On The Road

I enjoy travel, and fairly soon we will take off on our, what is now, traditional summer Grand Driving Tour.  This year we will drive up to Pennsylvania - both eastern and western.  Then head due West and some North to watch our middle daughter graduate from college in Seattle.  Then down Highway 1 into San Francisco where we'll catch Die Valkyrie.  And then I-don't-know-how-but we will head to San Antonio for a conference the weekend of July 4.

In light of that impending schedule you might wonder who would hop in their car and drive just weeks before?

Well, me.  I had a chance to be in the middle of the state for some meetings and so I decided to hit up three State Parks I have seen signs to for years, but never stopped to explore.  So with my new Tilley hat, binoculars and trusty little camera I stopped at:

Paynes Prairie Preserve

This is a wonderful park.  Huge and is being reclaimed and managed so that it will (hopefully) return to its natural state - before development and runoff.  Looks like they're doing a great job.  There is also a herd of bison, a herd of wild horses and loads of birds.  Saw some Sandhill Cranes ... they are extraordinary!  Way too far off to photograph, but I got some close up peeks with the binos.

Then it was off to Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings State Historical Site.  I've always wanted to go here because of her books - which I love. 

Walking through the hammock I really felt like time was going backwards.  It was so still, and the cricket calls were so dense I felt like they draped across my shoulders and moved with me.  I could see why she was so inspired by this landscape.

Walking along along the lake, I was immersed in old Florida in a way I haven't felt since my childhood days.  I grew up just a short drive east in St. Augustine and if you get off the beach, this is very much the scrub, cracker landscape that is the way I always think of Florida.  Regardless of how many theme parks and condos go up.

I ended up at Silver River State Park in Silver Springs (speaking of theme parks - for a vintage 1960 park, go here!) and was almost overwhelmed by the beauty ... the cloistered feeling of solitude.  I know I get a lot of alone time, but this felt fundamentally different.

For a total of $11 and the cost of gas to drive the roughly 45 miles between these three parks I had an amazing two days.  Taking the time to slow down, to pull off the road, to stop the car and get out and walk seems so simple.  I don't know why it is so rare.  In the course of my two day exploration and miles of hikes I saw exactly 5 people.  A retired couple, a student from England, and the canoeing couple on the Silver River.

So much beauty.  So few people enjoying it.

At the hotel where I stayed there were LOTS of people, glued to the television watching Fox & Friends discuss taking away the Miranda rights of terrorists.  While I believe that just about ANYTHING would be better than watching Fox News, I am absolutely certain that getting out in the nature that surrounds and sustains this part of the world could make a dramatic difference in someone's outlook and sense of perspective.

So, now I've sort of primed the pump for the big drive.  I have some organizational and logistical issues to work out ... packing, weather-checking, graduation present buying.  Perhaps taking some flags for the gravesite of Joe's dad (he died in WWII). 

But mostly I am grateful that my life allows me to take a moment and breathe some clean, fresh air.


Oh - and I crossed this:

What's not to love about that?  :)