Hiking Tosohatchee WMA - Myrtle Point balloon trail

This hike was a balloon trail that included the Myrtle Point Trail, Blues Head, and the Florida Trail.  I started off today's hike at the youth camp.  It's a pretty nice primitive camping and picnic area.  There are a couple of other trails that branch off from here, so I'll be back.  The road to get here is well maintained gravel, and it's not too far off the main dirt road (which is also very well maintained).

A short walk from the camp took me to the trail head.  Most of this trail is an old forest road that has been converted into a combination horse / hiking trail.  The red blazes along the way are up specifically for equestrians. The flowers are blooming nicely in this area, and they smell wonderful.  Between the flowers and the palm trees, it was a great day to just enjoy the odors.  I really do need to learn a little bit more about recognizing plants by name... for these photos, I just called 'em like I saw 'em.

I did try to do a little geocaching today, but I couldn't find the one (Pine and Palmetto) that I was looking for.  After I got home, I looked at the geocaching website and realized I was looking down, when I should have been looking up.  Oh well, maybe another day. Lunch time hit at about the time that passed through the grasslands and arrived at the Myrtle Point / Blues Head trail junction.  I did get a nice picture of the clouds over Big Blue Cypress Mound after I was done eating.  From there is was back into the woods.

In this part of the woods, I saw a plant that I don't think I've seen before.  It looked like grass growing on palm trees.  Long and straight - almost like green hair.  (I later learned that this is called a “shoelace fern”). I almost missed the junction to the Florida Trail,  but it was pretty obvious from the "guide trip" that I was using.  I quickly turned around and got back on the orange blazed trails.  This part of the Florida Trail is blazed exceptionally well.  It is also reasonably well traveled, so it is also very easy to follow.  I could pretty much always see the next blaze from the each one I approached.

In addition to things like "prehistoric ferns" and other interesting flora, I also came upon a dead tree that was still standing.  It caught my eye because of the way the bark had fallen away.  When I poked it with my hiking stick, I found that the wood had decayed by about 2 inches deep all the way around.  That means that the whole tree is standing with only about 2 inches of "solid" wood left. The weather for today's hike was fine except for about the last couple of hours.  During the early afternoon there were cool breezes blowing, but by about 2:00 or so, it was just plain hot.  When I finally got back to the truck, my thermometer said 99 degrees.

It looks like I'll be doing some shorter hikes until the cooler season gets here.  I read on Tom Choma’s Wikiloc blog that this loop floods if the river is high.  Since tomorrow looks like it is supposed to kick off a rainy week, I wanted to get this hike in before the wet weather.  It's easy to see how low the water levels are right now - dry areas that should be swampy, cypress knees growing in other dry areas are just a couple of indications that we need some rain.

Click on the “Trip Details” link at the bottom of this post to see the rest or to download the KML file.

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Geocaching Econ River Wilderness Area

Tom and I explored this area a couple of months ago, so this time I brought Tina.  We only had a couple of hours before the afternoon rain started, so we decided to look for a geocache in this area.  The weather stayed dry while we were out, but humidity was pretty high.  making it feel hotter than it really was… It was like Africa Hot.  That's all part of the joy of living in Florida!

Our trip started out at the entrance, of course.  This area doesn't have a fee for parking, so all you need to do is park and get going... just past the entrance we came upon a little pond full of water lilies in bloom.  From there we just enjoyed the day as we hiked our way toward the river. 

The trails here are very well marked, and well maintained; a very easy walk for pretty much anyone.  I think one could probably even push a baby stroller through here if they were so inclined.

Once we got to the river, we took a few pictures.  There are several cypress trees and a forest of cypress knees that you really have to see to believe.  There is also an old gnarly cypress tree in the river that has some amazing patterns in the trunk.

After the river, we started heading back and looking for the geocache.  I've only searched for geocaches a few times, and usually Tina finds them before I do.  This time I found it first!  It wasn’t difficult – if you want to try, here is a link to the cache details

This is another great area to visit.  The red blazed trail is only about 3 miles round trip, so it only takes an hour or so to complete. The .kml file is available from the “Trip Details” link just below the map.

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St. Augustine Florida–Castillo de San Marcos

This weekend we took a trip to St. Augustine.  If you like historical sites, then this trip needs to be on your “must do” list when you’re in the area.  It’s an easy hour and a half drive from Orlando (almost all interstate), and there is enough to see and do for a full day-trip; if you want to stay for longer, you could easily stay busy for a week.  We left with the plan of taking it easy and staying overnight if we wanted to, but the sites that we wanted to see were all within easy walking distance so we ended up with a full day-trip.

We started our trip at the Visitor’s Center – perfect spot!  They have plenty of parking in the parking garage ($10 per day), and it is right next to all of the sites that we wanted to visit.  At the visitor’s center, you can also pre-purchase tickets for everything.  From a logistics point of view, I have to give them credit for how this is set up.  The tickets that we purchased took us through the shopping area as we walked to each site.  The ticket package includes discounts at local restaurants and bars, so it’s easy to decide what to do for lunch and dinner.  Don’t look for fast food here, look for good food!
 

Our first stop was El Castillo de San Marcos.  This is the oldest masonry fort in the United States; it’s shape of the fort is one that was used during the period to help deflect cannonballs.  The material used for the construction is coquina (a stone that is similar to limestone, but made up of shells).  Because coquina is soft and porous, cannon balls would not shatter the walls like they would marble of other unyielding stone; the cannon fire would either be deflected by the shape, or absorbed into the walls. Another interesting fact about the fort – though it has changed flags several times throughout its history, it was never taken by force.

Tina & Andy in Castillo de San Marcos

Inside the fort, the National Park Service (and volunteers) provide short tours to explain some of the features of the fort.  In the picture to the right is one of the guides.  The wooden platform with the cannon balls on top of it is the original well that they used for fresh water.  Fresh drinking water had to be tough – since this fort is right on the beach, salt water. One of the other guides that we spoke with was in front of a table full of medical equipment from the time.  Some of the equipment was recognizable and similar to what is used today, other things… not so much.  One thing that struck me while we were here was how small the beds were.  The guide explained that the average height of the men at the fort back then was about 5’2” to 5’4”.  Compared to the local tribes, these guys were pretty small!

Tour Guide

At the fort, there are also a whole bunch of cannons and mortars from the period, and a few times throughout the day, they even do a demonstration of how the cannons were fired.  Yes.  They are loud. 

Another thing that was interesting about the fort was the dry moat that surrounds it.  If you notice from the areal view of the fort, there are cannon placements around the full perimeter, including pointing to the south where the town is/was.  If the town was under attack, the citizens could be brought into the fort and their livestock moved to the dry moat.  This allowed the cannons to be fired at the town if the enemy was there.  This actually happened at one of the battles!

More photos from Castillo de San Marcos