Cary State Forest

 Florida is full of state forests (38 forests with ~1.1 million acres). Cary Forest has several possible activities including a few campsites with water and electric. The hiking trails go through pine forests with saw palmettos below.

The trails are unique (to me at least). There is a very short grass on the path with distinct walls to the path depending on the height of the plants on either side. Right now the path is covered with pine needles. The grass and needles made for a very comfortable hike.

A portion of the trail is a boardwalk through a swamp / wetland.

This part has dark tannin water and cypress trees. Luckily there were no mosquitoes right now.

The forest is home to Hooded Pitcher Plants (Sarracenia minor) which are carnivorous which includes plants like the Venus flytrap. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen a carnivorous plant in the wild and these are a threatened species. They bloom in the spring so we’ll come back then.

Back home we saw an immature (best guess is 2 years old) eagle that sat on the roof of our back patio. The picture is taken through a window and isn’t very clear. But very cool! Every few months we see an adult eagle visit our pond for fish but this is the first young eagle we’ve identified.

Big and Little Talbot State Parks

Between the coronavirus, lots of rain, high temperature, and high humidity, we’ve not done much traveling. The temperatures finally dropped below 90s a few weeks ago but rain forecasts and other plans kept us from traveling. I was all excited that on Monday no rain was forecast. There were high tides and a bit of wind forecast, but that didn’t seem to be an issue.

Turns out, that does mean something if you are visiting Big Talbot State Park. The winds meant sand blasting in the face a few times. The high tide meant we couldn’t go as far down the beach as we hoped. 

Big Talbot has several hiking trails. The tall oaks curve away from the beach. We’re assuming it is quite frequently windy.

The wind blew foam onto the beach.

It is mostly known for the “boneyard” where oak “skeletons” line the beach. Pretty cool!

These trees can be big!

The boneyard is worth another trip. Next time we’ll check the forecast a bit more!

Note: The nearby Little Talbot State Park was partially closed due to storm damage so we skipped it for now. 

Short Trips

With the quarantine, we haven’t traveled overnight for the last few months. We have, however, done some exploring nearby. On morning walks and around the house, I’ve seen deer, listened to the birds, and watched the flowers blooming.

I saw a bald eagle a few times but no real good pictures. The eagle is in this picture a little left of center.

I’ve also been watching a couple of families of geese grow up.

The families cross the road together with mom and dad watching out for them.

A nearby state forest made for an interesting visit. The forest doesn’t have any hiking trails. The roads are all dirt and sand. Many people travel the roads in 4-wheel vehicles. Our car didn’t love the holes in the roads or the dust. 

We don’t have a canoe or kayaks, but I’d love to take off from here and explore.

A visit to the nearby national cemetery was interesting too. I’m not going to show individual shots, but some of the headstone inscriptions were fascinating. I’m taking an online class on the purpose and meaning of life that asks what you want on your headstone as a way to see what is important to you. Most graves had things like “Proud veteran. Love life and family”. My favorite epitaph was "He liked to make spaghetti"!

As we left, we saw three guys placing a new grave stone. They had strings running along the other stones so they could place this one properly. I wondered how the lines were so perfect in both directions.

We’ve seen the Blue Angels when we were in Pensacola back in 2014. They did a fly-by in our area recently. We drove to a parking lot in their stated path and it was packed but people kept to their area so we were still social distancing.

It was a single pass, but very cool!

St. Augustine Churches

Churches are always free. The ones in St. Augustine are just spectacular!

There is a Greek Orthodox Shrine. The Byzantine art and icons were particularly interesting to me.

  

The Memorial Presbyterian Church was huge for a Presbyterian church. It looked more Catholic. The rich Henry Flagler (founder of Standard Oil and the Florida East Coast Railway) built the church as a memorial for his daughter. He, his first wife, his daughter and grandchild are in the mausoleum here.

I thought the Cathedral Basilica was unusual (and beautiful) with exposed wooden truss. It is the oldest Catholic parish in the United States. There are a lot of “oldest in the US” in St. Augustine!

Quirky St. Augustine

Of course we have to go to the fun places too. Most were free and just took a few minutes while others were tours that cost a bit but were worth the fee.

This is called the Zero Milestone. It was the start of an automobile road going from St. Augustine to San Diego built back in the 1910-1920’s. It ran where US-80 and US-90 now run (depending on the state).

I had to visit the cemeteries, of course. Both Huguenot and Tolomato were closed but we could see inside the fence. Tolomato was founded in 1565 and is the oldest cemetery in Florida. No ghosts seen.

The Oldest Wooden Schoolhouse (supposedly in the U.S. but probably just in Florida) has a large chain around it. It was put around the building in 1937 to keep it together in hurricanes. Not sure if this really works, but hey, it is still here!

The bridge in this area is called Bridge of Lions and was completed in 1927.

The Ponce de Leon Hall was once a hotel but is now a part of Flagler College. My college was never like this. Electricity was installed by Thomas Edison! Outside in the courtyard is a fountain with 12 frogs that can be used as a sundial. Inside is amazing woodwork. We weren’t allowed to visit the dining hall but it contains Tiffany stained glass windows said to be valued at $3.5 million. The list of people who stayed at this hotel includes Samuel Clemens, Henry James, five U.S. presidents (Cleveland, Roosevelt, Harding, Johnson, and McKinley), Babe Ruth, Will Rogers, Gary Cooper, and John D. Rockefeller.

Constitution Plaza has a weird juxtaposition of eras and themes. There is a monument built in 1814 to celebrate a new Spanish constitution. Another monument is a memorial to honor men who died in the Confederacy though a plaque has been added to honor black men from St. Augustine who fought for the North. Finally, there are footstep in the sidewalk showing where civil rights activist Andrew Young was beaten during a peaceful protest in 1964. Andrew Young later became a US Congressman, an Ambassador to the UN, and the major of Atlanta.

The tastiest part of our visit was a tour of a chocolate factory.

St. Augustine Museums

Besides the old buildings and the fort, there are quite a few museums in St. Augustine. We visited only a few of them. We can get “museumed out”, so only one or two a day is all we can take and still learn something. That left a lot of museums to visit on another trip.

Ripley’s Believe It or Not Museum is in town. I didn’t want to pay the fee or see the historical value of the museum but there are several cool items around the parking area including a redwood log home (sort of looked like an RV inside) and a replica of David that uses marble from the same quarry and is the same size. The statue is much taller than I expected.

We visited the free Government House Museum. Interesting exhibits with artifacts from the town…including this silver ingot.

The biggest and well-known museum in town is Lightner Museum. We started our visit by eating lunch in the bottom of the old swimming pool! This was originally a fancy hotel called Alcazar and had the largest indoor pool at the time.

The exhibits are quirky and mostly consist of Lightner’s collections. This includes: lots of glassware, liquor labels, buttons, antique furniture, and even this ape. Funny thing is that I saw an exact copy of this ape in two episodes of the old Columbo series ("Double Shock" & "Identity Crisis") at what is supposed to be rich people's houses. Doesn't seem that fancy to me!

We attended the talk on music machines. Quite fun!

The height of bizarre and macabre was the Egyptian mummy and the shrunken head. Though the stuffed lion which had been a pet of Winston Churchill was pretty bizarre too.

We were amused by the Little Museum of Toasters, especially after John realized that one of the toasters was a much newer version of the one we use!

Our final museum was the Pirate and Treasure Museum. There was Captain Kidd’s actual final log.

And a sleeping Captain Kidd who’s chest moved up and down and slept with his eyes half open.

There was plenty of gold and silver. John is lifting a gold bar that is inside the glass case.

And a real pirate’s chest. Arghh!