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| -rw-r--r-- | published/2018-03-24_old-school.txt | 35 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | published/2018-03-28_forest.txt | 45 |
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diff --git a/published/2018-03-24_old-school.txt b/published/2018-03-24_old-school.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6f71fda --- /dev/null +++ b/published/2018-03-24_old-school.txt @@ -0,0 +1,35 @@ +There are a handful of places on the planet where the earth has created what are known as coastal dune lakes, fresh water lakes located within two miles of the ocean. They occur in Australia, Madagascar, New Zealand, South Carolina and here in Florida, more specifically, in Walton County. There were a handful of dune lakes at [Topsail][1] and a couple more at our next destination, Grayton State Park. + +<img src="images/2018/2018-03-25_142317_grayton-beach-st-park.jpg" id="image-1266" class="picwide" /> + +These lakes are more than 10,000 years old, and play an important role in making this coastline look the way it looks. Unlike most dunes, these areas have pretty good soil. When it rains hard the lakes fill and the water escapes through what's known as an outfall, which is where the lake overwhelms the berm that separates it from the sea. When that happens fresh water floods out over the dunes, delivering nutrients, along with plants and animals that would otherwise not be on dunes. + +The lakes are also individually disinct, with varying levels of salinity and different specifies of life in each one. Probably the most popular of the lakes, from what I could tell, is here in Grayton, known as Western Lake. + +<img src="images/2018/2018-03-25_142654_grayton-beach-st-park.jpg" id="image-1267" class="picwide" /> + +We were again, somehow, able to get in on some cancellations and spent four days wandering the lakeside and seashore of Grayton State Park. This time there was no RV Park, no pool and the people were mostly like us. One morning some kids from another site wandered over and started playing with our kids. Eventually the parents came by to check on their children and we got to talking. The mom told me about how she let her son, who was seven, wander wherever he wanted. He'd walked to the beach (about a mile) the day before. + +I was impressed because I often feel like we're the only people who let our kids do that sort of thing. But then the woman expressed my one great fear, that some meddling adult would end up calling the cops or otherwise harrassing our kids about doing their own thing. It's never actually happened, but I'm constantly worried about it given the average American's inability to mind their own damn business. Neither of us had any solution, but it was at least comforting to know that other parents have the same concerns. + +Eventually the other family had to go (our kids have an unfortunate knack for making friends with kids that are leaving that day). + +Not ten minutes later some woman came up to Corrinne talking about some kids she had seen "just walking down by the water" and how "someone should be watching them." Luckily for that woman she talked to Corrinne who shrugged and politely turned away. I'm not nearly as polite. + +Another blog I read regularly writes quite a bit about this meddling phenomena in other contexts and has suggested reviving the [Anti-Poke-Nose society][2] in response to people who can't seem to stop from poking their noses in other people's business. I'd love join. And seriously world, if no one's bleeding, just stay the hell out of my kids' business. + +Free ranging children wasn't the only old school thing we did at Grayton. One day we even managed to go super old school and spend all day in the sun, like I did growing up, a good six hours of sunshine, back when we weren't scared of the sun. We still aren't. + +<img src="images/2018/2018-03-24_123953_grayton-beach-st-park.jpg" id="image-1260" class="picwide" /> + +There were plenty of sandcastles built, water fights had, and games of freeze tag played. And yes, we all got a little bit of a sunburn, but I'm pretty sure we'll live. And that night, everyone, even me, was asleep before the sky had even gone dark. + +<img src="images/2018/2018-03-25_105857_grayton-beach-st-park.jpg" id="image-1265" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2018/2018-03-25_105301_grayton-beach-st-park.jpg" id="image-1264" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2018/2018-03-24_124021_grayton-beach-st-park.jpg" id="image-1261" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2018/2018-03-23_151151_grayton-beach-st-park.jpg" id="image-1258" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2018/2018-03-24_130858_grayton-beach-st-park.jpg" id="image-1263" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2018/2018-03-23_151106_grayton-beach-st-park.jpg" id="image-1257" class="picwide caption" /> + +[1]: /jrnl/2018/03/stone-crabs +[2]: https://www.flickr.com/photos/aemays/5547187616/ diff --git a/published/2018-03-28_forest.txt b/published/2018-03-28_forest.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..77c5919 --- /dev/null +++ b/published/2018-03-28_forest.txt @@ -0,0 +1,45 @@ +When we planned out this trip back through the Gulf we made reservations at a bunch of places we knew we wanted to go but wouldn't be able to just show up and find anywhere to camp. In between those places though we left a month to wander around and see what we found. The first stop in our wander was a free campground on East Bay, which is part of Pensacola Bay. + +<img src="images/2018/2018-03-03_174415_escabia.jpg" id="image-1230" class="picwide" /> + +I've seen more than a few full time RVers complaining on the internet that there's no free camping in Florida or the Gulf Coast in general. I can't decide if I should correct this ignorance or not. I'm going to take the middle ground and say there's plenty of free camping all along the Gulf Coast you, but you do have to know where to look. We've found great free camping in Texas, Louisiana, Alabama and Florida. It's harder to find, that's true, but it's definitely there. And while I'm on the subject, the whole free camping thing is not, at least for us, really about being free. That is nice, but what free camping almost always means is fewer people and wilder places, which is the main appeal for us. + +<img src="images/2018/2018-03-02_160656_escabia.jpg" id="image-1228" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2018/2018-03-02_162307_escabia.jpg" id="image-1229" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2018/2018-03-01_143849_escabia.jpg" id="image-1227" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2018/2018-03-13_133929_escabia.jpg" id="image-1233" class="picwide" /> + +The place we stayed on the shore of East Bay is a small campground at the end of a dusty dirt road made of dried Florida red clay. The rains turned it to mud, but not so bad we couldn't get in and out. Follow the road long enough through the pine flats, bayous and marshes and you'll find a little campground on the bay. There's only 12 sites and a crazy online reservation system that ensure most of them will be unoccupied at any given time (despite being "full" if you look online)[^1]. We stayed a total of 10 nights there in two separate trips and never saw the place full. . + +So there is free camping in Florida, plenty of it in fact, you just have to find it. That said, this place is probably somewhat unique. It's a little slice of wild Florida that doesn't seem like it's changed much since the Choctaw were living here a few hundred years ago. + +<img src="images/2018/2018-03-13_133709_escabia.jpg" id="image-1232" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2018/2018-03-13_135006_escabia.jpg" id="image-1234" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2018/2018-03-13_104530_escabia.jpg" id="image-1231" class="picwide caption" /> + +It was nice to get back to something a little wilder. I love the south, and it does have some very wild spots, but they're fewer and further between than the west. East Bay felt wilder than any place we'd been in a long time, probably since Rutherford Beach. + +We first visited the area a week earlier on our way to Fort Pickens. The day we arrived they were doing a controlled burn in the pine flats (our neighbor told me there's a pine around here that only germinates with fire, which could be the reason). The air was filled with smoke and ash rained down on us all afternoon which made the place feel even wilder. That night we had a campfire, but real fire was beyond our camp in the woods. For the most part it was a steady red glow through the trees, but occasionally a dead palm would suddenly bursting into flame with a great crashing roar. + +When we came back there were no nearby fires. The first couple days we were there it rained off and on most of the day. The cloud cover never broke. Then one afternoon the sun finally came out and the whole campground turned out. I heard the squeak of Vanagon doors and the zipper of tents being thrown open and pretty soon folding chairs were pulled out to the shoreline, shirts came off and we all sort of sat in silence and enjoyed the sunshine. We do this sort of thing all the time -- just sit and do nothing -- so I think nothing of it until we get to a campground where people are always off seeing the sights, fishing, doing stuff and all the sudden I feel conspicuous in my doing nothingness. I knew I had found my people when I noticed that everyone here was just sitting, doing nothing, staring out at the sea. There was something about the place that seemed to inspire you to just sit and think. Perhaps it was the droop of the Spanish Moss, or the glaring Florida sun, or the dead oaks along the shore, limbs reaching out like gnarled fingers clawing at the sky. Whatever the case, it was an excellent place to simply sit and feel the warmth of the sun. Or have a water fight. + +<img src="images/2018/2018-03-15_133349_escabia.jpg" id="image-1235" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2018/2018-03-17_132753_escabia.jpg" id="image-1237" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2018/2018-03-17_134952_escabia.jpg" id="image-1238" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2018/2018-03-17_135008_escabia.jpg" id="image-1239" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2018/2018-03-17_135039_escabia.jpg" id="image-1240" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2018/2018-03-17_135042_escabia.jpg" id="image-1241" class="picwide" /> + +You had to snatch that sun though. The rain was off and on all week. Mornings started off looking like rain, but by 10 it'd be sunny, which would last until around 2PM, at which point clouds would roll in, the wind would kick up and it would feel like a squall was coming, but then nothing ever made it all the way across the bay and by sundown it was clear enough to watch the sunset. + +A couple of mornings a strange warm fog covered the bay, just before dawn the world looked flat and blurred, sea and sky become one and suffused with a blue glow. + +<img src="images/2018/2018-03-17_060509_escabia.jpg" id="image-1236" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2018/2018-03-18_063002_escabia.jpg" id="image-1243" class="picwide" /> + +The gloom burned off quickly once the sun was up and the last few days we were there the weather was perfect, even if the fish weren't biting. + +<img src="images/2018/2018-03-17_140330_escabia.jpg" id="image-1242" class="picwide" /> +<img src="images/2018/2018-03-19_174839_escabia.jpg" id="image-1244" class="picwide" /> + +[^1]: While we were there the online system was changed a bit and now you're supposed to call when you arrive or you forfeit your reservations and the site is available to walk ups. This seemed to be only about half implemented and unevenly enforced, but they're trying anyway. |