journal), Ben & Lauren’s 2007 Journal (loved this one because it was a couple.), Joe Liles 2009 journal.

2,178 long miles up the Eastern seaboard….

It all started at Kissimmee Prairie Preserve State Park in January 2007!

I found Dinner Island WMA while on Google Earth one day. I am always looking for new places to explore, parks to see and find the little out of the way places no one goes to. Well, this is one of those places, especially when it isn’t hunting season. A long road winds its way through the property, and you can get out and hike through any of the hammocks any time. Cattle ranching is also done on the land so cows are very prominent as are deer and hogs. The last two you’ll see more in during the non-hunting times. Oh, turkey, too. If you’re lucky maybe a bobcat or panther and probably bear live there, too.

We went a few weekends ago with our friends Kathy and Randy for a long day of photography and relaxing in the very cool weather that had come through.

Chris sneaking back over the fence after trying to chase down an otter. The canal the otter was in was full of water hyacinth and provided perfect cover for the otter.

We found a few horses that were friendly and asked for a nice head rub….

and one apparently developed a fondness for Kathy!

One thing I love about Florida is being able to walk in the wilderness and run into citrus trees of all sorts. Usually they are sour oranges, ones you want to cook with and not eat straight, or grapefruit. When the Spanish came to explore Florida they brought citrus with them and thus after many years of colonization, settlers planted citrus near their homes and even Florida’s Natives utilized the fruit in their hammocks and tree islands. It’s a real treat to find some citrus after a hike, but on this day, it was even more awesome to find lemons!

Really, really, good tangerines!

Kathy developed a grapefruit belly!

This trio of bandits eluded us for a bit. They had scampered across the road, catching Chris’ eye and we thought they were maybe otters. After walking for a bit down the road, poking our noses in little openings in the bushes we got flushed them out and they trotted down the road.

Well, you’d hope people wouldn’t litter!

We found three baby raccoons running down the side of the road and Chris got the better photos since he was on that side, but I snapped what I could. They were so cute!

Stay tuned for Parts II and III! Macro and sunset shots…!

Ashleigh update: After having a collapsed lung on Saturday, it has since reinflated and everything seems to be going as well as possible with her blood work and x-rays, etc. Her kidneys are functioning and now I think they are working on the other end of things—check out how tiny her diapers are! That’s a tiny little behind! One day at a time…

It is fairly quiet in the garden these days. After the cold snap, everything took a hit. I like this time of year because it isn’t so overwhelming. The grass doesn’t grow 10′ in a day and the vines aren’t trying to suffocate each other. It’s more relaxing.

A little bit more reverse lens technique for some closeups:

A fly buzzing the loquat flowers

Plantain flowers

Hibiscus grandideri about to bloom

A less mature H. grandidieri blossom

Chalice vine

Variegated vanilla

A little fern, a little recruit…

I’ve been enjoying these garden blogs lately:
Chiot’s Run
The Inadvertent Farmer
Fennel and Fern: they have a blog but it appears their site is down at the moment.

A little weeding did me good this afternoon. A turn in the garden is what I need to do more often.

I’m a little lonely today. It’s cloudy outside, the sun hasn’t peaked out and said hello, the cats are curled up, and everyone is out somewhere, doing something and I’m not.

Reviewing the rest of the Cayo Costa photos make me a little depressed. Call it two weekends of not getting outside, that’s probably my problem.

So, I’m savoring the washed up fauna that found its way onto the shore…

Oystercatchers…the first time I’ve seen these birds.

A gannett…not sure if it was injured or feigning injury, but it was nice to see the bird up close.

An ancient animal, horseshoe crab…

Even the man-made objects get washed up…