Jonathan Dickinson State Park

 

 

 



A little beauty in the jungle

I was out riding my bike on the Old Dixie Highway
when the circus train  came through the park!

This past week was my first experience at a Florida state park, and I loved it.  The rangers and volunteers were happy and helpful.  The park was really clean.  The trails were well maintained and a good mix of old pavement 




The property was an army post during WWII and many
of the old buildings are still there. Even one
of the ranger residences is an old army building.

(the old Dixie highway came through the park property and is now part of a bike trail), hard packed ground, and sand including sugar sand (for walking your bike through). 

One of the sandy trails

I hiked, biked, and of course there was that paddle down the river.  A great week of geocaching and being with friends old and new.  Would love to come back to this park but I will have to remember to make reservations well in advance as it stays full in the winter and for good reason.

An uninvited guest





Caching in Florida

First step:  sign the log

So when I drove into Florida I really didn't have a plan for where to go or what to do.  After a brief visit to St. Augustine and a beautiful day at Merrit Island admiring the wildlife, I thought "why not go to the cache event in Hobe Sound?"  And so I did.

My friends John and Dana from Newnan, GA were coming down for the event.  And they had a reservation at the state park where the event was to be held.  I did not.  And the park was full!  But I did find a nice spot in a snowbird park about 5 miles away (and closer to the beach) so I got lucky. 

Can you figure out the final coordinates?

And now I'm tired.  We cached every day, rain or shine, from Wednesday thru Tuesday.  John likes to hike out to the hard terrains so I went along with him while Dana enjoyed the quiet time in their camper to catch up on reading.  You know me, I loved the hiking.  I think I saw at least one snake every day, but luckily they saw me first and headed off in the other direction. 



Nice wide paths but a real workout to hike in sugar sand

 

Some of the trails were not so wide open

Group photo

There I am up front in the black T shirt

The week was filled with events and gatherings.  The paddle trip on the Loxahatchee was one of them, but we also did some park clean up, gathered for pizza and raffle drawings, and capped it off with a group picture at the lookout tower.  Seems like there were around 300 of us all total, so it was a great time.  Met lots of new cachers and had some good times.  Lots of folks were talking about the next big deal here in Florida which will be in Lakeland around Memorial Day.  At this point I don't plan to be in another state by then, but then you know me and plans.  But all in all, I am leaving this part of Florida feeling very satisfied (and a little sore from all the biking and hiking and paddling). 

Paddle - Pa - Looza!!

 

 

 

Wow!  I can't believe it's been over 3 months since my last paddle.  Finally ready to get the Sea Eagle out and hit the river.  This time it was the Loxahatchee in Palm Beach County Florida.  A group of 45 geocachers met up on a brisk and cool morning to hit the water and paddle from Riverbend Park to Jonathon Dickinson State Park for a total of 9 miles.

Our route

shooting the dam

  Along the way there were 2 dams, one of which I was able to "shoot" but the other had to be portaged.  Not a problem since we wanted to get out there and go find a cache anyway.  There were also 4 other places in the river where we had to portage over downed trees and just as many places where we had to do 

Doing the Limbo

"the limbo" to slide under some trees that were down but not laying right on the water.  Our lunch stop was at the home of Trapper Nelson, a rather excentric character who once lived on the river and was much loved by several movies stars in the 60s and 70s.  After lunch we paddled out into the wider part of the river where we say an osprey on her nest and where a manatee swam under my kayak.  The day had started out cool in the low 60s but as the day went on the temps rose and the water was really warm.  We stopped for a couple more caches, but after having started around 9:00 am I was happy to just get to the take out at the state park. 

No, didn't see any gators today

My group was the first out and we made it in by 2:15.  I was fortunate to be out front which meant I wasn't caught up in the big groups that took a longer time with the portages.  My companions were a father who is in the Army and stationed in Alaska who was in Florida visiting his teenaged son.  They made terrific team mates and it was an extra bonus for me to watch a father/son outing that showed off a really positive relationship.  Also it was nice to have a little help with the portages. 
Since their car was back at the put in park I offered to shuttle them back as a thank you for letting me be in their group.  It was a perfect day on the water and got the geocaching weekend off to a great start.

Here's a link to a youtube video made by a local.  It really shows the beauty of the trip.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGw_fv8dqPY

Seeking Zora

Ok, nerd time here.  You know just because I retired from teaching English and history doesn't mean I can just drop it, don't you?  When I realized I was in south Florida recently, I just had to check and see if I was close to the hometown of Zora Neale Hurston.  And well, it was a little over an hours drive, but I found her.  Why?  you ask.  Well, because of all the books I have taught over the years, Ms. Hurston's book Their Eyes Were Watching God has one of the best/truest lines ever written. 

The bricked lane that leads to graveside

Close up of the entrance gates at her graveside

And her life was so up and down.  She was a well known writer during the Harlem Renaissance of the 20s and 30s.  She traveled to the Carribean to do research much like Margaret Mead, but she received little recognition at the time for her work.  In fact, by the 1950s she was broke, divorced, and working as  a housemaid.  When she died friends had to take up a collection for her funeral and for years her grave was unmarked just as her books fell into the unread category.  That is until a grad student named Alice Walker rediscovered her work and as Ms. Walker's work gained her fame she used her money and influence to give Ms. Hurston a proper gravesite and helped to bring her work back to prominence.  Today, if you visit Fort Pierce, FL you can follow the Zora Neale Hurston trail that ends at her gravesite and gives you glimpses into her life along the way.  So if you haven't read her work yet, you really are missing out on some good literature.

“Two things everybody's got tuh do fuh theyselves. They got tuh go tuh God, and they got tuh find out about livin' fuh theyselves.”   Zora Neale Hurston Their Eyes Were Watching God

 

Thinking of Will

In the last year or so I've reconnected with and enjoyed a lot of time visiting my cousin Madeline Ruth and her family in the Glasgow, KY area.  One of my "chores" while I'm there is to entertain the boys:  Lane, the trickster who loves to explore (especially in my camper), my geocaching buddy John Thomas, and Will, the master birder.  To be more exact, Will loves bird nests.  He will spend hours studying a nest high up in a tree until he finds a way to get it down and into his collection.  Now I'm a bit of a birdwatcher myself but not into collecting the nests.  But Will, if you're reading this post, I do hope you enjoy seeing the wonderful birds of Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge!

 A pair of northern pintails



Tri Colored Heron

A sly gator trying to sneak up on lunch



A manatee dragging a marker buoy



A pair of Roseate Spoonbills. 



Snowy egrets on a windy day



This pair of wood storks are a rare sighting

Seeing Pink!

A pair of pintails greeted me early on my drive.

No, sorry, this post is not about breast cancer awareness although every where I go lately they are swathing some bridge or building in pink this month.  And I do like it.  But the pink I have been seeking for just over a year now is a bird, of course.  The roseate spoonbill to be exact.  In fact, it is the only true pink plumaged bird in North America unless a rogue scarlet ibis happens to stray a little further north than usual and mates with a white ibis somewhere in south Florida or Louisiana.  And I will keep an eye out for that!

But I had heard that there was a population of my sought after treasure in the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge so while I am so close I thought I'd go and have a look.  If you are ever in the area I strongly suggest you do the same.  The refuge is on land that was once part of the old Kennedy Space Center.  I had to leave my rv parked at the visitor center and drive my car through the refuge but it was worth the work of unhooking and hooking back up.  I spent most of the day there and would have stayed longer had I not wanted to get on down a bit more south before dark. 

Tri colored Heron is not interested in photography

Snowy egrets having a bad hair day

The wildlife drive is 7 miles long and there is a $5 charge for entering, but it was worth every cent.  And while I saw a lot of birds there and even a couple of gators, there were no roseate spoonbills to be found.  The volunteer at the center had mentioned some sightings near the manatee viewing area so next I went there and enjoyed watching the ungangly aquatics of one manatee in particular who was dragging a tracking buoy.  But still no pink.  And the day was getting late.

Finally I took the Biolab Road which I had been warned was gravel and had a lot of potholes.  The warnings were true.  I was barely able to go over 10-15 mph making the 4 mile stretch seem to go on forever.  Finally, off in the distance, as a cloud of white feathers filled the sky I spied a bit of pink.  Then, around the next corner, there they were.  I finally saw Mr. and Mrs. Spoonbill looking quite rosey and I believe nesting.  Up close they do look a bit ungangly with their large spoon-shaped beaks, but the beautiful pink feathers make up for that all around. 

Mr. and Mrs. Wood stork stand against the wind

Finally, as I neared the end of the road I was able to get a quick picture of the elusive wood stork which is also tricky to find.  So the day was full of great discoveries and even added quite a few birds to my list.  But I'm afraid I didn't leave myself time to visit the astronaut museum.  Oh well, next time.

Duck Hunting

Duck hunting is kind of a legacy in my Hickerson family although I can say I have never sat crouched in a cold, wet blind waiting for the birds to fly.  But the gray, rainy weather of this day made me think of duck season so I thought it was appropriate to take a drive up to Savannah National Wildlife Refuge to see some ducks. 

The first thing you need to understand is that although Savannah is in its name, the refuge is in South Carolina.  Still, it was only a little over an hour's drive from my campsite.  The wildlife loop drive was actually 4 miles through some really cool, deep south scenery like this which with the rain made for an interesting drive.  Actually the rain held off for most of my drive through the refuge.  Even though it was on the chilly side there were several other folks out with their spotting scopes hunting for the elusive wood stork that is said to prefer this habitat.  I never saw him.

But I did see coots. 

And some egrets.

This pair of buffleheads swam by quickly. 

A Little Blue Heron posed near the road for me.

I even saw my old friend the Anhinga doing some fishing here. 









Near the entrance I met a couple who are work camping at one the state historic sites in Darien.  They swear that every year when they come here they see a great horned owl in this tree, but he was AWOL today.  Just my luck.  Still, it was a good way to spend an otherwise yucky day.

If It's Free It's For Me

So early on a beautiful albeit somewhat foggy Florida morning I headed out of St. Augustine on A1A.  Once you get out of the city the views are gorgeous.  And just as I was seeing the last of the city in my rear view mirror I saw a sign for Fort Matanzas National Historic Site. 


Well, that's one I never heard about.  So I stopped.  Turns out that this was a Spanish fort started in the early 1700s.  And when the British showed up and tried to take it away from them, well, they couldn't.  In fact, they did so badly it was more of a slaughter than a battle, hence the name which means massacre.  After a brief film in the visitor center I moved outside to the dock to wait for my ferry over to the fort. 

While waiting on the dock I saw a local fisherman feed a fish to a big brown pelican while an osprey watched from the top of a nearby pine.

  The osprey swept down and grabbed his lunch right out of the main river current but he was too fast for me to get on film.  Just about the same time a dolphin jumped up and thrilled us.  Sorry I missed both shots.

 

When we arrived at the fort we were met by a red-headed Spanish sailor named Kevin.  He was very impressive and managed to keep the attention of some otherwise disinterested young boys from Australia.

After returning to the mainland I walked the nature trail in hopes of seeing a little more of the local denizens with no luck.  Did find this old marker in the woods although no one really knows exactly where the actual massacre took place. 

All in all a great way to spend the morning.  Oh, and the total cost was $0000.  What a bargain!

Spending an Inside Day

 

 

Since the weather was wet and rainy it seemed like a good time to check out a museum.  I had seen the Mighty 8th Air Force Museum from the interstate a few times and never seemed to hit it just right, kind of like the Submariners Museum.  But today was different.  I actually made a deliberate trip to get there.  The admission is $10 but I got a buck off for being old.  Hey, I take what I can get.  Now, as a history teacher and a WWII buff, I was aware of some of the history for the 8th, but I sure learned a lot more.  Of course there was a section dedicated to Hap Arnold and his support of the women pilots of WWII.  But there was also a complete B26 in the hangar, lots of info on pilots who were shot down and with the help of the underground were able to survive and return to England where the 8th was based.  My dear friend Margaret Salm was assigned to a communications unit in England that supported the pilots of the 8th in 1943 and 1944.  Jimmy Stewart, yes the Hollywood one, was also a pilot in the 8th.  And to think that all that history began with a little National Guard unit in Pooler, GA.  Enjoy the pix!!

Humble Beginnings...

 

 

There were quite a few personal items in the showcases.  Pilots from all over the country who once flew for the Mighty 8th have sent their artifacts to be preserved here.

 Outside in the courtyard was a chapel much like the ones found in the English countryside during the war.