Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Bea (For Beatitudes) is a very dangerous cat. She lives at Espiritu Santo mission north of Corpus Christi, Texas.

One night, while attending vespers services, Bea fell asleep, probably under a kneeling bench, and was inadvertently locked in the sanctuary. She awoke much later to find herself alone, and decided, as cats are wont to do, to wander around a bit and then cry to be let out. All this activity set off the alarm system, and there was hell to pay. Homeland Security descended, complete with swat team and helicopter, ready to take out the terrorists, obviously up to no good, and on Holy ground, or at least National Park Service ground, at that.

Observers indicated that, upon discovering the terrorist was not deserving of their firepower, left with nary a snicker. Some people have no sense of humor.

A Hard Winter Light

 

a hard winter light

bitterest day of the year

transformed New Orleans

    

 

Another Side of the Story

We met him toward the end of a long day tramping the streets of New Orleans, mostly the French Quarter. Mardi Gras was everywhere, or rather preparations for Mardi Gras. Mardi Gras is not all jazz and sex, but that is another story for later.

Claire wants to write a story about the international devotion of people-of-color to the music and persona of Bob Marley, many  years after his death. We have found Bob Marley music in every corner of the world where Black people live, and we have wondered at his universal appeal.

Ras Kevin keeps his stand of far away from the other vendors, outside the French Quarter, still downtown, where he can talk with the people who come to look and to buy. He is educated, has worked in the corporate world, and chooses this life so he can more directly share his message, and Bob Marley's message with anyone who will listen. He is respectful, well spoken and well groomed, with an enthusiasm and intelligence that draws people to him. Mostly he speaks to people-of-color. His message: quit waiting on the White man to help you out, we are going to have to do it ourselves. It is delivered without malice toward Whites, but with hope for Blacks. He says most Blacks don't want to listen to him. Others, with their own job security in mind, offer them an easier message, one of entitlement rather than striving, anger rather than hope.

Ras does very well financially, he does exactly what he wants to do in life, and he shares a message he believes in. That is success. We wish him well.

The North Shore of Lake Pontchartrain

This house survived Hurricane Katrina, sort of. It is now boarded up and the stairs have been removed. Someone is, belatedly, reconsidering living over a lake, when nasty ladies like Katrina just might come for a return visit. I'll bet the last sunset before the storm was spectacular. This is one of the better looking houses along this small North Shore road.

The last two days we have driven past some of the worst of Katrina's work, and it is indeed sobering, more than two years later. Still, people are rebuilding, businesses are up and running again and they will celebrate Carnival in earnest this year.

We heard an interesting story from a woman in a laundromat over on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Wal*Mart had two Super Centers within 15 miles of each other; they both were leveled. We saw them. Nothing but asphalt. Wal*Mart put up tents and opened for business within two days. The people will not forget that. There is a new Super Center up and running now, and the other grocery stores still haven't begun to rebuild. Serve the people and they will remember.

Monuments

A rainy day in Mobile. Magnolia Cemetery. Cold. Windy. Wet.

Large monuments to the deceased stood silent vigil over the bones of the long dead. Creeping life darkened the stone angels, slowly decaying their beauty. They will not survive eternally. They crumble like the bones they guard. The people who commissioned these monuments to themselves might just have well spent the money on Mardi Gras. Many of the living in this city appeared to be preparing to do just that, if the purple, gold and green decorations are any indication.

St. Joseph Peninsula State Park

  Claire and I were here a decade ago in our first motorhome. It is probably the most beautiful beach in the East. I wrote about it on Newbohemians.net in 1998 (can't believe we've had a web site for 10 years), and reading it again led us back here.

Things have changed: the long drive up the Peninsula is now cluttered with hundreds of huge (read, very expensive) beach houses on stilts, just waiting for the Big One. Don't worry, we taxpayers will help them out, and rebuild their beach too. But once you get inside the gate of the park, much is the same as it was a decade ago, except that it is now bone dry in the dunes, result of the very serious drought the Southeast is suffering now. The night is quiet now, compared to the night walk we took then, because their is no water for the sonorous critters and they have gone elsewhere, or died. We walked several miles today and saw not one sign of alligator, and no water for frogs or other fresh water dwellers.

Another consequence of the drought is that Atlanta has taken the fresh water the used to flow into the estuary just east of here; now the oysters, and the ecosystem dependent on them are dying. The oysters, and the oystermen don't have a chance in Washington against growth crazy Atlanta.

But the beach and dunes are still beautiful, and nearly empty this time of year. I don't know why; morning fog, but 70 degrees by noon and beautiful sunsets, but we're glad. As far as I am concerned, this is the best part of Florida, by a long shot; perhaps that is because it has the fewest people, so far.

Beach kiss Final cast           Sunset colors       

Snow?       

Good night

Wishful Thinking

 

We took a short visit to the Capital Forest State Park in Perry, Florida. It is all about the early homesteaders and the logging industry.

Cracker homestead at Capital Forest State Park

Cracker porch

Bedroom

They don't call them long leaf pines for nothing!

 

It's been cold in Florida. Bitter cold. We have been holed up for three nights trying to keep Turtle's pipes from freezing. No one goes out, the wind is raw, unforgiving. Sunny Florida. Soon this strange weather will go away, we hope, and we will be back to gathering pictures and story ideas out in the bright sunshine. Dare we hope a bike ride?

This weather makes me long for Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. The weather there varies between a high of 90, to 70, a low of 70 to 40. The humidity varies between 30 and 70 percent, and the sun shines most days. A downpour in the afternoon in monsoon season inks the skies and makes the sugar cane leaves shine. The surf pounds the white sand and fills the air with the scent of salt and ions. The cockies and magpies cry with mischief, and life. Sub tropical flowers bloom year round and caress with their ever present scent. The lifesaving clubs and pubs pulse with life all the day, and night, long. No place is perfect; there are man killing snakes longer than a Hummer, lethal jellyfish and crocodiles in the surf. Some places are worth the risk. A few years ago one could vacation (even live) on the South Queensland coast like the rich, on a middle class American budget. No more. Our unwise and unnecessary national debt has sent the dollar plunging in value throughout the developed world.

Finally today, the weather is warming into the 50's and the sun is out. We are of course still inside, this time at a library. We just accepted another assignment due the middle of this month, so the work goes on. I am looking forward to exploring the Florida Panhandle. We were there in Turtle One our first long trip out in 1997-98 and really enjoyed a couple of the state parks. I remember the beaches and wetlands as being special. This time we'll take pictures!

West Central Florida

      Weeki Wachee Springs is 60 years old. It is Old Florida, with the feel of a roadside attraction. The mermaids don't stand out beside the road and wave the motorists in for a show anymore though. Darn it. It's mostly for kids now. I sure would have liked to have seen it when I was a boy of about 12 or so. Wooooeeee. Now I think the college age girls are just cute, in a sexy kind of way. I'd better stop before I get into trouble.

.  A brave bird at Homosassa Springs

Any alligators down there? We took our first bike ride in ages, on a really nice paved Central Florida trail. We learned soon after we arrived here that Florida is no place to ride on the roads, unless you have intimate knowledge of the backroads, know how to speak Cracker and maybe carry a gun. Maybe that's why they seem to be having success building multi use trails. The trails seem to get a lot of use , which will mean support for more. The only thing we don't like is they are flat flat flat. We miss Mount Lemmon, but I doubt we'd make it far, we're so out of shape. Still we did manage 42 miles yesterday, on another flat trail.

 

   

We had a couple of nice short hikes in Potts Preserve, a very nice state wildlife preserve. They make it hard to find for out-of-staters, but I can understand such a populous, touristy state wanting to keep something for the locals. It makes the search all the more rewarding.

Next we head for the Florida Panhandle, where we hope to find fewer people, white sandy beaches, more public lands, and less humidity.

Everglades

We only bussed the Everglades, but it was one of those kisses that linger in memory. It would take at the very least months to develop a relationship the Everglades. Neither swamp nor upland, it is both, but its life blood is a slow moving sheet of water flowing from Florida's highlands (if a couple of hundred feet above sea level can be called highlands). The problem is that we humans, first in ignorance and later with greed, interrupted and redirected the flow of water, and changed, probably forever, the nature of very complex ecosystem. In recent years, at very great expense, an attempt is being made to restore something close to historic flows to the Everglades. Time will tell if it proves out, or not. I'm glad we got a taste of it at least, thanks to our wonderful National Park system.

 

The Florida Keys

Turtle roughing it in the Keys

Key West is for the birds

           

Sunset at the end of America.

I didn't need our bikes tuned, thank goodness. He had this tendency to take long breaks until somebody put some folding money in the bucket. slowest bike mechanic I've ever seen!

This silly six foot tarpon thought my camera was a fish! Almost lost it, and a few fingers too.

The No Name Pub is thought to have over 100,000 $1 bills stuck to the ceiling. We ate lunch instead. 

  Sharing my one-handed technique for getting a fish off the hook. My grandpa taught me when I was about this little guy's age, a few decades ago.

The two sides of the Florida Keys