Jan 2008

First, a word on the weather. It really was much nicer today then yesterday - but before you throw in your beach towel and head to the Gulf Coast, take a look at the water hose across from our camp site this morning. Not quite Michigan (or anywhere in the north central US), but...

Yesterday, as we turned off the freeway to head to the Davis Bayou campground, we saw a couple of boarded up buildings. That's not totally abnormal for old business districts, so we weren't sure if they were just old, abandoned buildings or hurricane damage. After today, I'm pretty sure it was the latter.

Hurricane Katrina hit the gulf coast on August 29, 2005, about two and a half years ago. Shortly after we pulled back onto Hwy 90, we crossed a bridge into Biloxi itself where the Highway started to run along the waterfront. There were a few spanking new casino's such as this:

The small Biloxi Lightouse also seems to have survived.

Across the road however, where the whole coast used to be lined with luxury waterfront mansions or restaurant's and hotels - were empty lots. Occasionally we would see a new home or construction activity, but mostly just empty lots. If we looked closely, we could see remains of driveways and sometimes concrete slabs where homes used to be. Most of the badly damaged buildings have been removed, but we also saw a few that haven't, maybe because they're considered 'rebuildable'.

I didn't notice at first, but we also didn't pass any gas stations for many miles. A few small chain restaurants were open, most looked like they'd only recently been opened for business. There were also quite a few 'For Sale' signs and 'Coming Soon' signs, so some redevelopment is starting to occur. However, it's depressing the extent of the damage still visible over two years after the hurricane struck.

We went over a very new bridge into Bay St. Louis, where Hwy 90 again turns away from the coast a bit. I decided to drive through the town since the Ranger at Davis Bayou had told us that Hwy 90 had been cleaned up and to really see the results of Katrina, you had to get off the main road.

Bay St. Louis turns out to be where the eye of the hurricane came ashore. The new bridge has only recently been completed, so the city was largely cut off from the main gulf coast traffic for two years. Many volunteers have come from around the globe to help the town rebuild, but it's a long way from being fully recovered. Before the storm, there were 3,600 people in the core old town area, a quaint city of arts and crafts shops. At least 25% of those have not returned. In spite of all the help they've received, these are just a few of the common scenes we saw as we drove through.

Mom & I had lunch at a cute little restaurant (Mom thinks it was called 'The Buttercup'. I of course forgot to take a picture of it). The food was good and the prices quite reasonable. The waitress, Dawn, also endulged us a few questions. She was fortunate in that her house was damaged, but salvagable. She has received FEMA grants and an SBA loan to help rebuild her framing shop - but of course there aren't as many customers as there used to be. She said she recently took a trip to the Hard Rock Cafe' in Biloxi and was so depressed seeing all the damage, that she doesn't think she can drive that road again. And that's coming from someone who knew what it looked like before.

I'd never heard of Bay St. Louis before, but it will be hard to forget this little town and the damage it suffered.

Somewhat depressed, Mom and I headed back up to I-10 to complete our voyage for today. I had made reservations at a really nice membership campground north of Lake Pontchartrain to get some rest and some things caught up, so for a change we actually knew where we were heading tonight. Just before we crossed into Louisiana, we stopped at a Visitor's Center that also listed a NASA Stennis Space Center - which sounded interesting. It turns out they are closed on Sunday, but it's where they test rocket engines. But they did put one of the Lunar Landers up on stilts at the Visitors Center. I thought it was just a sculpture, but then read the sign that explains it is actually the unit the Apollo astronauts trained on.

We were still a little too early to check into the campground, so drove down to the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain. The hurricane damage in this area didn't seem as bad as what we'd seen in Mississippi, but that's not true further south in New Orleans of course. At least from the lakeshore we could see that the causeway was open, we could see cars driving on it.

So with that little side trip, we headed up to the campground. I paid a couple dollars extra to use their wifi, then found out my data card worked just fine here. Without talking to Sprint, I'm guessing that along the Gulf Coast, they haven't repaired all the damage to their cell phone infrastructure so I was just getting limited internet service as a result. I don't know, but think I'll blame it on Katrina for now.

Logistics:

Miles Driven - 106
Camped at Abita Springs - Resorts of Distinction Campground

Today was Saturday, so I thought I'd try to find a Seventh Day Adventist Church for Mom to attend. While she went to church, I thought I'd work on getting the blog caught up from a couple of days of bad or non-existent internet service. This was not to be. I was able to get far enough into the internet yellow pages to see there was one listing for an SDA church in town, but couldn't get any farther to get the address or phone number. I suggested we could try the phone (Directory Assistence) or a paper phone book (they probably had one in the Wal-mart we stayed in last night) - but Mom said she wasn't feeling well and would prefer to just drive today.

The weather was quite stormy; cold, windy and rainy. The rain let up a little by late afternoon, but it remained windy and cold and not much fun for sightseeing (unless you're into storm watching, which Mom is not).

We just started out when I saw a brown sign for the Gulf Coast National Seashore Visitors Center. In spite of the weather I turned off and decided to check it out. Inside, they had a fairly good narrated slide show about the Gulf Coast seashore. They also had a full scale replica of a small section of the USS Constitution.

What the heck is this doing on the Gulf Coast of Florida??? Well, it's about the wood. Southern Live Oak is the most dense wood grown in North America. It weighs 75 pounds per cubic foot (vs 56 for White Oak and 44 for Yellow Pine). I know, they have cubic foot samples of the wood you can try lifting!

The early American Navy used the best wood they could find for their ships. The USS Constitution proved the value of this effort when British cannonballs bounced off her oak planking - earning the nickname "Old Ironsides". President John Adams was concerned about making sure these would be an adequate supply of Southern Live Oak timber for the Navy and directed the Navy to do something about it. In 1928, the first tree farm in America was set up here for the single purpose of providing Live Oak for naval shipbuilding. Technology has a way of making even the best of plans obsolete however, and by the time the trees were mature enough to harvest - navy ships were made out of steel. However the live oak trees from Navarro were used to restore the USS Constitution in 1929. The tree farm also makes a dandy nature preserve for the Gulf Coast National Seashore.

There are pine and other tree's here as well, and I thought the stormy weather might still make an interesting picture - a different sort of beach shot.

Mom got so cold and wet in the short, 30 foot walk from the RV to the visitors center and back, that an hour later she was still cold - even though I ran the heater at full blast. So when we got the the Pensacola Visitors Center, she didn't feel like doing much of anything. I braved the rain enough to go inside and found out the Visitors Center is just across from Emmanual Point.

In 1992 they found a shipwreck just off this point. The ship was from a 1559 fleet led by Tristan de Luna to try to establish a settlement in Florida. The settlement was unsuccessful, but is still part of the history down here. The wreck is only about 40% explored so far, but has already yeilded over 3,000 artifacts. Recently a second wreck has also been found in this area, also very old, but the salvage is not very far along so I don't think it's been dated yet.

The Visitors Center recommened we visit the Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola. It is the largest Naval Avaition Museum in the world and listed as one of the top three attractions in Florida, believe it or not. I should have gone but was letting the weather get me down also and was a little concerned about Mom, so decided to keep driving. Mom would have been fine in the RV, but wasn't feeling very well and I just didn't feel right about leaving her alone for the that much time. I'll probably be kicking myself for several days about not doing any more sightseeing in Pensacola however. In the unlikely event I ever make it back to this area, I'll be sure to visit this as well as a few of the forts around here.

Unfortunately the bad weather and moods continued as we drove through southern Alabama. Other then the Visitors Center and a gas station, I didn't even stop - not even in Mobile Bay. I am a little embarrassed to confess all this, however it is also true that we had spent over three weeks in Florida and really, really needed to get moving.

We stayed on I-10 into Mississippi and pulled off just east of Biloxi. This is the location of another site set aside as part of the Gulf Coast National Seashore called Davis Bayou. The ranger in Navarro had recommended this for camping, so we thought we'd give it a try. The Visitor's Center at Davis Bayou had been badly damaged by Hurricane Katrina, so they are using a 'temporary' one housed in modular units.

When we drove out to the campground area, we crossed a bayou section where a group of egrets were hiding from the storm.

The campground was OK, not the best we've stayed at but the facilities worked and we were warm and toasty for the night. The wind and rain died off during the night, so we expected slightly better driving Sunday. Still had the same problem with the internet - strong enough signal for downloading, couldn't do much of anything however.

Logistics:

Miles Driven - 142
Camped at Davis Bayou NP near Biloxi, Mississippi

While we were sleeping, another storm blew in (or a continuation of the earlier one with a day's break in between, I'm not sure). Anyway, this morning it was cold and windy. Cape San Blas was such a lovely place however, we got out a bit to enjoy it before leaving - despite the weather. In fact, I'm having a little trouble understanding why I would even choose to leave this place?

From the RV, I could see several cardinals running around. I took several pictures - none came out as good as I'd like, but I guess this at least proves they were there?

After breakfast, Mom decided she wanted to take a walk on the beach. I was a little surprised because it was so cold, but she hadn't gone out as far as the beach last night, so maybe she just didn't want to miss out on it. Of course, we both picked up more shells (not sure why, there are plenty at home - maybe its some sort of a nesting behavior?)

When we checked in yesterday, the ranger told us that there was plenty of wildlife at St. Joseph SP (please don't get confused, Cape San Blas is the geological land feature, St. Joseph is the State Park on the far end of the Cape). Anyway back to the wildlife - he said there were deer, racoon and bobcats that are seen frequently. We hadn't left the campground (except for the beach excursions), so I wasn't surprised that we didn't see all these things. But on the drive out we at least saw a couple of deer - which was a treat (it doesn't take much to entertain us).

We drove back to Hwy 98, then continued on our journey north and west. The weather was quite bad so we just stuck a CD in the player and took our time. After driving through Panama City, I turned off on Hwy 30A to try to find a public beach we could stop at. Instead we drove through miles and miles of new condo's and beach front rentals. We didn't see many public beaches at all. It all looked more like Orlando (manufactured quaint). I hated it, Mom thought it was cute. It took awhile, but eventually we got back to Hwy 98 which was just strip malls and such. I never thought I'd think of shopping malls along a highway as an improvement!

So, not expecting to stop or do much for the day we happened on a small town called Fort Walton Beach. As I was driving through, there appeared to be a cannon and some interpretive sides by the side of the road and lots of empty parking spaces (probably due to the bad weather). I pulled over just to take a picture or two, but before I got back into the RV, Mom had gotten out and was getting her walker off. I guess she had a little cabin fever and wanted to get some sightseeing in today - weather or not.

Good thing - this turned out to be quite a little stop. First off - behind the cannon was a small hill, which turned out to be not a hill at all, but a Mound. The people who had built it disappeared long before the Europeans arrived, so not much is known about them except what can be gleaned through archeology. This is what the mound looks like today.

This is an artists recreation of what they think the mound may have looked like during it's heyday, and following that an explanation of what they know about the mound (sorry, it's easier then retyping it all in).

Off to the side is a Museum (where I got the pictures of the painting and sign of course). Mom seemed to really enjoy the exhibits. (She also spent a lot in the gift shop if that's an indicator).

One of the more unusual ones were these six sided bowls. These are unique to the Fort Walton Culture, which was gone before the Europeans arrived, so scientists aren't really sure why they were made like this.

The museum also has a few 'hands on' exhibits, such as grinding corn. I was setting up the camera to take a picture of a 'Pump Drill', when one of the staff grabbed the camera and pointed it at me instead. Fortunately, nothing broke as far as I can tell...

The Pump Drill didn't originate with Native American's, but was brought over by the Spanish. The Spanish may have gotten the idea from the Phoenicians and other early civilizations.

Another room in the museum was devoted to a temporary exhibit about American Women in the early 20th century. This was developed by Florida State University and is a travelling exhibit to various museums around the state.

I took a few pictures of these exhibits, but not nearly enough. Most of the information is in signage, but there are also exhibits of common household items that women or families would have used on a day to day basis.

On the other side of the Mound is the Camp Walton School House. This was used for grades 1 thru 8 from 1912 to 1936. Students used slate boards to practice writing during that period, so each desk is carefully laid out with a slate board and cloth to erase the chalk.

I felt like I didn't spend quite enough time at the Fort Walton Beach Mound, Museum, and school house. (There was also an old Post Office, but my pictures of it didn't come out well enough to upload). However, the afternoon had gotten late and we really were trying to make some tracks, so we moved on.

By this time it was too late to make it to Pensacola tonight, so when I pulled over in a Wal-mart in Navarro to get some things, we just decided to stay there for the night.

I also tried to work on the blog - interesting thing that. I could get a signal on the laptop's data card, but an odd one. I could surf the net, read news, and check email - but I couldn't send email nor do anything that required significant uploading. Some web sites worked OK, some not at all. The Sprint data signals for the next couple of days had the same characteristics - seems like some sort of technical problem with this type of signal with uplinks.

Logistics:

Miles Driven - 130
Camped at Navarro Wal-mart

Lovely scenery today, but not many 'tourist attractions'. This is fine with us, but may make for a fairly short blog entry.

Last night it was raining and windy when we checked into the campground, but when we got up it was pretty nice. In fact, I had left the curtain open so we could see the sunrise over the water this morning. I don't think we saw the sun, but the water view out the window was really nice. Mom walked down to the beach to get some sand and we both enjoyed the view.

But move on we must, so I started heading west again, up Hwy 98 along the coast. This stretch is still not terribly populated and we enjoyed driving through fairly long stretches of forest and beach, with occasional older homes or fishing villages. We drove past a lovely beach at Carrabelle, then saw another lighthouse.

This one is small and not open for climbing. It's called the Crooked River Lighthouse and is 103' tall. It was completed in 1895 to replace an earlier lighthouse that had been on Dog Island, a little offshore, which was destroyed in a hurricane in 1875. The forth order Fresnel Lens rotated on a Mercury float. It was removed in 1976 due to a mercury leak and is now on display in New Orleans. While the Coast Guard decommissioned the Lighthouse, the Carrabelle Lighthouse Association was formed to restore and retain the lighthouse. They are still working on the project, but have added a nifty playground at the site (yes, it's shaped like a Spanish Galleon in the background).

After checking this out, I decided we really shouldn't pass up such a nice looking beach - especially since I wasn't sure how much longer the weather would hold out (it didn't hold out for long). So we turned around and went back to Carrabella Beach.

Mom and I both seem to enjoy beaches differently, but still have a great time each in our own way.

This was so nice, but we could see the cloud cover getting thicker. We decided to go ahead and eat lunch here just to squeeze in a little more beach fun before the rest of the storm hit. The terns here seem to know that beach lunches are a source of food and weren't exactly trying to avoid us. However, they weren't rude about begging, for the most part they just stood by quietly waiting for us to offer them something. Then Mom found out they were also quite good at catching food in mid flight. I'm not sure, but I think these are gull-billed terns.

Alas, we actually managed to finish lunch (and didn't use up all of our food feeding the terns) and headed out again. We drove through a lovely little town called Apalachicola and saw a brown sign for a Gorrie Museum. We hadn't done any sightseeing today (except for the short stop at the lighthouse and feeding terns), so decided to check it out. The man running the museum had gone to lunch and never did come back, at least while we were there (somewhat after 2 PM). However, we learned from the sign that Dr. John Gorrie received the first U.S. Patent for inventing a mechanical refrigeration device in 1851. He was trying to find a way to help reduce Yellow Fever. His machine produced ice in quantity, but leaked and was not reliable enough for him to make money from his invention. Yet again we benefit from a pioneer who develops something for which he is honored and remembered. But he dies pennyless and thinking he is a failure. Something I think Longfellow would think heavily on.

In spite of not being able to get into the museum (and see his device), we met Beverly Douds outside who was also hoping to see the museum. She was darting about in her golf cart (which is quite common in Apalachicola - legal as long as you don't drive on the highway). The reason she was trying to see the museum is because she is the local historian. She also has written two books on the area (which she's holding up for us) and does genealogy research for folks who need information from this area. You just never know who you'll meet on a trip like this, but you always know they'll be interesting!

We hadn't driven terribly far, but I decided to stop for the night anyway. There is a state park out on a sand spit, and it just it looked interesting. The drive out was a little discouraging - lots of new condo's and beach houses going up. However, once we got to the St. Joseph State Park, it was worth the trip. The 'sand spit' is really Cape San Blas and it juts out into the Gulf Coast several miles. We walked over the dunes (on the allowed path of course), but the red flag was up meaning dangerous surf - don't get in the water. So I just took a few pictures, collected lots of shells, and we called it a night.

Logistics:

Miles Driven - 85
Camped at Gulf Breeze Campground in St. Joseph State Park on Cape San Blas.

There wasn't any cell phone service at all out here - so I didn't even try to update the blog or check the internet from the Cape - too far out in the gulf I suppose.

One of the things Mom noticed when we first got to Florida a couple of weeks ago was a Stephen Foster Folk Culture Center State Park. She is a big Stephen Foster fan, but at that time we were heading straight to Miami and didn't take the time to stop at much of anything. This morning however, we realized that we were again close to it so decided to check it out.

Stephen Foster, 1826 - 1864, was the first great American songwriter. His compositions include songs such as Oh! Susanna, Camptown Races, My Old Kentucky Home, Beautiful Dreamer, I Dream of Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair, and Old Folks at Home (Swanee River). This last song became the Florida State Song and inspired the Center and State Park. Even though Foster never visited the state, so many people started coming to Florida to look for the river from the song, so the state decided to set up a center to honor the composer and highlight the river and folk culture.

Since Foster didn't really have any direct connections to the state, the Stephen Foster Center is set up with a slightly broader focus as a Folk Arts center and sponsers a number of different Folk Art's, including music, quilting and other such things. They do have a museum devoted to Stephen Foster. It is housed in a stately, southern style building.

They don't have very many things directly connected to Mr. Foster. One exception is this desk that belonged to his older brother. He was staying with his brother when he wrote "Old Folks at Home" (aka Swanee) and the family lore is that this is the desk he wrote it on.

Interestingly, the song originally was written as "Way down upon the Pedee River". Foster didn't like the sound of this and asked his brother for help finding a southern river with a more lyrical name. They pulled down and Atlas and looked it over until finding the Suwannee River in Florida. Foster immediately knew this was the name he wanted, but changed the spelling slightly to Swanee (artistic license?). A review committee selected this stretch of the river as one of the most scenic for the SP, a decision with which I would have to concur.

The museum also has a collection of pianoforte's and piano's, most of which were donations of antique instruments which don't necessarily have anything to do with Stephen Foster except that they come from the same time frame. This one was particularly interesting (to Mom and I anyway) because of the beautiful mother of pearl key's.

The major feature of the museum however are the ten large diorama's, each representing a theme from one of his songs. These are very well done, many with moving figures or buildings that have been adjusted to reflect the viewer's perspective (instead of building a scale model building with square corners, they are set at an angle to make it appear as a square, life sized building being viewed from afar.) Here are just two examples, the first representing "My Old Kentucky Home", the second a scene from a drawing room where Mr. Foster is composing "I Dream of Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair" as his dream reflects on the far wall. (Sorry about the small size, it's hard to capture a 6 foot wide diorama and compress it without loosing a lot of detail).

We finished visiting the museum shortly before Noon, which was also when the next concert was scheduled to be played on the Carillon. This is housed in a Tower built especially for the Carillon. The room at the base of the tower is lined with marble and houses a number of exhibits as well as the controls for the Carillon itself. It can either be played by the keyboard consule, housed in a small desk inside the marble columns, or by a player piano type device just to the right of the consule.

The Carillon was built by the J.C. Deagan Company from Chicago and installed in 1958. It consists of 97 Tubular Bells ranging from 3.5' to 12.5'. The bells are housed inside the tower of course, but you can get an idea of the instrument from this model. Also, a smaller tubular bell is set up in one of the exhibits so you can see what they look like.

There seem to be a couple of 'official' carillon organizations that don't list this instrument, probably because it has tubular bells instead of bell shaped bells (I couldn't quite tell from their web sites, but they seem to be a bit exclusionary). Based on the sound, I'd say Florida has a right to call this a carillon. But hey, we're talking about a musical instrument here! You can't really understand what this is without listening to it, can you? This is Virginia Belle, a Stephen Foster composition (as are all the songs played here).

After all of this, it was early afternoon and time to move on.

We started heading for Tallahassee on I-10, when I looked at Mom and at the map and said, "Why don't we head to the coast instead." To my surprise, she said she was thinking the same thing. We both felt we'd been in Florida too long and needed to get moving,, but we really do prefer driving on roads where we can see things. Interstates are great for making tracks, but not so great for seeing the sights.

So we turned off again on Hwy 319 just before Tallahassee and started south. Shortly thereafter we passed a brown sign (yes, you know what that means). This was for a place called "Leon Sinks". It is part of the Apalachicola National Forest and is referred to as a "Geological Area". The forest wasn't like I'm used to seeing from my home state of WA, but I guess qualifies as a National Forest for Florida?

The "Sinks" in the name comes from the many sinkholes that are found here. This area is part of a Karst Plain, which is terrain that rain and groundwater have changed by dissolving underlying limestone bedrock. Karsts can include sinkholes, swales, caverns, natural bridges, circular depressions and water table ponds.

It was fairly late and raining, so I only walked part of the way down the Sinkhole trail. Even so, I did pass several sinkholes. These weren't quite as impressive as the one I'd seen a few years ago in Gainesville, FL, but maybe it's just because I only walked part of the trail? The first few sinkholes were 'dry sinks', although with all the rain some had small ponds in the bottoms. This one is "Turner Sink". If you look carefully, you can tell that the water is in a depression below the level of the trail from which I took the picture.

I also walked as far as the first big 'wet' sink, Hammock Sink. The water color here can vary quite a bit as the weather changes, but scientists aren't sure why.

This one is especially interesting because below the edge shelf is an entrance to a vast, underground cave system. Cave Divers have mapped out several, large water filled rooms - one is big enough to fit a six story building! Hammock Sink is the sink basin shown in the top left on the diagram.

Casual swimming and diving is forbidden as the banks are very fragile and it's also quite dangerous (even experienced divers have been killed here). So I gave up on the temptation to jump in and just took a few pictures, then finally headed back.

We continued driving south and eventually came to a really nice RV campground just south of Panacea, Florida. It was blowing rain and wind all night, but we had a great view of the water and plenty of food, water and dry warmth in the rig, so got a pretty good nights sleep.

Logistics:

Miles Driven - 175
Camped at Holiday RV Park, Panacea, FL