There's nothing a martini and an AK-47 can't fix.
March 24, 2013 1 Comment
OK, so I know March comes in like a lion and is supposed to go like a lamb. Kids, it’s March 23, and the forecast frankly sucks ass. This year, I think March is going out like a rabid badger. I am officially not amused. It’s almost hiking season for the love of God. Anyway, to remind me of warmer climes and happy paddling, here’s something to tide us over until spring is actually here.
Cudjoe Key
March 5, 2013 2 Comments
Big Cypress National Preserve is one of my favorite haunts over the winter. With the water levels up and the mosquito population as low it gets, this is a good time to visit. We’ve been many times and it never gets boring. We decided to do the Loop Road Scenic Drive off of the Tamiami Trail. This is not particularly close.to anything as you are about halfway between Miami and Naples. Scenic drives can be a relative term, so we proceeded with the knowledge we might be wasting our time.
This is a 25 mile dirt and gravel road that in wet weather would be a disaster. It is not easy on the suspensions either. We drove it weighted down with kayaks because we roll like that. If you complain about the ride in a Lincoln on an interstate, you will freak out on this road so don’t drive. It will take a minimum of 2 hours to drive, so plan accordingly.
The first few miles are boring. You will begin to despair. Finally, just as the road begins to curve, you will come to a low water bridge with open vistas into the cypress forest. Park your car and get out. Do not be a jack ass and drive by and miss out. The water is absolutely clear and loaded with fish. You will see lots of birds – egrets, ibis, anhinga, herons, etc. You will see lots of alligators.
This is your view:
What you can’t see is just how clear the tannin-stained water is. If you peek over the edge of the bridge into the water, you will see alligators hanging out waiting to eat fish.
While we were admiring this view, a beat up car drove up. Out came three guys with a DSL camera, an old man and a guy wearing a wet suit and a mask. Looking suitably self-important, they announced that they were filming a show they couldn’t talk about, but that they were going to film wet suit guy getting in the water with the alligators. Troy and I shook our heads as these people were clearly not rocket scientists. Then they said to us that we should not call the police or anything (side note: there’s not a phone signal to be had for love or money here, so whatevs) and that they were not going to “molest” the alligators. What he meant by that I think was that he did not plan to have sex with the alligators, because he sure as hell fucked with the alligators. This dumb ass jumped in the water and proceeded to chase a 7′ alligator all over the place, finally grabbing him and lifting him out of the water. It was somewhat hard to believe.
Then one of them told him to say something for the camera. So he intoned, in what he felt was a voice of suitable gravitas, “The American Alligator. This animal is not dangerous. As you can see, he just wanted to get away from me.” Yes, as do we all. As do we all.
I hope someone recognizes him and he gets nailed with the $5000 fine for fucking with wildlife. The days of Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom when Marlon Perkins would sit in his jeep and make Jim go out and fuck with hyenas with a turkey baster are long over. It’s not really cool to mess with an animal that just wants to hang out and eat some fish. Just take a picture for the love of God.
December 31, 2012 Leave a comment
It’s December and the older and more arthritic I am getting, the less jazzed about cold weather I become. A trip to God’s Waiting Room, otherwise known as Florida, was in order. We arrived late in Naples to spend the night with Troy’s Mom. Naples is a ludicrously over-privileged enclave for trust fund larvae and retired old people. You can tell precisely how annoyingly pretentious the subdivision is by the size and number of fountains at the gatehouse. All subdivisions are gated. Troy’s Mom lives in Tiburon which is a Ritz Carlton resort and it is heinously pretentious. Once you get through the gates, you have to go through a second set of gates to get to the multi-million dollar homes on the golf course. I guess it’s important to keep the riff-raff at the Ritz our of your private street. I did enjoy parking in the garage with our kayaks. It went Mercedes, Mercedes, Mercedes, Porsche, BMW, Mercedes, Ferrari, Ferrari, Mercedes, Honda. Guess which one was my car?
We decided that a run on Fisheating Creek might be called for. Creek is kind of misleading as a name for this waterway. This is the main flowing waterway that feeds Lake Okeechobee which in turn feeds the Everglades. It is a huge body of water moving through a swamp with one main channel. In high water, it actually runs fast which is a rarity in Florida. It’s certainly not whitewater, but it has a noticeable current. It consistently amazes me that given the sheer abundance of fantastic kayaking/canoeing locations in this state, there isn’t a single really awesome source of info for paddlers. We decided to do it based on the sole recommendation of a guy who drove us insane at the Turner River put in.
Let’s talk about the logistics of getting there. This is in southern Central Florida. This means that there isn’t a whole lot there. It runs roughly parallel with Ft. Meyers, but you are headed inland off I-75. The biggest town nearby is La Belle which has a whopping 4000 inhabitants. Plan accordingly. Once you are there, you have no choice but to go to the Fisheating Creek Outpost. This is the Fisheating Creek outpost:
As you can guess, this is a redneck paradise. Consider yourself warned. The people that man the outpost are not helpful, it’s packed and it’s mega-expensive. We called before we came to check water levels (always necessary) and were told it was runnable. It wasn’t really. They stated the water level was 1.5 and that below 2.0 feet, you have some low water levels where you will have to port your boat. We were told to expect it at the very end for maybe a couple of hundred feet. This seemed doable so we decided to go for it. However, what they thought we wanted was access to the river to put in. What we meant was we wanted portage to the top of the river 8 miles up. Part of the problem was a sheer lack of speaking the same language. When you want them to drive you to a start point and leave you to float back, the term they use is “livery”. You are duly advised to use this term. We called and asked for portage. They said no problem and $5. On arrival, after having waited in line in the shack for 30 minutes, we were handed a pass for $5 and told to drive through the gates. We asked who we needed to talk to for driving us to the put in and they looked at us like we were aliens. Once they realized what we wanted, then they said that there was no portage and we could just paddle upriver for $5 if we wanted. I did fear Troy was going to start the killin’. We finally managed to locate the very amiable owner of the campground who realized we had been lured by morons and he fixed it for us. He offered to take us to the put in and we took him up on it. We were charged $85 for the 6-mile drive. This is an all-time record for portage. The high cost may have something to do with the legal settlement between the State of Florida and the cattle ranching Lykes Brothers related to access, but it is very, very steep.
The creek itself is a ribbon of thick cypress forest in a sea of grass. Driving up on it looks like hills in the distance, but it’s just the tree tops. The put in requires a drive through several sets of padlocked gates so this is not something you can do on the sly. Also, there are cattle. The put in is very easy and you head straight into a waterway. We got in at Burnt Bridge which is an 8 mile paddle. You can also put in at Ingrams Crossing which is a 16 mile paddle. In high water, the 16 mile run would not be difficult. On arrival, it looked a lot like Okefenokee with clear, dark, tannin-stained waters and moss-draped cypress, but that’s only for a 1/4 mile or so. The grass carp were leaping out of the water everywhere which is very cool. There are signs marked with blue arrows that tell you which way to go and they can be confusing, so pay attention. The section near the beginning where the stream is only 6-8 feet wide and twists and turns was the best part. Sadly, I have no pics as I was busy trying not to run into alligators which are all over the place.
Unfortunately, the water levels turned out to be so low that we ended up slogging through the water on foot dragging the kayaks for hundreds of yards at a time. In several locations, it was completely impassable due to alligator flag (water plant) and we had to drag up the bank and through the woods. I was less than jazzed. The older I get, the harder it is to jump in and out of the kayaks and by the end, I was bitchy, sore and exhausted. Less than one-half mile from the end, the skies opened up and we had to get out once again and hide under a saw palmetto to wait it out. It rained hard enough that we had to dump the boats out. We got back soaked and cold.
Is it worth it? Absolutely, but only with water levels ideally above 2.5 feet. Less than that and you are going to hate your life in several places. The bugs are out and you will need serious bug spray and there are lots of really huge alligators for those that freak over that sort of thing. This is about as rural as it gets and you may very well have the entire run to yourself until the very end. It is the last remaining waterway feeding Lake Okeechobee and it is worth seeing for that reason alone. Also, not a strip mall in sight and Florida is overrun with them. Wildlife is plentiful and we even saw panther tracks when we stopped for lunch on a sand bar.
Since my pics suck, check out this video which shows what the run on Fisheating Creek looks like when the water is higher. Turn off the sound as it has a terrible soundtrack.
October 23, 2012 1 Comment
I finally decided to take two days and head to the mountains to view the fantastic fall colors and do some hiking with Troy. The news reports gave glowing reviews of radiant leaf colors not seen for a decade. Reports of outstanding fall foliage were greatly overstated and may be the result of either hopeful merchants or crack-smoking leaf hunters.
Let’s review what good fall leaf color looks like.
Roaring Fork in a good fall color year (photo credit to Troy, not me)
Now, let’s see what exists there this year:
OK, but I will not be composing poetry rhapsodizing over the verdant fall colors.
For those of you who want to know, there is good color in a 1-mile stretch heading to Cades Cove (roughly 5 miles in) and there is some decent color in Greenbrier and around Chimney Tops. However, the crowds are unrelenting, the traffic is horrendous, and there is of course the horror known as Gatlinburg to contend with. I’d pass on this year. Unless you enjoy endless streams of Mississippians in Cadillacs cruising at 2 mph in Cades Cove slamming on their brakes every time they see a deer.
An oasis in a sea of fudge shops, Dukes of Hazard memorabilia and Ripley’s Believe it or Not.
September 30, 2012 4 Comments
Apparently, Wikipedia is looking to expand their sources on blowjob gestures.
Some things just really speak for themselves.[/caption]
August 7, 2012 8 Comments
This summer has not gone exactly as planned. To start with, I am not jazzed with encroaching age and watching my body collapse into ruin is kind of sucking. My parents failed to cover this aspect of life and I find I am ill-prepared to deal with the onslaught of lupus and all its fun manifestations in conjunction with gravity. Gravity is evil. Kids, trust me on this one. Sure, it keeps you attached to the earth and all, but it also causes the fall of many body parts you had no intent to allow to slide.
I also got absolutely nothing done I intended to do. I intended to go kayaking in Florida. This did not happen. I intended to drop 15 pounds. Whatever. I intended to finish my novel. So not done. All I have done is work. A lot. And give blood to nurses so that doctors can run endless tests to confirm that I am, in fact, decrepit. Thank you Captain Obvious, I am aware that my knees will not bend and my hands cannot make a fist anymore.
Work is all fine and well, but when it consumes everything, I think it’s time to realign what you are doing. Lawyers work insane hours. It’s part of the job and the hours combined with the stress of litigating pretty much guarantee an unhealthy lifestyle. I have worked more hours than I can possibly explain and I am no happier than I was before I gave up all those hours. In fact, I kind of resent I can’t get them back. Troy is on a two-week trip out west to go commune with nature and climb and hike and try to plan new ways to kill me on exotic hikes next year, and I am in the office. This sucks.
As the result of my growing sense that I will never get to do anything awesome unless I simply pack up and do it, I am declaring shenanigans. Fuck work. Time for something new. Plenty of people get to my age and construct bucket lists. Yawn. I think it’s more appropriate to compile a list of things I will not be doing. This is my unbucket list:
1. Working a 70 hour work week.
2. Driving 55 in the left lane.
3. Giving up chocolate.
4. Prednisone. I have had enough.
5. Organizing my spice rack.
6. Actually finishing The Rise and Fall of Western Civilization.
7. Smiling politely at people I can’t stand.
8. Vacuuming my house every day.
9. Living completely safely.
10. Making my dogs sit for their biscuit, every time.
11. Pretending interest in someone’s inane chattering.
12. Drinking gin martinis. Vodka only.
13. Attending every family event because I am expected to.
14. Watching the news every night.
15. Buying new suits for work.
16. Wearing high heels.
17. Brazilian waxes.
18. Getting up early every day.
I intend to add to this as time goes on. I cannot believe I have wasted so much time doing stupid things because someone wants me to or because I am supposed to. I have forgotten to enjoy all the traveling I do because the traveling has become nothing more than a brief punctuation in a long stretch of noise and activity. It is hard to be quiet and enjoy what’s in front of you when all you think of is what’s left to get done when you get back. Life is very short and can change on a dime. Enjoy what you have and do what you love because you might not have the tomorrow you expect.
Grand Teton. I should be there.
June 29, 2012 3 Comments
Dear Death Valley,
It appears you left your park unlocked and allowed your weather to escape to Tennessee. I’m sure it’s just an oversight that you haven’t come to collect it yet. However, I am sweating in ways that I cannot describe. It’s the kind of hot where you drive down the street wearing a muumuu draped over the steering wheel so you can get cold refreshing air from the AC on your lady parts because your ass melted into the seat on contact. It also appears y’all stole our weather. We would like you to return it. Death Valley is sitting at a lovely 99 today, which is hot, but livable in Tennessee at this time of year.
A balmy 99 in the desert
By contrast, at 3:30 today, this is what the temperature is here in Nashville:
wtf?
Come get your weather, assholes. I am not amused. Thanks.
