Big Bend of Florida Trip

Wed March 23 2011
I loaded up my van BEYOND and left St. Pete and driving north.
Stopped for a swim at City Park in Crystal River. Beautiful sun and refreshing water. Not too cold. Warmed in sun and drove to Cedar Key.
CI get a camp at Sunset RV Park. I get the last one, next to Basketball court. Kids played until truck backed over basketball well after dark. I was sad for the kids but happy for the silence. I drank a couple beers and made Porcini stuffed ravioli with clam sauce for dinner and girl scout cookies. Tasty! Then I enjoyed the very clean bathroom with hot shower not to bad for $20.

Thurs. March 24 2011
Made tea and drove to City Park and met Gale Lawrence, a nature writer from Vt. who winters in Cedar Key.
I bicycled around and attended free coffee lecture about the history of Cedar Key High School. It was closed in 1981 and student were bused 35 miles to Chiefland. Parents and students protested and petitioned and school was reinstated a yr later.

Homemade with cake with pecan coconut icing delish!
Biked to History Museum 1.5 miles. $2 some interesting displays of historical items and maps. Early railroad ran Cedar Key. It was an important port to Caribbean and Central and South America.

Also the local naturalist St. Clair Whitman’s house. Cool collection of shells in Cigar boxes. Also some preserved alligator and wild native cat skulls.

Rode to historic cemetery and out the marsh boardwalk. Cemetary had graves with lots of fake flowers and ceramic items and some were next to blooming azaleas. Such a contrast!

Biked all over and took lots of pics of fun and interesting houses.
Back to city Park went for a swim in knee-deep water. Not as nice as Crystal River but great view of the gulf.

Had an apple and beach showered. I was just leaving when I ran into Gale again. What coincidence! Mush be fate for us to meet twice in the same day upon arriving and as I was leaving.

Drove off island and over to a Shell Mound in the Lower Suwanee National Wildlife Refuge and took a hike. There is a nice small campround there. Wish I had stayed there! Was eating some nuts when Fish and Wild life officer came by. He told me about some back roads to Chiefland, FL and a remote campsite on Shired Island. There drive was wonderful lots of single lane dirt road thru the swamp. Beautiful flowers. Lots of wild irises. Huge purple. Butterflies everywhere. Fiddler crabs in the road. Trying to drive around them. One crab with a 2 inch claw is standing middle of road in front of my van challenging me! Come on sucka! I can take you! What a fierce crab! I carefully drive around him. You can’t mess with courage like that!

Drove thru Fowlers Bluff and past Manatee Springs. $6 so no swim. On to Chiefland and US 19 around to Old Town , FL I gassed up and drove to Suwanee and turned onto Mainline Rd. Single Lane dirt road through swamp. Sooo beautiful! Like the Fakahtchee Strand with half the road. Not enough room for two cars to place in places. Past 3 cars on mainline.

Out onto a two lane paved and down to Shired Island. Found campsite wind is blowing very fierce! Backed BEYOND to quarter the wind and popped the top and opened windows. Can feel her rocking! Temp is dropping fast. Is going to be a cool night. Cooked scallops in Thai sesame noodles and watched sun go down. Very beautiful place but no potable water. Glad I put a few gallons in my tank back in Cedar Key! This is my kind of place. Only a few other people here. Very remote and beautiful. I am camped 15 feet from the surfline. Hope there is no storm surge tonight! Am so glad to be on the road.

Am hoping to find back roads to Steinhatchee tomorrow. I got a beautiful picture of the sunset over the gulf tonight. The wind has blown away all the clouds and the sky is crystal clear! I can see a million, billion stars. Orions belt looks like it’s right over my head. I can almost grab it! The lights on the bathroom are too bright but once I walk around the corner on the beach and my eyes adjust I see a few lights from Horsehoe Beach but the rest of the sky is dark. This is a good place for star gazing! Oops out of electrons! Goodnight!

You can see photos at
https://picasaweb.google.com/allenloyd/BigBendTrip?pli=1&gsessionid=JyhJC0hrMe2sW4BiqfpT3Q#

Friday 3/25/11
I got up to absolutely no wind. It felt strange after feeling the wind rock the van all night. I paid Hubert $20 for the site. He said St. Pete is not close enough o get the rate for locals. Oh well. It’s still beautiful here. I made tea and did some cleaning and organizing in BEYOND then some guys asked if I was using the pavilion. I said no I was leaving in a while. He asked me to move my van I said no and went for a walk. Those guys started building a virtual house in that pavilion. They even had a refrigerator and a huge pile of firewood. I asked how long they are staying. They said Monday. Wow they brought a lot of stuff! I am glad I am leaving as lots of people are coming in.

Hubert told me how to find the backroad to Horseshoe Beach and Steinhatchee. So I can continue to take back roads up the coast. Cool! So I head out and get back on the mainline. This section is not quite as pretty as the last but still nice. I come out near the water tower and cruise into Horseshoe Beach. I look around but there is no beach. I ask and find out there is not much here but some crazy houses all on stilts. There is one like a sailing ship and another that is a cluster of circular metal huts. Pretty funny! I drive around a little more and go back to the Mainline. It goes out a ways to a big house that looks out onto the grass flats. I park past the house and there are paths out on the flats but too wet for BEYOND so I get on my bike and ride a couple miles out.

The roads skirts the edge of the flats. I am dodging fiddler crabs and try to stay out of the really soft spots. Finally I get close to a hammock and try to walk out to it through the grass but there is a creek in between and I don’t feel like swimming. I walk and bike back to BEYOND, load up and drive until I see the Fire tower and take the turn over to Steinhatchee. Another dirt road but very wide. A redneck super highway! Soon I am parked down a little road by the marsh and I am back in cell range so I check messages and email. I eat and snack and get back on the road. I am on 351 just out of town and there is a turn off for the Big Bend Preserve. Here is another nice dirt road for biking. I drive down to the canoe launch and hike the nature trail. It’s a 1.5 mile loop through the scrub. Not too exciting. I see an armadillo.

Then I drive on and read about how it was logged it with trams. Pretty wild. Then back out onto 351. I take it past Bird. Island, Dark Creek and then onto Perry. I hit the grocery store for fresh veggies ice and beer then onto to Medart where I gas up. All the ditches are filled with flowers and the dogwoods, azaleas and wisteria are in full bloom. It’s stunning here. I drive through Sopchoppy where they have a worm grunting festival in April. Too bad I am about 2 weeks early. Sounds like fun! I cruise into the Ochlockanee River State Park and my campsite right as darkness settles in. It’s nice to sit back with a cold beer and write in my log. Captains log earth date 3.25.11. I hope there is a shower here. I am pretty sweaty and stinky after biking on the flats.

Well I am off to cook and dinner and tomorrow we have Appalatchicola Art Festival to check out. Supposed to be a nice day.

Hope the race is not getting on the nerves off all you St. Pete folks! It’s nice a quiet here!

You can see photos at
https://picasaweb.google.com/allenloyd/BigBendTrip?pli=1&gsessionid=JyhJC0hrMe2sW4BiqfpT3Q#

Peace All.
Sat. 3/26/11
It was a nice campground until dawn when the 300 or so birds (they looked like a small corvid maybe a martin) burst into song! I thought an alarm had gone of in my van. I jumped out of bed to see what all the fuss was about! They were in the tree right above my van. They kept up the singing for a few hours. I made tea and then went for a bike ride down to the Ochlockanee River. It was misty with sunbeams peeking through the clouds. A couple from Colorado pointed out the white squirrels that live near the picnic area. They were a first for me. Pretty cool. There was no one on the river so I stripped down and went for a very quick dip. I could hear the alligators grunting out in the river so I made it a very quick dip! I

biked back and pack up and drove into Carrabelle to see my friend Janice’s store. She wasn’t there yet but so I had a nice chat with her mother and drove on into Appalachicola for the Gallery Walk. There were lots of artists set-up on the sidewalks and in front of stores. Some very cool work. I ran into my friend Joe and found out where his set-up was then walked around to see all the work and stopped into Appalach Outfitters to see where gear was 45% off. I found some nice Patagnia and Mountain Hardware winter gear that I purchased along with some fishing lures.

I visited my friend in the bookstore. She sold me a wonderful book called Flotsam and Jetsom by local boat builder and character Robb White. It was a wonderful book and I hoping she had some others but no such luck. I recommend it to anyone who enjoys boats. Later I found a cheap fishing rod and spinning reel in a junk shop.

In the afternoon I ate a bagel with cheddar cheese and then went to see what Joe was doing. He was selling drinks o raising money to buy art supplies for the kids art program so I had one and meet some of his friends and we drank some beer and then pack up his stuff and moved to the Garden Shop to listen to guitar and imbibe a bit more. Joe headed home to his wife but hooked my up with Lynda who is a local nurse and is interested in arts in healthcare and Clarisse who is a local artist. They were going out to dinner.

We found Clarrisse’s husband Jerry ( nickname Merril) the Wildman and headed to Verandah’s restaurant. We had some wonderful fried oysters ( for those of you not familiar with Appalachicola some of best oysters in the world grow around here) Then a big plate of jambalaya. It was a tasty meal. Jerry is a hoot. This is one of the only places he is allowed to eat in because he is loud and rambunctious. He used to be a ship captain and has sailed all kinds of boats and run all kinds of boat charter businesses and fixes old motorcycles. We hit it off right away. We had some beer and good food. Told some stories and some lies and laughed a lot. After dinner Lynda showed me a place near Jerry’s boat where I could park and sleep undisturbed.

When we got back to my van Jerry was there and he want to see the inside of BEYOND. I gave him the tour and we settled in with a beer and talked sailing. He told me about a guy who had a boat built in Australia that he wanted Jerry to captain on it’s voyage back to the states. Built the boat was built with all kinds of extra gear and crazy stuff. So much that it would barely float. Jerry got there and tried to talk the owner into getting rid of a lot of weight to no avail. Jerry wisely refused to sail it and last he heard it barely made it’s first crossing and that captain quit. It’s staggered through it’s second leg and went no further. It was built like a tank with way to much stuff on it. Soon he needed to run his dogs and my eyes were drooping so we parted ways and I parked near his boat and took a look at her before I pulled the shades and went to sleep.

Sunday March 27
Even though it was Sunday the dredge is was parked near started up it’s cranes and I was up at first light again. I jumped on my bike to see if there was a bathroom in the park nearby. No such luck so I drove back downtown and Tamara’s Restaurant was open to I hit the john and scrubbed up. Then I settled in for blueberry pancakes and ham. I drank tea and read a Spanish cookbook while I waited and soon two huge pancakes with sauage patties arrived. Pancakes were good but too big. Sausage was fine but I would rather have had the ham or bacon. After I finished I headed back to the park and rode my bike all around town. I stopped at the gas station for fishing weights and went back for my pole. I cast some from the end of the boat pier but no bites. I was biking to another spot when I ran into Jerry again. He told me about a couple of interesting spots and invited me over later in the afternoon.

I rode to another Pier and fished some more to no avail. But I had a nice conversation with a man from Macon, GA. I rode back to the van and drove out to the river and had an apple and check my email then drove over to Jerry’s. Clarisse was making a cool birdhouse in her studio and Jerry and a bunch of dogs were working on a motorcycle. We sat on the back porch and Clarisse made us a mojito and Jerry pulled out the plans and photos of the crazy sail boat from Austrailia. It was just as much of a horror show as he described. I would never have left the dock on that craft! We looked at all the crazy stuff on that boat and told more stories and they invited me to stay for dinner.

I bought some drinks and they got some excellent fried chicken from AJ’s and Lynda showed up with AJ’s banana pudding. It was all very fine. Good southern fried chicken. Like Chattaways in St. Pete. We feasted and then Jerry and I took the dogmobile full of dogs down to the harbor and they ran and chased sticks and rocks and had a fine time. We went back and sat on the porch and told more lies and had a last drink. Then I drove to a quiet spot in the back of the cemetery and crashed. I always enjoy myself in Appalach! Good night.

Monday 3/28/11

I am early again and make a pot of tea and drive west out to the St. Joe Peninsula. I stop at San Blast Peninsula, which is owned by Eglin Air force base but you can see the lighthouse and walk the beach. I put on my swim suit and grabbed my pack and fishing pole. There is a storm blowing in and it could get rough. The waves are pretty big and I go for a quick swim and then cast in the waves but I don’t have enough weight on my line so I walk down to the end of the point. There are only a few people on the beach it’s pretty wild with lots of dirft wood, fallen trees and birds. I like I very much.

I walk back and take some pics of the lighthouse and then drive on down to the T.H. Stone Memorial St. Joseph’s Peninsula State Park. It’s a wonderful Park with sand dunes and a beautiful beach! I stop and get a snack and am going to cast my line but the rain come petty hard so I sneak into the campground for a quick shower. Boy does it feel good to be clean again!

The rain continues so I drive back to Appalach and tour the Orman house. It gives a nice feel of Appalch at the time of the railroad and during the Civil War.

I gas up and head East. I drive along keeping just ahead of the rain and followed 98 all the way back almost to Sopchoppy (love that name!) In Medea I turn off and drive to Wakulla Springs State Park. My map shows camping but there none. Darn and I’m tired. I have a nice swim in the springs and relax. There is a historic hotel and I walk around and check it out and read my book. One of the rangers has her eye on my so I go back out to BEYOND and move her to the hotel parking lot and cook some pad thai noodles with hardboiled egg and almonds. Sure enough I see the ranger looking around for me. I stay very still and she walks past me a couple of times. The park is closed and I am not supposed to be here. She never spots me and it gets dark so I pull out the bed and crash. I wake up about midnight to rain so I close the hatch and sleep again.
Tuesday 3/29/11

You can see photos at
https://picasaweb.google.com/allenloyd/BigBendTrip?pli=1&gsessionid=JyhJC0hrMe2sW4BiqfpT3Q#

I am up and packed just before the rangers arrive. I drink tea until I see guests walking around. Then I jump out of BEYOND and walk to the hotel just as another ranger is pulling up. I keep walking and head for the bathroom. That was close! I walk around and it’s chilly. I put on the new winter vest I bought and it keeps me warm as I walk a few miles out the rail into forest and through a swamp. It’s a nice trail and I enjoy my walk until it starts to rain pretty steadily and head back. I jnmp in BEYOND pour a hot cup of tea, turn on the heat ( yes, it’ that cold!) and head back to and then south towards home. I stop and treat myself to Pizza Hut buffet for lunch in Cross City. I eat a bit too much and have to stop for a nap and swim in Crystal River again. The temp is much warmer and the sun almost comes out. I watch a man on a Rube Goldberg boat scooping up all the floating weed. It’s a cool machine and I wonder if he built it? It looks home made!
About 3:30 I pack up and make it onto the bridge before the rush hour traffic and am home again by 5:30.

Until next trip be safe.
Allen