As we wind down our first week here in Texas, time is inching closer to when we leave for Georgia for the Trail. We’ve tentatively set the date for starting for the weekend of the 13th of March. With all of the snow that has fallen this month and in January, it appears the trail conditions are fairly bad, especially in the higher elevations of North Carolina and up the trail.
We experienced the blow-downs here and there are a lot of them on the AT in GA and NC right now, though local trail associations are clearing them out as they can.
I think we’ve convinced my uncle and my dad to drive us out there to start. We’ll be paying for gas, of course, but it seemed to be the most feasible way to do things. We’d originally thought to fly out and then find a ride from the Atlanta airport to Amicalola Falls State Park, but the ease of being driven to the approach trail at the park sounds much better.
I also like the idea of having my dad out there to see us off. He can take photos and assure my mom we’re going to be alright.
After doing some hiking around here the past few days I already know that the hike up the approach trail is going to kick our butts. We are going to be craving some straight sections and downhills after awhile, but eventually our quads, calves and shins will get used to the abuse and carry us through.
So far we’ve either had people think we’re insane or they’ve been a bit jealous that we’re going. Sometimes I think we’re insane, but mostly I’m looking forward to being out in the woods. After downgrading everything we have in our life I’m finding some of the consumerism around here overwhelming. And I want to go in every store and buy something. HA! It’s a strange combination, feeling like there is just too much ’stuff’ but then also craving to buy something. I could have bought out REI, or at least the womens clothing section. I think most of it is a novelty of seeing all of these places I haven’t seen in so long as Florida doesn’t have the urban sprawl that Texas has. Don’t get me wrong, Florida has sprawl, but it also has a limited amount of space to build. There is just store after store here and oh, Mexican food on every corner.
As for seeing Mexican on every corner, it is kinda nice to see things written in Spanish, too. I had gotten used to seeing Pollo Tropical restaurants and then billboards written in Spanish and Spanish on just about everything in Miami, but Spanish is finally becoming more prevalent in North Texas, too. I kinda miss the cultural diversity. It is much more separate here, particular parts of town and not everyone mixed into one big lump of a county.
I was on Whiteblaze.net earlier and found a cool site called Trail Phone where people call in and give trail reports. It is really awesome! I don’t know if we’ll use it or not, but I like the idea of calling in and giving a minute report on what’s going on.
I guess I’m about done with my rambling for today. We’re spending all day tomorrow doing our mail drop planning since we’ll have some quiet time. We may end up buying food for the drops as well if we have the time. It’s supposed to snow or ice on Tuesday or Wednesday and we’d planned to go to East Texas to visit my friend Michelle so hopefully we don’t get snowed out.
Alright, I’m finally getting around to the couple of questions that were asked a few posts ago. I know the videos probably cover a lot of the answers, but I will take a few minutes to answer the questions now that we are semi-settled in again.
Chris Hind asked: I’d like to know what backpacks and tents you guys will be using.
We are using Osprey Atmos 65 packs. Mine is the small version, Chris is using a large. I got my backpack from my dad who got it off of Steep and Cheap and it wasn’t what he was thinking it would be so he gave it to me. Chris ended up liking it and bought the same one in large.
Our tens is a Big Agnes Copper Spur UL 2, a two person tent. It sets up super quick, probably 5 minutes or less and we’ve set it up in the rain before as well. It is a snug fit, but we bought it because we wanted two access points and room to store both of our packs under the tent at night. Don’t worry, the food and smellables will be going in a bear bag up in a tree.
Patrice asked: How many food drops are you planning?
I can tell you are quite the photographer, but what camera are you bringing?
When you blog from the trail, how do you plan to do it? Blackberry/IPhone? Or just relying on town computers?
Food drops…we haven’t gotten that far yet. We’re planning on working that out this weekend. We will probably do what the average person starting out does…more than they need. We got a lot of Christmas money that went towards buying dehydrated food so now we need to use it all. We will definitely be buying food in towns as well.
For photos we are using a Pentax Optio W80, which is waterproof. We’ve used it underwater in Florida several times and it works great. Of course we’d love to take our dSLRs but I don’t think those are trail safe, not to mention they are heavy! We’ll probably GPS some locations for future excursions and head back to take photos. I know there will be cool lady slipper orchids along the way. The camera also does video so we will be doing some clips here as well. As for batteries with the camera, we’re going to charge them all up at the beginning and leave the charger at home and as we go through batteries send them home to be charged and put in mail drops up the trail.
Blogging…we’re going strictly with computers in libraries, hostels, hotels etc. We wanted to reduce our bills and we don’t even own a Blackberry or iphone so we’ll stick with an old-fashioned cell phone that calls people. We are taking a journal and pen and I will try to write a lot at night or mornings and I think I will probably translate out some of those into blog posts when I get into towns. I could easily do several posts and schedule them on Wordpress here.
So, are there any more questions? Come on, I know there are! Ask away!
We’re over in Dallas for a few days hanging out with Chris’ family. We did two small hikes the other day, one at Lake Grapevine which ended when we found a creek crossing that was swollen with water from the recent snows, and then another hike at the Ft. Worth Nature Center yesterday. A lot of trees have been broken from the snow and were blocking our path access on the trail. We met up with a guy on the trail who was a nature photographer and he gave us some tips on where to go take photos of birds around the Ft. Worth area. His website here.
We finally made it to DFW today around 5pm. The perfect time for traffic. We had smooth sailing the entire trip until we hit Dallas rush hour and then a few key places near my parents house in Tarrant county.
I have to be honest, it was hard to leave Florida. When we passed Pensacola and into Alabama I felt very sad. Through Alabama and Mississippi, where we stayed last night, I felt lost. It subsided a little once we entered the western part of Louisiana and then, finally, east Texas. But, it feels weird being back home.
It’s home, but not home. A limbo state. And there is snow on the ground and it’s cold. In Ft. Lauderdale it will probably be 70 or so. Bummer.
The cats survived the car ride and we ended up not letting them out until we got to the hotel and then to my parents house. The hotel was ok for them but the house here is not good for them. My parents have two Boston terriers that just want to play and chase and the cats are not into that. I think they will come around with the other cats, but they are scared of the dogs. Which is a little odd because they lived with a big pit bull for a year and a half, but Baloo didn’t chase them.
Hopefully in a few days they will calm down and be normal again and the dogs will get some discipline and learn not to mess with the cats.
Tomorrow we have to take care of chores: insurance, phone, a trip to REI and some plants we brought with us that have to go into my brother’s greenhouse.
Did I forget to mention that it is cold? I don’t have much winter clothes.
I have gotten to see Zoe, but she doesn’t like me too much. She doesn’t remember me and all she wants is Mimi, my mom. It’s Mimi, Mimi, Mimi all around here. With a smidge of Paw Paw. (Or Pa Pa?) Oh, boy, what a handful she is! Tomorrow we’ll get to see Ashleigh.
More tomorrow. I need to take some photos. Chris saw some roadrunners today. I missed them.
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 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.
Mostly because I’m obsessed with this song at the moment. M. Ward—To Go Home. Realized I loved it via my friend Sara and her wonderful playlist on her blog.
Ok, so there isn’t a ton of packing going on this week, especially since Chris got back on Friday and we are just kinda getting back into the swing of things.
Saturday we spent the day in the yard, cleaning it up and getting it ready for the plant sale. It was a big pain but it made the yard look so much better. A big pile formed at the end of the driveway for the trash man (and women if there are any). Sunday we held the plant sale, cloudy as it was. We had our first sale back in November and managed to sell a lot of the orchids. If we’d been as organized as we were this time, we’d of done even better back then.
The one thing we learned this time around was to have back up signs. Apparently the city has sign meanies out there who pick up yard sale signs in the medians. This time we came prepared and put new signs out after they’d picked the first round up! Score for the Aggies!
The best person to come by was a lady who told me to load her car up and give her a price. So, load her car up I did. Chris added the price up and knocked a bit off since she took a lot off our hands and then he even drove over to her house to help her deliver some of them!
The worst person was this guy who thought we must’ve been in a Latin American market somewhere and was trying to make a deal. I was peeved when Chris ok’d him taking a 7-8′ loquat tree and a spoonleaf plumeria for $10. And the loquat had fruit. We’d had the plumeria for $10 and the loquat for $15, which were steals to begin with. The guy came back later when we were about to leave to take a look and he wanted our cotton plant and then he was eyeing the ylang ylang. He wanted the 10′ ylang ylang for $35 (HELL NO) along with the cotton. I told him to take the cotton and we basically shamed him into leaving. Top Tropicals has a 3 gallon pot for $50. Ours is at least 10-15 gallons. This was one plant we weren’t cutting deals on. And some of the orchids, too.
Alas, the ylang ylang is still in the back yard and I’m hoping someone on Craigslist will bite; someone did email me but hasn’t responded to that email yet. Everything else will probably end up on Freecycle soon.
Tonight we put more furniture out on the bulk trash pile for the week since our bulk trash gets picked up this week. I’m pretty sure it’ll be gone tomorrow afternoon since we already had people drive by and take the grill and our porch swing.
Slowly, things will get packed. I can’t believe we have 8 days left at our jobs. The insanity! Our route back to Texas has been planned and tonight we were scouting how we were going to get to Amicalola Falls State Park in Georgia to start the trail. So much left to do: planning food drops, getting things at REI, mentally and physically continuing to prepare and well, moving!
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:
Going through my old scrapbooks the other day I realized that blogging has become my scrapbook. I abandoned the hardcore scrapbooking phase I went through a few years ago and it seems that it has been reflected here on my blog instead.
It has changed for me over time, blogging. I remember the days of blogger and live journal and it was quite a different era. There weren’t any pro-bloggers, people who made money writing. These days it seems there are people making money at writing on their site, giving their opinions, and while all of that sounds great, I’m glad to just be here writing for myself.
I think the future of my scrapbooking will be writing here, sharing my photos—because I thought the other day that sharing photos is one of the reasons to blog. I love taking photos. Then, what happens when I download them and then they sit on my computer or hard drive and languish? Gone are the days of photo albums and sharing photos in that manner.
For Christmas we made books for our parents and my brother and SIL. It was nice to see them in print, some sort of validation if you will.
The other day, on the deadline date for the Stranger Photo Challenge, I rushed to a nearby park hoping to gather up my guts and ask someone to take their photo. It’s one thing to casually take photos, but to ask someone to take their photo—it was painfully difficult for me. And I couldn’t do it. I had many opportunities, but I just couldn’t. It seems so ridiculous to even say that. I think the part about it is that it is a bit weird, you know? Going up to someone and asking to take their photo. Meghan did it great, I think. At least she has a good excuse, she’s starting a photography business, something which I haven’t begun to even think about.
I much prefer taking photos of animals and landscapes, they don’t look at you strange.
CNN had an article the other day about Twitter, here. It really summed up how I felt about Twitter. I keep resisting the talk in the blogosphere about getting on Twitter and how it helps businesses and getting more readers, this and that. But, what about next year? MySpace was the rage, Facebook, now Twitter. I want people to come here to read, not read on Twitter. And I don’t want to be that connected to posting.
For people who do use Twitter, what do you think? I just found Posterous today, via another blog, but I wonder about it, too. Again, it’s taking you away from the main site of a persons blog. It’s great for people who don’t have their own blog or their own space, but what about everyone else?
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.
