St. Augustine

Waves, Swamps, & Bayous: Southeastern Waters - Part 4

Tuesday, 13 November 2018

Lon grew up in south Georgia and made many visits to north Florida, but I’d never been to St. Augustine. So on our way to south Florida we stopped at St. Augustine. Because it was part of the Spanish New World, it does not get its due recognition as the oldest settlement in the US (1565). As a northerner, I learned about Jamestown (1607) and the Pilgrims in Massachusetts (1620), but not a peep about the Spanish in Florida, Texas, or Mexico

The Castillo de San Marco is one of (if not the) the major tourist sites in St.Augustine. It’s an old Spanish fort that was never overtaken by force, although it did change hands numerous times through treaties and alliances. It’s now run by the National Park Service as a National Monument.

Defensive cannons on the roof.

This special furnace was used to head cannonballs to about 1500°F -- hot enough to start a fire on an attacking ship.

The dry moat around the castillo.

A view of the cathedral roof from the castillo.

The castillo was made of “coquina”, a young (geologically speaking) loose limestone comprised of tiny shells. The stone absorbs the shock of incoming cannon and atillery shells without cracking or crumbling. The photo above shows what’s left of the quarry where this stone was mined. The floor has filled with a few feet of sand and clay. Today it’s part of Anastasia State Park.

A trail leading out of the quarry at Anastasia State Park. This park, on Anastasia Island just outside St. Augistine, has a nice beach and a large campground.

Okefenokee Swamp

Waves, Swamps, & Bayous: Southeastern Waters - Part 3

Monday, 12 November 2018

It’s been a long time, but we’ve been to the Okefenokee before. This is the first time we got “up close and personal” in a kayak. We entered the Okefenokee through the National Wildlife Refuge on the eastern side of the swamp. Fortunately, this time of year, the mosquitoes are not bad!

The main canal on the east side of the Okefenokee.

A cypress draped in Spanish moss.

Yaupon hollies were common in the swamp.

We saw a number of ‘gators,

Sue in her kayak as we started the last leg of our tour

The canoe/kayak trails are well-marked. There are back-country campsites on platforms for travelers who want to spend a night (or two or three) in the Okefenokee.

Insectivorous Plants

A number of “carnivorous” plants live in the Okefenokee. They digest insects to supplement the food they make with photosynthesis.

The flower of a bladderwort (Utricularia spp.). This plant catches insects in submerged bladders.

The sundew (Drosera spp) traps insects on its sticky leaves.

Pitcher plants (Sarracenia spp) collect insects in their tubes.

Birds

We saw lots of birds in the swamp. Here are two of the easier-to-photograph.

Red-shouldered hawk

Anhinga

Upland Areas

After our kayak tour, we also drove the Swamp Island Drive and walked the boardwalk to the observation tower.

Panoramic view from the observation tower.

Much of the “uplands” are managed for longleaf pine and red-cockaded woodpeckers. Trees with holes for potential woodpecker nests are marked with white paint bands.

Congaree National Park

Waves, Swamps, & Bayous: Southeastern Waters - Part 2

Sunday, 11 November 2018

Congaree National Park is a small national park near Columbia, South Carolina, that is noted for its stands of virgin timber. It has a large number of “champion” trees (the largest of their species in the state/US/world). Many of the trees are 120 to 130 ft (40 m) tall. While not as impressive as the redwoods and sequoias of the west coast, these are some of the tallest trees in the eastern US.

Most of the park is swamp along the Congaree River.

Cypress knees sometimes look like an army of forest gnomes.

The crown canopy of the champion loblolly pine.

These loblolly pines near the loblolly champion are over 190 ft (58 m) tall.

Lon is standing next to this large oak to give some idea of its size.

Looking up into the canopy of the big oak.

Wise Lake

More swamp

A nice collection of mushrooms growing under the bark of a dying beech tree.

At Congaree the “mosquito meter” was at the low end. When we were on Ocracoke, I would have rated it somewhere between “Ruthless” and “War Zone”.

The Outer Banks

Waves, Swamps, & Bayous: Southeastern Waters - Part 1

Friday, 9 November 2018

We started our most recent trip on North Carolina’s Outer Banks.

The three iconic lighthouses of the Outer Banks. From left to right: Bodie Island, Cape Hatteras, and Ocracoke. Several generations of Rollinsons and Fulchers were keepers of the Hatteras lighthouse.

An offshore storm was making for heavy surf on the Atlantic side.

Huge flocks of birds (cormorants??) were following the waves.

Brown pelicans flying low overhead.

A bird (willet?) wading in the surf.

Brilliantly colored driftwood (cypress?).

Ocracoke Island is accessible only via ferry from Hatteras Island or the mainland.

Pamlico Sound is very shallow, and lots of birds congregate on sandbars. The waters were much calmer than the Atlantic.

Another bird-covered sandbar and lots of dead trees caught in the shallow water.

A sunset view of Pamlico Sound.

The moon was just barely a crescent -- two days past new moon. We had spectacularly dark skies at our Ocracoke campground and the Milky Way was prominently displayed.

Signs of Fall

The trees have finally started to turn -- it's a late autumn this year.

I think I take this photo every year. There's still a lot of green, but the foliage has thinned to let in a luminous glow.

Lon & Dakota as we come up to "Three Rivers Campground". (Haven't camped there for years. There's a small tree growing in the middle of the campfire ring!)

Early yesterday afternoon the moon was setting behind the mountain. You can see that some of the trees have their fall color.

A less welcome sign of fall are the Japanese multi-colored lady beetles (or lady bugs if you want to be entomologically incorrect). It's a warm day after a week or so of night-time freezing, and they are swarming looking for a place to spend the winter. They squeeze through ridiculously small cracks, but die within hours indoors. From now through April we'll be sweeping and vacuuming them up daily.

A closer look at the lady beetles. I didn't want to get close enough for a good photo, so this is just an enlargement from the previous photo. These are nasty: they are aggressive, bite, and when they die they stink. This is a real invasive alien species!

Pittsburgh - Step Trek 2018

Step Trek is an annual urban hike through Pittsburgh's South Side Slopes. Much of the route is over streets that are just steps. We took a leisurely three hours to walk the "Gold" route that meandered up and down the western part of the Slopes.

Both the Gold and Black routes start and end at the end of 21st Street under the Mission Street Bridge. In addition to ticket sales and free water and fruit, there were six food trucks serving everything from donuts to Indian take-out.

The 15th Street pedestrian bridge over the Norfolk & Western railway tracks.

Lauer Way steps are an example of a typical Pittsburgh "step" street.

Great views of the city were frequent. The Birmingham Bridge is in the middle of this photo, and the tall dark building on the horizon is the Cathedral of Learning (University of Pittsburgh) in Oakland.

To the left was downtown Pittsburgh. Those billowing clouds portended rain to come.

At the top of the Germantown Square steps (265 of them!) was a bell to ring to mark the longest step climb of Step Trek. Amos climbed ALL of these steps himself.

One part of the climb was on the Knoxville Incline Greenway Trail.

We were getting close to the end when those threatening clouds burst forth into a short downpour.

As we ate lunch at the food trucks, the clouds parted -- temporarily. We still got soaked by a second downpour on our way back to David & Maria's house.