A Fortnight of ADVENTURE

Few things make me feel more complete than the sound of the junebugs in the afternoon and the frogs at night. Last night, I heard the frogs for the first time this year. This afternoon, I heard the junebugs. The hour of my land is upon me, and I could not be more excited. Sure, there's winter, but in the summer this place shines and dances in the thick heat of midday. That hot feeling your skin gets when you're in the sun - it recharges me. I am solar powered.

I've hit nigh 15 parks in the past few weekends. Most notable of them were Suwannee River, Big Shoals, and Washington Oaks Gardens State Parks. It may seem like I am packing as much as I can into one day just to get a stamp in my passport, but it's really the journey that I am after, the ADVENTURE into unknown lands and unseen forests. Sure, I get my stamp, but I also get a feast for the eyes and the soul.

Suwannee River State Park is everything you could ask for in a park. It's got your camping, hiking, scenic vistas, and a ridiculous array of completely unique natural features. Plus, it's at the end of a road, in the middle of glorious nowhere ("nowhere" is an affectionate term, I assure you). I'm still on the fence about opening my heart up to the Suwannee, as it seems shifty and odd compared to my close friend and relative, the St. Johns. It's got high, sandy bluffed banks, a swift current, and seems more like a river gone feral. Not that I have a problem with that, it's just that the St. Johns is like a big old friend that tells me what it's going to do before it does it, while the Suwannee is full of surprises. At SRSP, the trail walks along the banks of the river and occasionally comes upon a spring here and there. They just boil up from Florida's limestone innards, spilling themselves into the river without so much as a run to show off (like my darlings that mosey lazily to the St. Johns from their headsprings). 
With further hiking, you delve deeper into the forest. The rudimentary map I had of the trails left most of the sights up to my own interpretation - something that I prefer. I'm sure a park ranger could have helped me had I had a burning need to explore the facts and figures of the park's flora and geological features, but I had no need. I only needed to see and to drink it all in with my eyes. Palmettos are like good friends that wave as you pass by, and the little lilies that grow in the disturbed muddy areas look like they may sing if you wait long enough. I was blown away by the rapids and rock formations in the midpoint of the trail, the water heading in two separate directions and coming from nowhere, careening helter-skelter into the earth again. And the wet sunlight filtering through the spring canopy, and the singing lilies in the mud, and sound of rushing water - it's all so much of what I love and always coming close to being overwhelming but never really getting to that point. I'm sure I use the term "mind-blowing" a lot, but ma'ams and sirs, that vista is mind-blowing.

Speaking of neat-o vistas, Big Shoals is one of the weirdest things I've seen in Florida thus far (geologically speaking, although I've yet to visit the Florida caverns, so I'll get back to you on this). It's a modest park at the start, but walk a mile into the woods and you start hearing something, like a highway. Some kind of natural white noise. As you walk, it gets louder until you see the river through the trees doing something a Florida body of water ought not do: turn white. That's right, my dears, there's rapids in them there waters. It looks like the French Broad up in North Carolina (Florida's best friend and schoolmate from way back). It's like fast and excited sweet tea, all tannins and current. Unfortunately due to the nature of the shifty Suwannee, it's not terribly easy to get a great view of the shoals from the land. I'd like to one day visit it by boat, but it's too early in the relationship to go and do something like that. I mean, I have to get to know this river. And, you know, it's shifty. I have also heard that there are giant sturgeon that leap out of the Suwannee's waters and target unsuspecting boaters, and by my source's knowledge they kill one person a year. I'm not sure about those statistics, but I am also not taking a chance in a shifty river with giant prehistoric homicidal fish lurking in its depths.

Speaking of homicidal fish... no, not really. But wouldn't that just be the best segue ever?

The final park of note is less along the lines of mighty rivers and glorious Floridiana, Washington Oaks Gardens State Park is just plain neat. It's situated along A1A, down in that there scrub that so often becomes and uninteresting blur to me between two points on a map. So many beach parks are so similar, and I know I should enjoy and respect each for what they are, but sometimes I feel like IT'S JUST A BEACH. So when I say I "visited" the beachy state parks along A1A, I mean I saw what there was to see without partaking in trails or really getting out of my car. (Does it help that I have a convertible? It's like I was outside, only not!) Yes, yes, I feel lame for not inching through every nook and cranny like I do with the inland parks, but as I grew up near the sea, I've come to take it for granted and am therefore bored to bits with it. No offense, beaches of Northeast Florida, but I want to see other beaches.
Anyway, WOGSP is surprising. I mean, it doesn't look like scrub at all. In fact, it's a beautifully organized and well tended garden of roses, camellias, azaleas, and various other flora including some rather stately live oaks. There are water features,  lovely walking paths, and the fact that it's less than a mile from the uninterested Atlantic makes it all the more neat-o.

I visited many parks recently, but the three I've outlined are the ones that really stuck with me. Not that I am knocking the others I visited (Bulow Creek, Bulow Plantation Ruins, and Tomoka are three pretty incredible places as well for the massive Farchild Oak, well-preserved ruins, and a ridiculously gigantic 50s-era sculpture representing a "Timucuan folk tale", respectively).

The next issue of Flagogo will contain a spring. Which one? I don't know yet, but dammit, I'ma goin' swimmin'.


P.s The swallow-tailed kites are back!

The Jacksonville Arboretum and Gardens: A Tiny Dose of Zen in the Middle of the Workday

     I have had an ongoing relationship with Fort Caroline for a long time. I used to work there and not get paid, then I worked there and got paid, and now I visit more often than a person should really visit a former workplace. Being the totally cool place it is (and containing the people it does) in the warmer months I am moved to sluggishness while visiting. Whereas in the wintertime I take my lunch break run around the trail as fast as possible to avoid too much exposure to the cold, in the summertime I am warm and happy and feel like stayin' a few. So it is not as conducive to concentration when it's nice out.

     Therefore, I've been on the lookout for a nice natural (FREE) place to visit on my lunchbreak, a quiet place that does not distract me (not so much for running - I've taken a break from that to work on this GRE nonsense). Gotta be just the right mix of pretty and boring. Well, my friends, I found all of this and no more at the Jacksonville Arboretum and Gardens.

     Now, it may seem up to this point that I am calling tJAG a pretty boring place, but don't get me wrong. It's a beautiful little plot of land right off of 9A/Monument. It's brandy-new, so no one's really heard of it yet. When I say boring, I mean it endearingly. That is to say, it's quiet and lonely and lovely and perfect for studying words on the flash card app on my iPhoney while taking a constitutional around Lake Ray. (Or, as I'd like to call it, Pond Laser. It's teeny tiny and named after a guy really named Lake Ray, and that's just too obvious.)

     I pulled up around 2ish. There was a light drizzle falling and it was a tad brisk out. There was only one other car in the parking lot, and it was nondescript.

     We'll visit this car later in the adventure.

     I got out and walked through the ridiculously huge parking lot for an arboretum toward the little waysides they had, describing where I was and what they were hoping for it to become in the future. Being on a time constraint, I only glanced over them looking for the trail map. Cool! A .31 mile trail around Pond Laser. That was perfect - I didn't want something to start the ADVENTURE vibration in my innards, distracting me from the tiny flashcard application in my hand. There were other trails too, about the same small length, but I wanted to go in a nice circle and repeat it so as to not get too interested in my surroundings. 

     Live oaks and GREEN green abound at tJAG. It's really a cute place. It smelled like plants and dirt, and was a quiet, soothing space. I'd really hate to see it actually full of people, because that would change the vibe from "sleepy hidden gem" to "mall" in my opinion. So I took my 2 walks around the pond, hating those few words that FOR THE LIFE OF ME I WILL NEVER LEARN. But I was calmed by the stillness. There were no birds, only the wet coolness of a gray April day. Every step I took formed small invisible happy faces that floated over my head like bubbles (you know, the kind you get when the shower temperature is just right? Or when you wake up on Saturday and realize you can just lay there and not go to work?) tJAG was like a tiny dose of zen in the middle of the workday. Realizing my time was growing short, I made my way back to my car, happy faces trailing off into the sky, waiting for my to return. Ahhhh.

     I realized that other car was still in the parking lot, and it was running. I didn't see anyone in it, so I thought maybe someone had gotten out to do something. I paid it no mind as I got in, buckled my seatbelt, and started the car. As I shifted into park, I turned my head slightly to glance back at the car that was- DEAR LORD THERE ARE PEOPLE DOING IT IN THERE.

     So that was my lunchtime journey the the Jacksonville Arboretum and Gardens. It's got a lot of potential to be something adventurous one day, but I really like it where it is, with its wee pond, short trails, and the skanky parking lot. It's definitely worth checking out on your lunchbreak.

Visit the website: The Jacksonville Arboretum and Gardens