Graffiti Philosophy

Near our house is Bay Bluffs Park.  It has boardwalks overlooking the water.  There doesn’t seem to be any easy way to get to the bay, but it’s there.

I visited the park earlier, but was scared away.  I like taking morning walks by myself and am pretty good with most situations.  But, it was early and the boardwalks had some rather disquieting graffiti on it.  When I heard voices, I wasn’t sure if they were hikers or the people who had done the graffiti.  Afterward, I went online to find things to reassure me about this park.  Turns out that several years ago vandals burned down some of the boardwalks and a guy was murdered here! 

This time I returned with John.  The earlier graffiti was painted over.  This time there was a ‘war’ going on between two opposing camps in chalk graffiti.  One was more religious while the other was more philosophical.  I’m not sure who they thought they would convert by scrawling graffiti.  Takes all kinds!

 

 

Long boardwalks to take a walk.  The bluffs are tinted red.  The clay in them was used to make bricks.

 

 

Flat Florida

Our stay was at Falling Waters State Park.  It is the home of Florida’s tallest waterfall.  While John slept and recovered in the RV, I took the short hike to the falls.  They say a gristmill was powered by the waterfall during the Civil War period, but I didn’t see any signs of it.  It’s difficult to take a picture of the falls.  You go into a pit to see it and are standing near the middle.  So here’s a picture of the top and bottom.

The falls is 73’ high (Niagara Falls is 167’ tall while Angel Falls in Venezuela is 3,212’).  The water falls into a sinkhole to be able to drop that distance (did I mention that Florida is flat?).  The whole area is full of sinkholes; a karst topography.  The limestone below has been slowly dissolved by slightly acidic water. 

The campground is on a “Florida mountain”.  That translates into being 318’ above sea level and is the 4^th highest ‘mountain’ in Florida.  The peak of Florida is a towering 345’ above sea level.  In reality, I couldn’t tell I was on a hill at all until I returned from my walk to see the falls.  There was some uphill to the walk, but nowhere as steep as hills we have hiked in the past.  Though, after recovering from my cold, it felt pretty high.  John was able to see the falls in the morning by driving back to a parking lot that was close to the falls.

The whole area is relaxing with ferns, moss, or large longleaf pine trees.  I wish we were more healthy to really enjoy it, but the relaxing scenery was enjoyable.

 

Taken Down by a Cold

 

I’ve been traveling on business the last two weeks.  Just last week I was in 4 airports.  That resulted in me catching a cold.  After being miserable several days, I then spread it to David and John.  Can you believe one night the whole family took Nyquil together and was asleep by 8 pm? Unfortunately, this was just as we were packed and ready to go to John’s niece’s wedding.  John was extremely miserable from the cold, but thought he could soldier on.  He drove 2 hours of the 6 hour trip to get to the wedding, but had to stop.  Luckily we were near a state park.

After a looooong sleep, we got up the next morning and traveled back home.  John still sounded like a bear with his growling.    Plus, we didn’t need to spread this cold to the bride and groom.

The good news was having a squirrel visit us in the morning.  Apparently these guys get fed by campers all the time.  We weren’t going to feed them, but this guy came right up to the camper and asked really nicely for something.  A bit of bread kept him happy.