There's no place like home

Well, I'm home.  I mean, I'm in the midwest, so home...ish.  But not my homehome in Viroqua.  To clarify, I'm in Minneapolis, a city I know well enough it feels familiar.  I spent this past hitch working at sites around Minnesota with one brief foray into northern Wisconsin. Myself and my coworker, Stefano, are both from the area, so although it's not exactly exciting to survey prairie pothole trails (sorry--prairies and wetlands are wonderful, but the grasslands are kind of dead and barren right now), we were glad to see family earlier than expected.

We started in the very southwestern-most county of the state and work our way up the western border before edging in near to the Twin Cities and then to the northwest and finally east into Wisconsin.  I actually saw a surprising amount of wildlife-- I think it can be easy to become
disenchanted by the place you grew up in, especially when that place is the midwest, which is referred to too often as the "fly-over zone." Respect, please.  However, I have even given into that stereotype and expected nothing more than prairies and mosquitoes from this hitch. But I was lucky to see a rattlesnake (what?! I thought nothing deadly lived in these parts!), some cutie-pie river otters that snorted at us in attempts to frighten us, but instead garnered more of a cooing.  We saw a Sandhill Crane, a porcupine, and the coolest of all, we saw two black bear cubs at the Iron River Fish Hatchery.  awwwww they were SO CUTE!  I think I can gush more over bear cubs and panther babies than I can puppies and kittens.  You should look up baby panthers- they are deadly cute.

okay, I did it for you.  This is a baby Florida panther

We heard some fine midwestern accents.  We got hit with swarms of the first hatching of mosquitoes, but only for one night while camping, luckily, as the mosquito swarms prompt pbj dinners eaten while pacing and batting your arms madly.  Also they force you into your tent by 7 pm.  We went through tick hell, each of us regularly removing armies of ticks that marched up our pant legs after every trail that was at all grassy.  After such trails Stefano and I would look at our legs, look at each other, and, after removing as many as possible, head to the nearest gas station for a more comprehensive search. Ugh.  Ticks are truly zits on the earth- I wish I could incinerate every one I find.

We didn't take a whole lot of off time since we were focused on front-loading our schedule in order to make it home for a bit of time. But we did have a few down days.  One day we decided it would be cool to check out the North Country Scenic Trail, a trail that will stretch from North Dakota to New York when completed.  I've certainly had thoughts about hiking sections of it (I believe it is supposed to be close to 4,000 miles long) so I figured it would be good to test it out.  Well.  I'm NOT going to be hiking that trail anytime soon. Ticks, mosquitoes, ahem, no nice scenic vistas... we turned around after hiking about a mile.  Wimps, maybe.  But I spent four months working on the Pacific Crest Trail in WA, OR, and CA and land that trail goes through is unbelievable.  Now that trail is worth your sweat and tears.  In my opinion, of course.  Now I admit, I am probably a bit of a trail snob at this point.  So, that which we thought would be cool was not.  No matter.  After a quick gas station tick check we were back in the truck to go to our next mosquito-infested campsite.

This hitch, being back in the midwest, has prompted me to think more about my home--what is home for me.  The last time I packed up to leave Boise I was voicing my hopes that in a couple hitches I'll be
able to pack my bag in ten minutes flat.  Ready to fly cross-country in ten minutes or less.  Everything I need and want contained in a duffel and a cooler.  Wait-- everything I need, not everything I want.  Ever since I graduated college I've moved from place to place, starting in Alaska, the southern California, New Jersey, Washington, Oregon, and California again, now Boise, and, briefly, Arizona and Florida.  I know what I need but I'm starting to realize more and more, and miss more and more, the things I want.  Maybe that's a good lesson: to learn what you need, and then to fill in the gaps where you are missing those things you want.  For the longest time I traveled without a pillow... no room for such a luxury in my bag.  Well, not anymore!  Pillow comes with me-- and it's not a special camping pillow either.  It has a pillowcase. 

The most permanent address I've held since college lasted 8 months-- in southern CA.  But I wasn't there half the time.  And my bed was a foam pad on the floor.  Now my bed is the couch- at least in Boise. Wait, shouldn't I be moving up in the world?  I feel like a real mattress (maybe on the floor) is a good next step.  I think probably the most prominent thing missing from my travel duffel is the people
I've met and come to really appreciate in my travels. 

Right now I don't have a home, but I can find it in the people I am with.  Sometimes that person is myself.

I already posted this photo, but that's my mobile home... the blue tent.  Nick is by the tent, and that's Toji on his sleeping bag

In about a week I am off to Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts.

The Sunshine State

 I’m back.  Returned to Boise after three weeks of working nearly the entire coast of Florida, and the southern bits of Alabama and Mississippi as well.

It was a grand hitch—Mike and I became quite knowledgeable on the best beaches, we ate some TWO-time world-championship-winner clam chowder, hiked bits of the Florida National Scenic Trail, visited the capital in Tallahassee, went to Everglades National Park, saw alligators and lots of birds, and, oh yeah, we worked.

We started just east of Orlando on Merritt Island.  The refuge is adjacent to the NASA space shuttle launch area, making it rather unique in it’s placement to protect wildlife.  We hiked two trails there and got our first taste of Florida’s mosquitoes.  Those guys are fierce!  We heard stories from people who worked at the refuge about how back in the old days, before mosquito control techniques existed, cattle would die of suffocation because they couldn’t breath for all the mosquitoes at their nostrils.  What??  Now they have ways to minimize the bugs by controlling water levels and, in some places, spraying.  Hmmm…  We were able to stay in a really nice bunkhouse on the refuge for our two nights there.  We shared with two other girls currently interning at the refuge but still got our own rooms and a bed each!  I found that accommodations on hitch tend to be much fancier than here in Boise, where I share a room with two girls and sleep on an air mattress (that now deflates every night as I sleep on it).

Merritt Island also happens to be adjacent to Cape Canaveral National Seashore.  So we wasted no time heading to the beach after work.

After Merritt Island was wrapped up we drove south a few hours to Hobe Sound, another coastal refuge.  It was at Hobe Sound that we encountered our first trail that literally led us to the beach.  It was a dreamy trail—popping us right out onto a white sandy stretch with warm water lapping at our feet.  Also there were no bugs and far less humidity.  Other people have also realized this piece of paradise and the nearby Jupiter Island is apparently home to many celebrities, including Tiger Woods. 

Once we finished at Hobe Sound we decided we would check out the refuge’s other beach…since we were there anyway.  The picture says it all, but it was beautiful.  I also got to jump in to the Atlantic and play in the waves.

When we’d soaked up enough sun and saltwater we headed further south and west to Florida Panther NWR, which is kind of nestled in between the Everglades and Big Cypress National Preserve.  We stayed in a very nice mobile home at the work center—it had air conditioning.  We worked on Florida Panther and Ten Thousand Islands refuges the next day.  Florida Panther houses up to 15 panthers, but we saw none.  Our contact gave us warnings of rattlesnake with rattles as loud as a chainsaw, bears in trees, 11-foot alligators, and poison ivy EVERYwhere.  We encountered none of those things, except we did see some alligators along one trail. 

Since we were already so close to the Everglades we took our weekend there.  We drove to the furthest south campground first and did some hiking and exploring there.  It was cool, but really, very buggy.  The mosquitoes and no-see-ums were out of control.  Mike and I went on a hike and it was really miserable—mosquitoes swarming the entire way.  We ran back with heads down and I tied a handkerchief around my nose and mouth and neck.  Back at camp we made dinner with no-see-ums taking bites.  It was really miserable.  Mike and I took to our tents as soon as dinner was over.  Nice,, hot tents and sticky sleeping bags.  The next day we canoed in the bay- that was great.  No bugs, first and foremost, and I’ve never canoed in the ocean before!  I wanted to jump in but they said there are sharks, so keep your fingers and toes out of the water!

The Everglades... river of grass

Mike in the canoe

Mangrove Tree

Mike and I decided we couldn’t handle another night like the last, so we drove north to the other campground to see if things were better there.  They were.  We could actually sit outside and play cards and eat dinner like normal people.

Sunset in the Pine Flatwoods, Everglades

The following day we decided since we were so close anyway we would check out the Keys.  We didn’t drive all the way down, but we went as far as a state park and enjoyed their beach for a bit.  I also got a delicious key-lime milkshake.

After the weekend we started our journey north, on the gulf coast of Florida.  Monday was a hard day… had to take one point on Sanibel Island which happens to have, yes, an amazing beach.  So after the point was taken we headed to the water.  Once we’d taken full advantage of the seashore we got back into the car and drove about 4 hours north to Chassahowitzka NWR.  We were put up in a trailer/RV there—I’ve never stayed in an RV before! So that was kind of fun, for a night.  The trails at Chass were also abundant in mosquitoes.  We worked all morning and then drove back to the trailer to work on the data.  On the drive back we were just exhausted—I felt like I’d just been through an epic battle.  It was traumatizing.  Especially for Mike—the bugs LOVE Mike.  And he hates them more than most people I know.

From Chassahowitzka we carried on north to Lower Suwannee NWR.  We camped at a nice campground on the water and took the refuge ranger’s advice and had dinner in the town of Cedar Keys, where they serve up world famous clam chowder.  YUM!  The area where Lower Suwannee is has many archeological sites from the Native Americans that lived there long ago.  They built these massive “shell mounds”—since they relied so much on seafood for their diet, they would collect and crack open oysters (or whatever shell-dwellers they found) and threw the shells into a big pile.  Kind of like we throw all of our garbage into a big pile.  Only theirs actually helped them out.  They would create pile so large they created high ground to protect from storm surges, and now there are whole forests that grow on the mounds.  But you can still see shell fragments everywhere.

St. Marks was our last refuge where we had work planned.  The refuge is just south of Tallahassee in the panhandle.  We shared a trailer there with another SCA intern who happily showed us around the area (the best beach and such).  We had planned on there being 4 days of work on the refuge, but it turned out there was only two days.  We hiked about 15 miles of the Florida National Scenic Trail, documenting new features and deficiencies and one new trail section.  It’s a cool trail- very dense and actually not much of a trail in many places.  You have to keep a constant eye out for the orange blazes on the trees so you don’t loose the trail.  At St Marks we were introduced to Florida ticks.  We’d been told they were bad, but I thought I understood what bad meant.  I’ve been to New Jersey.  However, this was a new level.  We started our day on the trail—took about ten steps in and I looked down at my ankles and about 10 ticks were already making a beeline up my leg.  We made a big hubbub about it and figured we’d managed to walk right through a nest of them or something.  But no, that’s just how the trail was.  ALL THE WAY.  I stopped flicking them off—it was hopeless.  We had to spend about 45 minutes after work de-ticking ourselves and then showering and quarantining our clothes.  Mike ended up with about ten embedded in his ankles.  Having never even seen a tick before, that was a little traumatic.

So that was St. Marks; it’s a ticky place.  We also took in the city of Tallahassee while we were there and learned some Florida history.  Tallahassee is interesting because it is very hilly- sort of like a miniaturized San Francisco.  This is odd because the rest of Florida rises and falls about 3-4 feet in total (an exaggeration, but also kind of true in the southern portion.) 

We spent Easter at the refuge and left early Monday morning for our new work assignments in Alabama and Mississippi!  Since we cruised on through our work in Florida there was some rescheduling so we didn’t just hang out on the beach for the last week.  This was just fine with me and Mike since we were heading in the direction of New Orleans anyways, where we had a concert to go to on Wednesday.  Our first stop was Bon Secour NWR, on the Gulf shores of Alabama.  We’d been told the work there was light, so that’s what we prepared ourselves for.  There ended up being a good six miles of trails to walk and plenty of new features to mark down.  It was okay though because one of the trails led us directly into the waves of the gulf on the most beautiful beach I think I have ever seen in my life (yep, in Alabama. who knew?)

We HAD to go to the beach!

Unfortunately there was no time to dilly-dally, but it was locked in my mind as a place to return to soon.  We finished up late at Bon Secour and made dinner in the parking lot before driving up through Mobile and into Mississippi.  We camped in a state park where we were joined by team Alpha: Toji and Christina. 

We split refuges the next day with those two.  Mike and I worked at Grand Bay when it wasn’t pouring buckets and threatening to strike us down with lightening.  Once we finished we were officially DONE with our work in the Southeast.  And now for the real fun… the Railroad Revival concert in New Orleans with Old Crow Medicine Show, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, and Mumford and Sons.

The next morning we drove two hours into the city.  I was not expecting to love New Orleans like I do now… I LOVE it.  I am obsessed with the idea of moving there. 

Lots of Mardi Gras beads strung up on gates and fences

I love the color and style of the houses

First on our agenda (well, for three of us) was to see a cello octet play at the university.  It was really good—and it’s not often you get to see eight cellos play together.  Then we wandered the streets a little and saw the French Quarter and a bit of Bourbon Street.  I had a muffaletta sandwich which is a New Orleans classic with lots of ham and cheese and olives.  Time soon came to head in the direction of the concert, which was in a park on the Mississippi.  The concert was simply fantastic.  Seeing Old Crow is something I’ve been wanting ever since I first started listening to them.  And they did not disappoint.  There were a TON of people at the concert and it is very hot in that city.  So being crammed in with a bunch of other hot, sweaty people, in a city that is already hot and sweaty was… very very hot and sweaty.  But luckily the music was good enough to not care.

We spent the next day wandering the city a bit more before we had to begin our drive back east.  There is so much to see and do in that city.  The art and music and culture and FOOD are all so important and prevalent in the city.  I can’t really say much more except that I love it… and I only spent one night there.

Seafood Muffaletta!

We left in the afternoon and camped nearby that beach I mentioned earlier—the prettiest one ever.  And the next morning we woke up and went directly there so I could enjoy it properly with my swimsuit on, crashing around in the waves.  We couldn’t stay for too long; we had places to be and sunburn to avoid.  We had to drive to Orlando to be prepared for our morning flight back to Boise. 

We drove and drove and drove to our hotel where we unloaded the truck and went to return it.  Returned it with a grand total of 3,100 miles on it.  Sheesh.  We packed ourselves up and went to bed for one last night in Florida.  Now I am home in Boise for one week before I head to my next exciting destination… … …MINNESOTA!  Which means I can also go home (my real home) for a few days. 

It’s good to be back.  Let my bug bites die away and my sunburn heal.  The poison ivy I apparently infected myself with is showing up all over me which is really great.  Boise is looking even more springy—lots of flowering trees and tulips popping up.  On Monday I fly to Minneapolis!