The wifi app tells me that there is wifi to be had at the Bob Evans<\/strong> (as in country sausage) on the strip outside Lake City<\/strong> at US 90 and I-15.\u00a0 So that was breakfast.\u00a0 Then more driving than I thought to go not nearly as far as I thought.<\/p>\n

The major roads curved in ways I didn’t like, but there was a light gray line<\/em> on the map that went straight in the direction I wanted, so I downsized from the four-lanes to the itty bitty<\/em> roads.\u00a0\u00a0 The first part of this road was very narrow but it had a little apron of 8″ of extra asphalt on each side to give you some wiggle room when semis come the other way even if it was kinda bumpy to have to put one set of wheels on the asphalt.\u00a0 That was kinda odd, but then the second part of the road was the same narrow road but without<\/em> that 16″ inches of cushion, so me and the dump trucks had to really focus passing each other.\u00a0 Glad I drive a narrow euro-van instead being part of a dump truck on dump truck facedown! :)<\/p>\n

I drove right past one wildlife refuge which I hate to do. I was still processing the guilt from doing that when the sign for another hove into view, so I went right into that sucker.\u00a0 It was St Marks NWR<\/strong> (no fancy native american names for these folks :), and it is where I spent the rest of the afternoon.<\/p>\n

It had a lot of stuff going on.\u00a0 A little stretch of cypress swamp, a long stretch of tidal marsh, a fresh water pond right next to the Gulf, and then the actual Gulf itself, with a genuine lighthouse<\/strong> for that picturesque photo opp!\u00a0 I saw more birds new to me than anywhere else so far on this trip. The info signs say this is a big spot for Monarch Butterflies<\/strong>, and indeed I did see some (20-30), even on the last day of November.<\/p>\n

There are White Ibis<\/strong>, which are very cool, I can imagine I’m in Egypt on the Nile.<\/p>\n

There was a huge, very striking bird which must have been a Great Whitee Heron, like the Great Blue, except even bigger and not blue (haha), and with a longer, heaver bill it seemed to me.\u00a0 It was high-stepping around in the grasses stabbing with that big bill to nail some kind of luckless critter.\u00a0 Much more kinetic and fun to watch than these guys usually are.\u00a0 They seem to spend most of their lives posing.<\/p>\n

[UPDATE] Wood Crane, and coots were coots, and Ibises rock!<\/p>\n

The predominate swimming bird were coots<\/strong> I thought. but on further examination they were bigger and not the right shape, more like a goose with coot markings – a white bill and blackish feathers.\u00a0 I’ll go to the books and get back to you on this one.<\/p>\n

Also, there are no-see-ums<\/strong> – there have to be!\u00a0 I can’t see um (haha), but how else to explain these sudden little pinpricks of sting I keep feeling all over my legs and arms – here and nowhere before, even the Everglades.\u00a0 No big deal as pests go, but fer sure they are annoying little f–ers.<\/p>\n

To my dismay it was 4pm-ish when I got to St Marks (where did<\/em> the day go?), but I stayed as long as I could.\u00a0 I hung around to see as much sunset as I thought I could get away with and still have daylight to get find a site in the National Forest down the road.\u00a0 I of course underestimated the time; it was almost dark by the time I got to the main road, with 30 miles more ahead of me.\u00a0 But I got real lucky.\u00a0 Right across the main road was a Wahulla County<\/strong> campground, utterly off the radar of all<\/em> of my information sources, and so low key that I drove right past it.\u00a0 But I had the good sense to u-ey and inquire, so for $15 I’m plugged in and showered and chillin at a quiet c.g. in a really pretty place.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"