First of all, this plant is a "Florida Thing" as defined by my (Corbin's) dad, Mike. He's got a real appreciation for the things that make Florida special and worthy of visiting. For him, the simple things make the trip: Palms. Sunshine. "Free" books from the laundry room at trailer parks. These are the "Florida thangs" that can make one happy to be there.
There's a trick to being happy to be somewhere. Places don't just reach out and grab you by the taint and force you to be happy. You've got to embrace the parts that tickle your fancy and deal with the parts that don't. This has been a recurring theme in every state, and in every post, but we really learned this lesson well here. Florida definitely drove this point home.
Our first destination in Florida was St. George Island. We picked this spot for two reasons. 1) our trustworthy friend, Goof from the Seattle Post said it was his favorite place in Florida, and 2) it was northern Florida and we wanted to avoid driving all the damn way to Miami to go to the beach if we could help it. So we brought it up on Google Maps from Evansville IN and off we went. We took a couple days to get there, overnighting in Bankhead National Forest, AL and a quick sightseeing trip to Birmingham but otherwise drove straight through. As I hinted before, we had just spent a freezing and very socially active month in the Midwest and we wanted to GTFO to the beach and lay in the sun without talking to anyone for a while. As it turns out, we didn't even make it to the beach before our craving for sunshine and laziness paralyzed us.
The paralysis set in when we woke up and found ourselves in a spacious, sunny, accommodating campsite we had navigated to late the night before. The scenery was an island of pine forest in a expanse of swamp rushes and ground palms florida things. There was even a little private two-track leading down to the river’s edge with benches for fishing or birdwatching, a picnic table, fire pit, southern sun, and hammock trees. So yeah, we woke up here and didn’t want to move anytime soon. Especially Chelsea. She stayed in bed till literally 4pm while I tried to explore until she got up. I walked down to the river, then along a creek and back to the campsite. 15 minutes down, 5.75 hours to go… Next, I tried crossing the creek to explore the “forest.” Let me digress here, my favorite pastime / useless superpower is crossing creeks, rivers, streams without getting my feet wet. It’s like seeing a good tree and needing to climb it. It’s just something I do. So here I go: found a stream, going to cross it. To make a long story medium sized, I crossed this damn muddy bogwater in two places, each time skillfully and ingeniously using the surrounding nature to my advantage to stay clean and dry and both times wound up perched on a little tuft of grass or a root or something with no solid ground in sight. This was a river with only one bank. On one side the high dry campsite. On the other...nothing to walk or stand on for a mile. I had journeyed as far as could in three directions and hadn't lost sight of the Truck. Oh well. 5.25 hours before sleeping beauty crawls from her bed-cave, Good thing I had a book.
After spending a day and a night there in the superb swamp spot, we got to talking and decided that while it was really nice there, and free, and secluded and all that, we really had our sights set on the beach and we were aiming for an island, not an estuary. We decided not to settle for anything less than white-sand paradise, and oh, what a trip we had looking for it…
It made sense to go out to St. George Island first. That’s where the nice beach was, the state park, the good stuff. So we set out that morning and arrived at the gates to St. George Is. State Park. Here’s where we let our brains get the best of us. “SIX bucks to park? Where do they think they are, Venice Beach?” we exclaimed to one another. “26 bucks a night to camp in a parking lot with a bunch of RVs? And that’s ON TOP of the entry fee?” Chelsea asks me. “Seems a little steep” I mused. Oh how young we were then. How naive.
We begrudgingly paid the entry fee to park and enjoyed the beach for a short while before the wind began whipping up clouds and a light rain, which led us to decide to try our luck elsewhere for camping. Can you blame us? At this point we had never yet paid to camp in 3+ months on the road. We’d just keep looking thank you very much. And looking. And looking a little bit more. And nevermind this sucks let’s just go back to our little private slice of swampy seclusion. We got back after dark and as we rounded the last bend I couldn’t help but think that maybe it was all for the best. That’s when we saw them, the new occupants. They were trapped there in the headlights exactly like deer on the side of the highway, startled out of their routine but unable to look away. He, standing with his index finger deep into his bellybutton, perhaps considering how much more kerosene to add to the campfire. She, seated in a sagging camp chair adding the eighth marshmallow to the crowded and many-tined roasting stick. We said nothing as Chelsea whipped the truck around and headed back into the night to keep searching.
And so it went for several days. We had limited success every day getting things done, or finding a place to spend the night but never found any of what we were really searching for. We talked about it and think we’ve figured it out: Just like you can buckle down and push through some tough times to get through some really bad experiences, it’s possible to accidentally push right through some pretty great experiences if you’re expecting to break through to wonderful exceptional stuff. Unfortunately, if the exceptional stuff just isn’t out there for you, or if you just don't have the skill to sniff it out you end up back in the shit. Sucks right? But the solution is simple. Just stop and do a little reconnaissance. Weigh your options and consider the odds. How do you feel about where you’re at? Is it reasonable to expect much better? Hedge your bets if you decide to try for that significant improvement so you don’t fall below your starting point. Whew. Enough examining our mistakes and life lessons. Let’s look at what everyone else is doing wrong.
While exploring the panhandle, we saw it mentioned a few times that this place is known as “The Redneck Riviera,” and sister, that’s the truth. We saw plenty of “touristy” ocean-view rentals and more than a few pool-cable-wifi RV parks, but the real mission of the communities seemed to be remind everyone, especially yourself, that you OWN a chunk of that oceanic paradise that people are so excited to visit. Gaudy is the name of the game. If your neighbor parks his harley out in the driveway, you put your jet ski on the sidewalk. You gotta name your house, man. Everyone’s done it. “Suncrest Island”, “Bill and Barb’s Bungalow Dream”, you get the idea. Most people (seriously, I don’t think I’m lying if it’s over 50 percent of households) owed and displayed some form of superfluous extravagance, and the ultra-huge domestic pickup truck with as many add-ons and “custom” (read: factory installed and mass-produced) alterations was by far the most popular. I understand, some people have more money than I could ever hope to amass, but I really don’t think that was the case here. I think that unlike in SoCal where people had more money than they know what to do with, Floridians on the Redneck Riviera just have more money/credit than they can responsibly deal with. The fair part of me wonders if maybe I’m somehow just jealous and if all the gaudy shit actually worked on me and made me regret my lifestyle, but then I wake up and remember I’m 26 and I’ve been paying my bills for 4 months without working a job I hate or might kill or maim me, or whatever part of their lives these folks have to trade for their toys. As always, we never think to take photos of things we don't like, so I have zero visual evedence for the crap I'm talking about here. Maybe in the future I'll remember to do that.
Moving out of the Panhandle, we headed to the main peninsula to meet up with my dad. He and his lady were on vacation for two weeks and had invited us to tag along. They were travelling with an aging 30 foot travel trailer borrowed from my grandma, so while they were planning on camping, it would be of a different caliber than what we were used to. This was pretty great though since the main lesson we had learned thus far is that nothing is free in Florida, and because there are millions of “snowbirds” in their RV’s looking for parking all winter, people seem to have a pretty big vendetta against overnight stays in any vehicle. So glamping with Mike and April was a really nice way to avoid the usual stress of finding a place to stay, but substituted with stress of another type, namely, culture shock.
Now, Chelsea and I have always been aware that a big portion of “campers” in the US do the whole RV / trailer thing. A couple of our best friends have had jobs at RV factories or dealerships, and I spent many summers as a kid camping out at busy state parks or private RV lots. But somehow we still weren’t ready for this other thing that people do in Florida. Over the course of the two weeks we spent tagging along on Dad’s vacation we stayed at four different campgrounds from a national forest with no amenities to an “RV resort” with a pool, bingo, and DJ. Instead of giving you the full play by play for each and every day, here are some short observations we made in our time there.
Nearly every camping area has lights. Streetlights, floodlights, etc. Simultaneously, most campers leave their exterior lights on and many elect to place lanterns, landscaping lights, and christmas lights around their little domain, burning through the night. Perhaps some light-fearing creatures haunt the floridian suburbs, of which we remain blissfully ignorant.
Most trailers and RVs boast some form of portable toilet/shower, no matter how small the rig. Strangely, the presence and quality of toilet and shower facilities seems to be the main draw and selling point of each campsite we visited. More research is needed to understand this phenomenon.
100 percent of RVs and camping trailers are mobile, in possession of wheels. Oddly the wooden wraparound porch seems to be a highly sought after accessory for campers, second only to the barrier reef of potted plant landscaping and lawn ornamentation. It appears that the more permanent your temporary camp looks, the higher your prestige in the community.
All jokes aside, It’s not like I can’t comprehend what these people are all about. They aren’t totally nonsensical, merely ridiculous. Part of our whole traveling experience is seeing first hand how the rest of the country lives and operates and using that as a metric to guide and judge our own choices. In this educational regard, Florida was a gold mine, and Florida really does have some great stuff to see and do, if you’re willing to pay the price, or maybe wade through a swamp or two.
For example, we explored three different freshwater springs in the state, each of them gratifying and exciting in its own way. Homosassa Springs, the largest and most thoroughly developed for tourism, we visited on foot on one day and by kayak another. Theses springs are famous cold-weather sanctuaries for manatees, so they really pack themselves in there in the winter months. Chelsea and I managed to (accidentally) get right in the middle of a manatee cuddle puddle, AKA “mating herd”, which might more descriptively be called a gang-bang. We paddled over after being drawn by what looked like 6 or 8 manatees all trying their damnedest to tie themselves into a knot, but when a couple of hot blooded males came over and tried to copulate with my kayak we figured out what they were up to and left the beast-with-eight-backs alone.
Another freshwater gem we found was called Buford Sink. This place was almost completely undeveloped and located smack in the middle of a quicksandy swamp. The cool thing about Buford is that the surface water is only a couple of dozen yards (meters) across but from the center, there’s a 70 foot (21m) drop straight down, and eventually reaches depths of 165 feet! The place is also famous for alligators, and we didn’t have goggles at this point, so yeah. Combine creepy dark swamp with alligators, a giant chasm down into the earth and poor visibility in the water and you’ve got a great time. Oh yeah. There was a rope swing too…
The last one we found was Alexander Spring, which was by far the most beautiful. This was the place that made us go out and buy a dive mask because it was just too cool not to see properly. We found river otters, diving cormorants, alligators, turtles, and innumerable fish. On top of this, the sun was out every day we were here, and the water was a balmy 74 degrees. (That’s 24 for you other citizens of Earth and/or scientists out there. We had finally found ourselves a beach worth going to in Florida. We liked it so much here we even dragged Dad and April out for a couple days to rough it without electricity or running water. Another bonus of Alexander Spring is it’s located in Ocala National Forest, which has amazingly, no locked gates. Every other national lands we’ve been to have been primarily closed off, with the occasional open road. Ocala was the polar opposite. We spent hours offroading through the woods, going right, left, straight as we pleased without ever hitting a roadblock. Good on you, Ocala.
For my fellow penny pinchers out there, Homosassa Springs costs $14 per person to walk into or Chels and I got two Kayaks for $70 for a full day and paddled 2 miles from the rental shop. Access to Buford Sink in Chassahowitzka WMA is $3 a head (or National Parks Pass) and Alexander springs is $6 per person, camping $26 per night, NP Pass not accepted. Like Warren Buffet says, there’s no such thing as a free lunch, at least in Florida.
Looking back on this post thusfar, the idioms “long-winded” and “blow-hard” come to mind. Is there an equivalent for text? Many-fingered? Heavy-handed? Anyway, in the interest of brevity, here are some additional bullet point observations on the Florida Way.
Every place in Florida prides itself on being the one-true-Florida. We saw many “Welcome to the Real Florida” signs. And we only saw a fraction of the state. I’m sure everyone from Pensacola to the Dry Tortugas and even Jacksonville is damn proud of the authenticity of their Florida experience.
Speaking of signs, Floridians just don’t believe in graphic design. I’m sure they’ve tried. I bet Kinkos makes banners there. I’m sure “Dale’s Signage and Advertisements” opened and closed again. Floriders just don’t have a use for your fancy professionally made signs. They don’t believe in ‘em. I’m kicking myself now for not taking any photos of the home-made signs I saw while we were there. They were so good. Here’s a MS Paint taste of the wonder that is Florida.
Y’all local? Flordenizens like to know where you’ve been before they serve you or talk to you.
I’ve seen this in Kentucky too, but a popular financial strategy seems to be: Amass objects of 1-3 categories. Sell objects on your front lawn. “Vine Ripe Tomatos And FLAGs” read one homemade sign. “Boats and Tires CASH” read another. Sometimes no sign was required. Those washers and fridges must be for sale. Why else would they be stacked like that?
On a positive note, restrooms in Florida are awesome. A solid majority of the ones we used had handicap stalls with a separate sink, outlets, and dryer in the stall. This is so perfect for homeless people. We could take a sink shower, use our hair clippers, and air out our clothes within the privacy of a stall without weirding out the other restroom goers. It’s just a shame the people there glare and mutter at anyone who looks like a bum when the facilities are so accommodating. On a hilarious side note, some bathrooms in Georgia try to do the same thing… except they forgot the sink and just put a hand-dryer in the stall, you know in case you piss on your pants and are too embarrassed to dry em out in the main room. Or something.
All in all, Florida meant many different things for us. It showed us how things used to be, back in the day before recycling and craigslist, but it also showed us the way things will be, once our home in the West has the kind of population density and history that the Eastern US is saddled with. Oh man, that’s an uncomfortable thought. Let’s go with the way things might be if us millennials don’t get our shit together first. I think, in retrospect, the main reason we were uncomfortable there is that the state’s economy and accessibility is defined by the senior and family tourism industry and that’s pretty much three strikes we’re out. Not seniors, no kids, not in love with touristy stuff. But that’s ok. Most of Florida can be for the seniors. We found the ugly or hard to reach bits and had fun existing in the nooks and crannies of society for a while. Now that we know, and we can hit the road again and keep looking for those places that cater to to rugged, frugal, adventurers.