The Adventures of T&A

Andrew and I started our morning with a canoe trip up the flooded road out to where the river was running to wash up in the cold water.  Colbert, Don, Andrew and I went into town to do some “Urban Foraging”, a.k.a. dumpster diving.  On the way into town, we saw a bag of clothes that someone had lost on the side of the road.  Colbert stopped and picked it up for cleaning rags (cleaning up the environment).  We stopped behind a local grocery store to see what was there.  We were shocked to see lots of food that was still edible.  Bags of salad greens, a broken ten pound bag of potatoes, turnips with greens, collard greens, tomatoes, eggplants, about 10 dozen eggs with a few broken in each container, lots of stuff.  We took a couple of boxes into the truck.  It’s hard to believe that people are going hungery in this country when so much food is wasted!  Colbert tossed the clothing he had found that would not make good cleaning rags into the dumpster (properly disposing of unwanted materials).  But we weren’t done yet.  Our next stop it to collect some lumber from packing crates.  The owner was glad to see Colbert, this saved him from paying his guys to break down the crates and dispose of the wood.  Colbert collects this wood and other found materials for his different building projects (recycling).  Well, the truck was full, so we headed back to camp.  We had enough good food to make a huge salad and a big pot of vegetable soup for dinner.  Another night of discussing politics, religions and solving all the problems of the world… over a beer.

We had a pretty lazy first day at Colbert’s place.  Everyone had their own projects they were working on.  Colbert took me and Andrew up the river to his other cabin he’s been working on for years only accessible by boat.  It’s up on stilts about 5 feet off the ground (because of the flooding) and Colbert has insisted on doing all the work himself.  It has a huge porch around two sides of the cabin.  The cabin is functional and looks a lot like the first cabin on the inside, but the porch is still under construction.  Colbert has fashioned two “suspension bridges” out of found materials.  Andrew and I both walked out across them, but it was pretty scary.  The river is deep and fast at that point!  We had a wild game dinner of leftover otter chili, green beans with bear meat and an apple cobbler cooked in a cast iron Dutch oven for dessert.  

We set an alarm to get out early before the hunters got started.  We stopped at the Georgia Welcome Center at the state line and napped for another hour or so.  We had our coffee, tea and breakfast on the tailgate and then headed to see our friend Colbert Sturgeon in Valdosta.

I should take a minute to describe Colbert.  He’s a former financial analyst that has “retired” to a cabin he’s built himself on about 40 acres of low-lying land where the Little River floods seasonally (the water was way up when we were there).  He lives very close to the land: he has no electricity or plumbing, he tracks and traps raccoons, beavers, river otters and other game on his land to eat and to sell the pelts.  He’s a professional, licensed trapper.  He has taken classes from Tom Brown Jr’s Tracker School on tracking and survival living and has applied and practiced what he had learned.  So, to say he’s a very interesting character is an understatement.

I wanted some more “hands-on” experience for skinning animals.  I had seen it done on several occasions, on earlier trips to Colbert’s place and at Rivercane Rendezvous, but I hadn’t actually done it myself.   When we got to Colbert’s place we found a crowd.  James, Dee Dee and Tim from near Asheville, NC were down on their way to Tampa, Derrik from Anderson, SC, we knew from previous TAG Primitive Skills events was there, and Don, from Idaho, who Colbert has known for years.  As we got in, Andrew and I talked with Colbert to catch up for a while, some other folks had checked their traps and brought back a beautiful 4 ft river otter.  Colbert skinned him got the hide stretched to dry.  Andrew and I had to run into town to get some groceries and internet access at the local library (we had a hard drive crash earlier that was slowing down our website updates, among other things).  When we got back to camp around dark, there was otter chili on the stove.  Our friend Ann came over and we all sat around the fire and chatted.  Colbert enjoyed the “Gift from the Trail Gods”, the beer we rescued from the Blackwater River camp we cleaned up.

A chilly morning with a beautiful sunrise and birds singing.  Woodpeckers are everywhere.  We hiked out south to loop around past an old rock bridge and then back to our truck for lunch.  After lunch, we hiked out to see what the other campsites looked like at Rock Bluff, the ones with a porta-potty.  These are nice sites, high on a bluff overlooking the Apalachicola River.  We hiked back through the campgrounds and took a shower before heading out.  We left the park close to dark.  It was kind of funny that a little park we stopped at on a whim kept us busy for two days!  

We continue east to boondock near Lake City, Florida, in the Osceola National Forest, at the junction of  I-10 and I-75.  While driving along the forest service roads we noticed a lot of standing water.  Not a  good sign.  We’ve used this area to primitive camp before, but our usual sites could be flooded or inaccessible.  We found a campground (Ocean Pond Campground), but it was full, probably with hunters.  We finally found a dry spot to park for the night on one of the side roads.  It was a late night for us, we’ve been going from sunrise to sunset, sometimes in bed by 7:30 or 8pm.  

It was very windy last night at Three Rivers, but the wind has died down this morning.  We can see the sun beginning to turn the sky red-orange in the east. *POW* Huh?  What was that?  *POW* *POW* Gunshots?  Is there hunting close by?  *POW* *POW* *POW* *POW* *POW* Haven’t they killed that critter yet?  The gunfire continues. It seems that there must be a firing range somewhere nearby.  We heard lots of different guns being fired for the next two hours.  We have our breakfast and head back to Florida Caverns.  

At Florida Caverns State Park we find out that part of the caverns are flooded, so it’s a short tour. Andrew and I have both done wild caves (not public tours, but going in with your own gear) in the past.  We were surprised at the large number of formations they have for such a small cave.  We took a short walk around the park and headed to Torreya State Park next.

Torreya State Park is named for an extremely rare species of Torreya tree that only grows on the bluffs along the Apalachicola River.  A blight in the 1960’s nearly wiped this species of conifers out.  We toured the Gregory House, a plantation home that was built in 1849 and our tour guide told us several stories about feeling spiritual activities in the house.  Stories about curtains moving and toys being moved and foggy images showing up in photos that weren’t there when the pictures were taken.  We found out that the park also has some backpacking campsites available.  We haven’t been backpacking yet, so we register for a site and get our gear together.  There are two sites rather close (we don’t have the daylight for a long hike in), Rock Bluff is overlooking the Apalachicola River and Rock Creek is on a small creek leading into the river.  Both of these sites are not really “primitive” by our standards.  Rock Bluff has a porta-potty near the camp sites and both have a huge cache of firewood cut and prepared by the forest service.  We are not allowed to gather and burn downed wood here (understandable with rare endangered trees around), so we partake of the firewood and have a nice warm fire at Rock Creek campsite.  Once again, we have the place to ourselves.

A beautiful morning in the woods.  As we drove out this time the road was clear of water, but the surrounding areas were still quite wet.  We saw a picnic area on the Blackwater River that was completely underwater earlier.  We headed east on I-10 to Ponce de Leon Springs State Park.  This is a natural spring that, at some time in its’ past, has been partially dammed up to create a swimming hole fed with spring water.  There are different levels and steps leading into the water that is a beautiful clear spring green with little fishes swimming in it.  Cypress trees surround and are inside of this cute swimming hole.  It’s winter and no one is here, but it’s not hard to imagine this little park teeming with activity during the summer.  

We head next to Falling Waters State Park to see Florida’s highest waterfall.  The waterfall is actually dropping 70 feet into a sinkhole.  The park is riddled with sinkholes, we saw maybe 8 or 10 in the area of a few hundred feet.  This waterfall had lots of ferns and mosses growing along the sides of the sinkhole.  Once again, it’s winter, one of the coldest days we’ve had so far, and we have the park to ourselves.

Our next destination is Florida Caverns State Park for a night of camping.  OOPS!!  Florida Caverns Campground is flooded.  The nearest park with camping is Falling Waters (where we just came from) or Three Rivers State Park, 30 minutes east of here.  Since we are now limited on time, we decide to head to Three Rivers to camp for the night and then come back and see the caverns.  While looking at a state park guide, we saw Torreya State Park on our way that has a furnished plantation house from the 1800’s that is and open for tours.  This might be an interesting stop, so we add it to our list.

Three Rivers State Park has a nice big lake (Lake Seminole).  There are a few people here, but I’m sure summer is their big season.  The wind off the lake is very cold so we decide to eat out.  We haven’t really eaten out much on this trip, instead cooking on a two burner propane  stove on the tailgate.  Of the only three restaurants in town, Pappy Tom’s is a pizzeria, Parramore’s is catfish and seafood, and Dairy Queen we didn’t really consider a restaurant.  So we chose Parramore’s and had some really great catfish.  Now for a hot shower and a warm sleeping bag.

We’ve really enjoyed playing with all the critters, but we have to go.  Mike took us for a short tour of Daphne and Fairhope, AL.  We visited a beautiful Greek Orthodox church with lots of paintings and carvings.  We went into Fairhope and to a cute waterfront park with a public pier that was completely destroyed by the hurricanes.  Typical small-town America.  We hated to miss seeing Melissa, but after a BBQ lunch we head back east on I-10.  We stopped again at the site we cleaned up on Blackwater River.  The water had receded a bit, but was still way too high to canoe.  The road was still underwater, but not so high.  

A beautiful foggy morning on the river.  As we’re relaxing over breakfast, we notice helicopters flying in circles overhead.  As we left, we stopped at the Blackwater River State Park to dump the trash we collected and talk to the ranger for a minute.  He seemed to think that the river had not crested yet, it may be up for several more days and some of the roads may have had structural damage.  We took another way out of the area, changing course several times because of more flooding.  We also ran into an area they were doing a controled burn in the forest.  We finally found our way to the interstate, I-10 and headed for Mobile, AL on the Gulf coast.  We got to our friend’s house Mike and Melissa Andreason in Daphne, AL, near Mobile.  Melissa is out of town with the kids, so we visit with Mike and his mother.  Mike has quite a zoo at his place: several birds, including a cockatoo, an Amazon parrot and several cockatiels and a parakeet.  He also has a rabbit and three dogs, one belonging to his mother.  With so many animals, my allergies flared up and we couldn’t stay more than overnight.  

The sun is finally shining and we got our bikes out for a ride. We rode a few miles into the city of Grayton Beach to run a few errands, at a hardware store and a bike shop.  Our total ride was maybe ten miles.  We got back, packed up and stopped at the beach for lunch.  We found out our next stop- Ft Pickens State Park- is closed for camping due to hurricane damage.  Some areas were open for day use only, might be closed for the next couple of years for camping.  Ok, plan “B”.  We head a bit north to Blackwater River State Park and Blackwater River State Forest.  Here we plan to  boondock for the first time on our trip.  The road leading into Blackwater Creek State Park and State Forest (entrance right next door) was flooded as it crossed the Blackwater Creek.  The water level was at the bottom of the bridge.  We saw some locals going through it and saw we were able to judge how deep the water was.  We went through and into the State Forest to find our spot.  We found a nice spot overlooking the river.  On scouting the area, we found that some of the local “Bubbas” had partied here too.  An oddity we found was a hole dug, about three feet around and maybe three feet deep, lined with heavy plastic sheeting.  After thinking about what they could have used this for, one possibility came to me: They had created an earthen keg cooler, just add ice.  We collected four bags of garbage strewn all over the place and we found a stash of beer that we rescued for our good friend Colbert that we will be visiting soon.  We had a wonderful evening listening to the river run.

We slept well, our first night of camping.  The camper fan worked well to keep us cool, but I wish we could lose the gnats.  Andrew decided on the start of the New Year to shave off his goatee!  I liked his “beardel” (as his grandmother Evelyn calls it) better than the “sleek cheeks” look.  It was overcast and misty all day.  We did a little hiking around the Peninsula, along boardwalks overlooking salt marshes, but couldn’t see much with the fog.  We head west along the coast to Grayton Beach, I hope we have better weather there.

*TORNADO WARNING*
We were driving west toward Grayton Beach and noticed the clouds ahead were looking really dark and nasty.  We caught a local radio station that announced a tornado warning for the area we were heading for, Mexico Beach, FL.  The sky was much lighter behind us so we turned around and found a spot under an overpass and listened to the radio for updates.  The front finally moved on and we continued on our way.

The approach to Grayton Beach is lined with quaint little communities with a “Seaside” feeling.  Grayton Beach campground has several campers, more than we expected.  Many of their campsites were flooded.  It seems the weather system that gave us a couple days of fog left this area with a couple days of rain.  We found a site and drove into the beautiful town of Seaside to watch the sunset atop “Bud and Alley’s“, a restaurant/bar famous for their rooftop lounge.  We stopped at a glass blowers shop in the square.  They had some really nice work, but not in our current budget.  We took a late night walk on the beach, about a 1/2 mile walk from our campsite.