My Favorite Florida Things – Wilderness

Before I moved to Florida it meant only two things to me: beaches and theme parks. While we have both in abundance here they don’t make my list of things I will miss when I’m gone. To be fair, I have had some good times on beaches, but given a choice I’ll head to the mountains. I even have some pleasant memories from theme parks. [You haven't seen "It's a Small World" until you've seen it with a five-year-old.] By and large though they mean paying lots of money to be in big crowds — two things I detest.

After I moved to Florida I learned that there is a whole other world away from beaches and theme parks [and usually, but not always, away from crowds]. This other world includes natural springs, rivers, and hiking trails. For example, Wekiwa Springs State Park is just a few miles north of Orlando and has a gorgeous swimming area at the springs. There are miles of hiking trails and canoeing on the Wekiva River. Outside the park, the adjacent Rock Springs provides a wonderful canoeing experience too.

A little further north is Blue Spring State Park, best known as a Manatee refuge. The waterways are closed to swimmers and boaters from mid-November through March each year as the Manatees winter in the 73°F water.

There are something in the neighborhood of 150 state parks and historic sites that run the gamut from springs and rivers to beaches to coral reef. [John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park was the first undersea park in the U.S.] And we have a few national parks and preserves too. I’ve barely scratched the surface in exploring all these places and when I come back to visit these are what I’ll be looking for.

My Favorite Florida Things – Tai Chi

As I prepare to uproot myself I am acutely aware that there are some things about central Florida that I will miss a lot. One of them is my Tai Chi class. I’ve been studying with Master Chang for eight years and my classmates are wonderful people. There was much sadness when I told them I will be leaving in a few weeks. They want to have some kind of celebration before I go. [As a naturally shy person, I was a little tempted to just slip away without saying anything....]

Anyway, I figure I’ll be able to find another group to study with whenever I get resettled. One of the first things Master Chang said to me though after I told him I am leaving is that he wants me to teach Tai Chi in my new home. [He has talked to me before about how he wants his traditions to continue here in central Florida and that would mean that I and some of the other students would be taking over the teaching.]

“Okay,” I said, “I’ll try teaching it.”

“No,” he told me, “you will teach.”

“I will teach Tai Chi,” I agreed.

“And some day you will bring your students here to visit.”

Won’t that be a hell of a field trip?!?

Master Chang

Limpkins

So there I was, right in the middle of one of our final exams. Another teacher gave me a chance to take a little break and when I returned I saw this family standing outside the door.

Limpkins at the door

I was SO glad I recently resumed carrying my camera around. For a moment they appeared to be looking in on my students, no doubt wondering what the heck they were up to. Or maybe they were just early to line up for lunch….

Limpkin kids

I had to look online to find out what they are. I have never seen limpkins on campus before — I’m not sure I’ve seen them anywhere before.

Color me grinning! Okay, chickies. Move along now. Nothing to see here….

Driven

It’s National Poetry Month and here is a new poem that I turned into this little multimedia project.

Drinking Problem

Most mornings I stop at a 7-11 and get a cup of coffee on my way to work. I take my own mug — refills are cheaper than buying coffee and a cup. Plus it’s more environmentally friendly [and I don't like drinking from Styrofoam, but that's another story]. I think they started that because they were selling insulated cups [which, of course, are more expensive than Styrofoam but cheaper in the long run if you reuse them]. They give you the refill price if you bring in any cup though, even if you’re reusing one of the Styrofoam cups.

I remember when fast food restaurants started moving their soda fountains out where customers could get their own drinks. Some people complained that service was already terrible and now we had to serve ourselves? I liked it though. I could put a shot of Sprite in my Coke. I didn’t have to ask to have a drink replaced because just ten seconds before the drone at the counter filled the cup with ice I told them I wanted mine with no ice. One place tried to charge a quarter for refills even after the drinks were self-serve. Yeah, right!

Anyway, a while back I was in one of these places and there were two older couples at a nearby table. I overheard one of the men say, “Drink refills are free, right? We should have gotten just one and shared it.” These people looked well-off financially so I don’t know whether he was the cheapest bastard you’d ever want to meet or if he was just making a joke. In either case, I don’t recall anyone laughing.

A few weeks ago a fast food place near my house posted this on their doors:

I didn’t ask, but apparently people were bringing in old cups, refilling them, and then leaving. [I suppose they could have been coming in for another meal and trying to reuse an old cup for free. But would stones that big fit through the door?] Hey, I know these are tough financial times but still… screwing a burger joint out of the price of a drink seems pretty drastic to me.

And then, just a few days ago when I was leaving the 7-11 I saw a man approaching the entrance. This store is in an old neighborhood and it’s not unusual for homeless people to be around there. This guy did not look well-off. When he got to the front door I saw him reach into the trashcan, remove a cup, discard the lid and remaining contents, and take it inside. And that put the refill in a completely different light for me.

Saturday in the Park

Most Saturday mornings for about the last seven years I have started my day with a Tai Chi class in the local Central Park. One of my favorite things is to watch the light change as the sun rises. [Class is from 7:30 - 9:30] I often think that I need to take my camera with me to share some of the glory.

So here is the view across the park just before class started this weekend.

And here it is about 45 minutes later.

And then about an hour after that.

If you look closely you might see there are two fountains in the park. This one.

Here’s a closer look.

The other fountain isn’t as interesting.

At the other end of the park is a rose garden where I saw this

and this

and this

and this

All things considered, not a bad way to start the day.

Candid Camera

I have discovered one of the great annoyances joys of travelling with friends is that they can take candid photos of those little moments you might otherwise forget.

Warning: Some of you* will be sorry if you CLICK HERE.

*including me

Vistas

Montana is Big Sky country. Many of the views I encountered on my recent trip were just too vast for the widest angle lens I had. For example, as much as I like my shot of Hidden Lake it is a fraction of this:

And there just didn’t seem to be any place to stand where I could really show the cirque AND Iceberg Lake like this:

Neither of these is very good video and every photo/video I took pales in comparison to actually standing there [but that's sort of the point of going, isn't it?].

Getting My Goat… and more

Mountain goats on the trail to Hidden Lake Overlook:

A marmot on the Highline trail:

Glacier in a Can

Here are some of the details of my recent trip to Glacier National Park — stuff you don’t care about. But since I haven’t really done anything worth writing about since my return I may as well get another post [or two?] out of it. [I did have a dream a couple nights ago in which I was wearing my pants inside-out. I have no idea whether that means anything and it certainly doesn't warrant a post.]

So, we flew into Calgary because it was cheaper — as near as I can recall it was about $150 less [per person] than flying directly into Montana for the dates we needed to travel. I don’t think I would go that way again though. It added a few hours of driving at each end of the trip, time I would rather have spent hiking or something. The drive from Calgary was pretty boring — very flat, mountains sometimes visible to the west, nothing but farms to the east — pretty, but boring.

On Highway 2 south of Calgary

We stayed one night in Waterton Lakes National Park in Alberta before crossing into the USA for Glacier National Park. The most striking thing about Waterton was that the campground was totally riddled with ground squirrel burrows and there were lots of deer that were obviously used to people. Most people respected them as wild animals. I saw a few that tried to feed them, pose with them, or allowed their children to chase them. People are idiots. [That's why I hate people.]

Overall, I wasn’t all that impressed with Waterton. [To be fair, we didn't spend enough time there to really explore it.] It was kind of cool though to take the Chief Mountain Highway to the U.S. border. We caught a glimpse of a grizzly bear just a few feet from the road. But it wasn’t safe to stop at that point on the road so I have no photos. Just minutes prior to that we had passed two people on bicycles and I wish I could have seen their faces when they pedaled past!

Canadian border marker

We had reservations for two nights on the West Glacier side of the park and then three nights on the East Glacier side of the park. We chose the only campgrounds in the park that took reservations [because wouldn't it suck to travel all that way and then have to scramble for a place to stay?] and one night [the first of our three on the east side] at a KOA. If I go again, I’d rather stay in one place. The free shuttle bus system inside the park is pretty good [as long as you remain a little flexible in your schedule] and there are outside shuttle companies that go places the park shuttles don’t. Besides, private vehicles are allowed almost everywhere except that large vehicles [like our RV] are prohibited on parts of the Going to the Sun Road. Also, the KOA in St. Mary is big and ugly and the staff was rude.

Here’s something you’re not likely to see a lot of in Glacier National Park: glaciers. Most of them have melted away completely and those that are still there are rapidly shrinking. But they leave behind some gorgeous topography. Here’s something I saw a lot of in GNP: wildlife! We saw marmots, deer, mountain goats, and longhorn sheep [oh, and more ground squirrels -- those things are everywhere!] in close proximity to people on more than one trail. We heard reports of sightings of bear, elk, and wolves — all of which I’d have liked to have seen. One of the trails we hiked had been closed a couple days prior to our hike due to bear activity. The Park website has extensive lists of plants and animals and where you might spot them.

One of the reasons we traveled north was to get a break from the oppressive heat of a central Florida summer. Turns out we landed in a heat wave — daytime high temps in the 80s every day! At least it was cooler in the evenings, but the weather did curtail my activity a little. [Not to mention that we packed cold-weather clothing that was totally useless.] I bailed out on our first big hike and took an easy day the next day because the heat and the altitude [more than 1800 feet elevation gain over about 3.3 miles] just sucked all the energy out of me. To be fair, the description of the trail [the Apgar Outlook trail] did explain that due to a loss of foliage to a fire the trail is in full sun pretty much the whole way. Plus I could be in better shape. My friends both continued on to the summit, but one of them took it easy the next day as well.

Fortuitously, the rest of my hikes I weathered much better and there is a lot to see even on easy hikes. In fact, that Hidden Lake Overlook is just 1.5 miles [and only 460 feet of elevation gain] from one of the visitor centers. Even with some of the trail still covered in snow as it was [in late July!] it was well worth the effort. [If you make the trek in flip-flops or high heels -- as some people do, believe it or not -- you will be the source of derision to the better-prepared hikers. Probably not to your face though. We'll just shake our heads in bewilderment and laugh at you behind your back. But if that's how you want to enjoy your travels, more power to you, I guess...]

Overlooking Hidden Lake

For sheer panoramic beauty I loved the first one-third or so of the Highline Trail. Acrophobes won’t be comfortable with the sheer 1000 foot drops at the edge of some parts of the trail though. We hiked the whole 11 miles [it has a shuttle stop at each end] but that first part was by far the best.

Watch your step on the Highline Trail

The only other longish hike I did was to Iceberg Lake — 4.8 miles each way with 1200 foot elevation gain. The first half mile is pretty steep but the rest pretty gentle. We almost skipped this hike because it had been raining since the night before and there was thunder and lightning even as we ate breakfast. We got a really lucky break though [because, honestly it was a rather foolish decision] when the rain stopped shortly after we set out. Three hours later we were sitting in the sun next to icebergs.

Iceberg Lake

Would I go again? Yes. There are over 700 miles of trails and I covered a small fraction of that. The park rangers and volunteers were all friendly and ready to help and answer questions. The wildlife viewing was terrific. The only drawback… there’s still so much else in the world I want to see….