Friday, January 22, 2010

Cumberland Island Christmas

Finally, the pictures from the Christmas Cumberland Island Trek!


This is Fred.   He was a Boy Scout in Idaho and though normally I don't associate with Boy Scouts, he is the only person who was crazy enough to want to hang out on an island with me on Christmas.

 




He took all these photos on his iphone because neither of us remembered to bring actual cameras.  But that's okay, because some of the stuff we got up to, we probably wouldn't want pictures of anyway.  Like the ticks, and the trek we took through the extremely dense brush when we lost the trail and the 800 times I tried to light the stove and failed.

 




We got the stove to work the first night, just fine.  Here we're having a delicious dinner of beef stew mixed with santefe rice.  Yum!

 




Fred was so excited by that dinner that he didn't even worry about the lime-sized blisters on his feet.  We had hiked 10 miles into the Brickhill Bluff campsite--which was probably the best place on the whole island.

 




It was right on the river.  We woke up on Christmas morning to grey skies and wind.  Fred got out his iphone and learned that we were under tornado watches.  Happy Birthday Jesus!  So I told him that we were no longer 'iphone camping' because I'd just rather not know.  We had planned on leaving our gear by the river and hiking further north to the old settlement on the island--where the church JFK JR eloped to is--but we didn't want to  leave our stuff in case of a tornado.  Instead, we suited up and headed south.

 





And we saw ponies.



 




Fred didn't want to pet them.  He is so sensible.

 




"Peace out Fred, I'm sick of walking"

 




"What?  They bite?  Ok, I guess I can trudge on"

 




Later that afternoon, we pulled up at Plum Orchard, which is an old mansion that is maintained by the Park Service.  It was built in the 1880's by the Carnegies and it is lovely and has lots of rooms and a lovely lawn...but most importantly, It has a covered porch.  We made it just in time for the torrential downpour.

 




And we rested and had lunch and nursed the hitches in our giddyups that we acquired while crashing through the brush for 2 hours like a bunch of wild rhinocerouses the day before.  But remember, I don't want to talk about that...

 




And we had coffee for the first time that day.  Because I got the stove to light...which is another thing I don't want to talk about.

 




Lunch:  Sante fe rice and beans + cheddar broccoli rice.  Yum.

 




Didn't burn down the Plum Orchard....

 




We walked south on the private road through the Chimneys--which are the remnants of the slave quarters on the old Stafford Plantation--where they used to grow the famous Sea Island Cotton.

 




 



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We had a nice time and we made it out alive. 

Peace




Monday, January 11, 2010

When Hell Freezes Over...



It's 45 degrees in my office. It's about 50 outside, which isn't that bad except that we don't have heat. Burrrrr. I think they may have finally turned the AC off (You know...when Hell Freezes Over).

In more encouraging news:
It's the annual lizard harvest. They're falling out of trees and ripe for the pickin'. We have a 6 inch gecko inside a cardboard box on the kitchen table. He was frozen solid yesterday morning, so Laura brought him in to warm up. I taped the top up pretty well and I can hear him shuffling around inside. I'll let him out when it warms up again...