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The 88 Store & The Florida Trail
After we left Astor Park and from visiting the Bartram Tree we continued west down SR 40 through Ocala National Forest. We had thought about going down to Alexander Springs at first but with the rain showers it didn’t seem like an ideal thing to do. Instead, Chris looked at the GPS and opted to head north on SR 19 towards Salt Springs into a part of the of the forest we hadn’t driven through before. Well, we’d been on a bit of it before, when we’d been transported from the end of the Juniper Springs Run at the Juniper Take-Out in 2009 when we’d paddled the Juniper Run. And…
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Life Lately | June 2018
Thinking: Elections have consequences. I’ve mostly stopped writing political things here because there’s only so much I can handle. Of course it seems pitiful to say that when others are going through some right shit while seeking asylum in this country. “Misti, you can handle the political BS because you are in a perfect position to do so. Suck it up, read all about it. You sit comfortably in a house you bought, with a child who goes to his room every night, and you aren’t fleeing political discourse and violence in your country (yet!). No child has been ripped from your arms and flown to who knows where with…
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William Bartram Tree in Volusia County
After our visit to Deleon Springs, we headed west down SR40 towards Ocala National Forest. As we approached the town of Astor and the St. Johns River, I noticed a large live oak on the side of the road with a historical marker. Because we had nowhere specific to be, Chris pulled over and the three of us got out to see what made this tree interesting. The rain had mostly stopped at that point, maybe to drizzle, so a photo op was merited. William Bartram and his father John, were noted botanists and naturalists in the 1700s. They explored a large part of the eastern US during those early…
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DeLeon Springs State Park & Old Spanish Sugar Mill Restaurant
*Note: if you view this via email or a feed reader, I don’t think the last post loaded correctly, the Forest Friday post. There’s a video in it and it wasn’t automatically syncing to play unless you went to the website to read. I do recommend going back and clicking through to watch the video because Forest is super cute as he explains his drawing.* Before our trip to Florida I saw Florida Hikes post about the Old Spanish Sugar Mill restaurant in DeLeon Springs State Park. Since Chris had wanted to visit some of the springs in the state during our time before Disney, I thought this sounded like…
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Beachin’: New Smyrna and Canaveral National Seashore
We had an early flight out of IAH into MCO on June 5th, so we were all rather bleary eyed when we landed in Florida. No one slept on the plane despite my thinking Forest might conk out mid-flight. No such luck. I think the flying was too exciting! I was excited, too! It had been four years since I had flown and there was a good stretch of time when I flew several times a year. I love to fly and to travel and not getting to do so now is definitely a bummer but maybe in a few years that will change again? That said, we were surprised…
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10 Days in Florida
Annnnndd…we’re back! The three of us jetted off to Florida the early morning of June 5th, flying into Orlando, and returned on the 15th. Last year Chris’ mom announced she was planning a big family trip to Disney World and so I had a year to mentally prepare. For starters it would mean traveling with a 3.5 year old on a plane and what was that going to be like?, and the second…Disney World. I know some people go gangbusters for that place but it wasn’t high up on my ranking of places I was looking forward to revisit. Chris and I spent maybe 2 days there with his mom…
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A Taste of Summer
We’ve reached the time of year where any time you step outside for less than 5 minutes sweat will bead and roll down your body. For me, it’s simultaneously too much and glorious. I’ve always been a heat loving person but there are definitely times when the heat gets me down and a headache comes on from the oppression of it all. But if I spend most of the day out there I will typically acclimate and be set for the day and plan to just stink to high heaven by the end of it all. I walked around the garden a few days ago and took a bunch of…
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Life Lately | May 2018
+In My Head We just had a great long weekend with all of my family down to visit. It’s been a long time since we’ve had both my parents and then Curtis, Stephanie, Zoe, and Grayson all over at the same time. Having a three day weekend made it worthwhile to have everyone down. Often if we try to cram everything into a typical weekend it feels too rushed and there’s not enough time to enjoy everyone. This weekend we had plenty of time to go to the splash pad, the plant nursery, plenty of time playing in the kid pool, running around the yard, and loads of other things!…
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Flood Number One Billion and Five
(Ahh, sweet rain! What a relief—right???) One would think that after a month or so of no rain that a few hours of rain would be a needed respite. And it was when it all started. At this point in the nearly six years (at the end of June) that we’ve been here the number of times we’ve had flooding issues has continued to grow. Frankly, sometimes I dream of a drought—yes, tempting to wish for a drought but that also has its own terrible consequences. How about some balance, Mother Nature? Or maybe we’re just screwed because we’ve effed the climate so much this is our new weather pattern?…
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Feral Bees Found Our Hive
A little over a week ago Forest and I were out on the front porch to send off Chris as he left for field work. It was right after dinner, nearing 6pm and the sun comes over the driveway rather harshly at that time during this season. In the glow of that hour, we noticed a huge ball of insects flying, backlit by the sun. We paused to look at them for a second and Chris started to say something about them, literally made it three or four words in an attempt to say one thing before switching, and then getting really excited to say that they were bees! We…