So far, so good with our little “experiment” of being away from home. We visited our favorite Hilton Head restaurant yesterday evening, and it marked the return of their Wednesday night live jazz, which is main reason we like to go there on Wednesdays. It’s “the beach,” so everyone is fairly relaxed anyway, and things aren’t a lot different now. We’ve seen very few masks on the beach, but when we went to the grocery store about 75% or more of the people were in masks. We’ve only been to three restaurants. At two of the restaurants all of the servers had masks, while we haven’t seen a single guest wearing one.
Ominous clouds to the north due to a low pressure system off the coast
We’ve overheard and had several conversations with people about where they are from and how those places have been coping, but very little “hand-wringing” or negative talk. It seems like most people are doing what makes them comfortable without a lot of judgement. Although sometimes you hear a comments about “anti-maskers” or some such nonsense.
I’ve taken the camera to the beach at some point just about each day, although I have not tried to make photography my main goal. I do think I’ve gotten some pretty nice shots, though. And I’m learning more and more about how to make this new camera do what I want it to do.
Drift fence and grass, Hilton Head Island, South Carolina
Somehow I never get tired of walking along the drift fences and catching the shadows of the fencing and the green grasses growing up through the sand. I sometimes feel like I’ve done too much of this, but then I end up seeing something new and different and off I go. More of the same but never the same…almost like snowflakes!
There may be a few minor technical flaws in this photo, but given the vagaries of wind and shifting frame to to image stabilization, I like how this turned out. Loving the juxtaposition between the grasses and the fence with the shadows behind.
Kathy & I have tried to be very careful in our travels to not carry around too much – as we like to say it – ‘shit.’ To be polite I’ll call it ‘gear’ but the idea is the same. Whatever our “thing,” there is a certain amount of gear that we all have to have with us.
If you are a photographer, your travel packing list has to include a certain amount of camera equipment. If you are a cyclist, you need to have a bike or bikes, plus all the requisite tools, spare parts and clothes to suit your needs. If you are a kayaker, the same applies. Fishermen, metal detector-ers, sunbathers, surfers, the list goes on. RV-ers and boaters – my heart goes out to you. It ain’t for me, thanks. Nothing like loading our Subie up with two bins for clothes and food, a cooler and a camera bag and heading off for parts known or unknown.
What triggered this conversation was watching endless people either carrying or pushing carts loaded with chairs, umbrellas, coolers, boogie boards, toys and other gear to the beach. And it is even worse for those who come to the beach with kids! It’s no wonder people have huge cars with car top carriers and luggage racks hanging off the back. Too much gear!
Searching for that perfect spot
When we packed to come to the beach, we were feeling like we had over packed, but quickly realized that the majority of the extra stuff we brought with us wouldn’t be going home with us. It was mostly water, food and adult beverages, to minimize trips to the grocery store. When we go to the beach in the morning we take a small cooler with breakfast, water, iced coffee & tea and a beach bag with towels and reading materials. And usually my camera. That’s it! We rent chairs from the life guard service, but it is our choice to pay a few dollars instead of carting chairs and umbrellas (not to mention buying them in the first place) from home and then to the beach and back every day. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. It’s just our choice to pay for the convenience.
Years ago we started to have a bug about living on a sail boat, but eventually realized that it wasn’t the sail boat the appealed to us but the idea of a life without all the extra gear. We’re not completely down to the bare bones level, but we do tend to travel that way. And we like that!
Sandals on the Beach, Hilton Head Island, South Carolina
(With the appropriate attribution and apology to Mr. Buffett)
One of the podcasts I listened to yesterday afternoon was the latest on David DuChemin’s A Beautiful Anarchy. In it, David talks about the concept of Gargoyles as it relates to the “demons” we face in our lives, mostly as they relate to our creativity, but also as they relate to the filtering of all the so-called scary stuff we read and hear about daily.
Kathy & I have recently been having discussions about the idea of the ‘boogieman,’ or ‘monsters under the bed,’ as it relates to all of the conflicting information flowing from all corners of the world, and the fact that all of this stuff sounds scary until you figure out whether it is real or just stuff that is made up to scare us. My thoughts are percolating on this subject and I may have more to say about it as I give it some more time. Suffice it to say that a lot if the stuff that we react to – even if it does happen to be true – is way too often irrelevant to our own circumstances and only stands to get in our way.
Along similar but different lines, we struck up a conversation yesterday with a family who happens to have reserved beach chairs to ours that was interesting. She happens to be a news anchor for a television station in Youngstown, OH, and was remarking about how few masks they saw on people down here. She said that in Ohio it was unusual for people to not be wearing masks and that she was surprised. Yesterday we were at the beach from about 8:00am until about 6:00pm and saw a total of 4 people wearing masks, out of the hundreds we saw parading up and down the beach. Now, those same people might still be wearing masks to the grocery store, I don’t know. And of course we’re all outside and the beach – except at high tide – is pretty big. But still. Things have appeared to be quite a bit more relaxed here, whatever the reason. It’s been nice to be away from all of the boogieman talk.
First evening on the Beach, Hilton Head Island, South Carolina
Kathy & I arrived in Hilton Head Island, SC yesterday for a week. Hilton Head is our absolute favorite beach destination and we love to come here as often as we can. There are other beaches that are “hoitier” and “toitier” than HHI but we find this to be just right for us. Beautiful beach, nice restaurants (when we want to eat out) and convenient grocery stores and other services.
Our rationale is that we’re going to live here for a week just like we would live at home…with a better view! We brought a supply of food so we can minimize our going out – just like home. Interesting so far that – other than one gas station just south of Columbia – we haven’t seen a single person wearing a mask. Take that however you want, but things are overall a bit more relaxed here than in the Big City. We are on Island Time, after all!
Kathy & I are working on plans to see friends and family in Ohio and Pennsylvania in early July. When we talked about spending time with other people over the July 4th weekend, I told her that “we need a different sound track.” I feel like we’ve been listening to the same album over and over for 13 weeks and it is time to hear some new music.
In the mean time, enough of this sitting around at home with itchy feet. It’s time to “get out of Dodge” for a little while. So we’re headed to the beach for a week. Back tomorrow with photos from a new location. No power lines or shopping carts! 🙂
I had heard or read about this guy long before we visited Italy two years ago. When we were in Florence I started seeing some of his art, which consists of “modifying” street signs to make whimsical or sometimes political commentary. I only saw them in Florence, although I understand that he (or copycats) have made this art all around the world.
Clet Abraham was born in the UK in 1966 and was educated in art at Rennes before moving to Italy in the early 1990s. He is a well known and respected painter, sculptor and restorer. The “modifications” are easily removable adhesives that Clet and a few friends apply at night, sometimes in plain view of security cameras.
The artist explains:
My street sign work stem from a reflection upon our “common visual space”. The omnipresence of street signs, other than being a sign of the [Italian] culture of “anti-responsibility”, can verge on the absurd. The message is very poor (sometimes I feel like I’m being treated like an idiot by them) and yet they have a highly invasive aesthetic. As a professional in the world of visual space, I feel called to intervene, both to notify the public of the absurdity of the situation, and to propose a constructive and respectful alternative. My adhesives are developed to add a further level of reading [to street signs] constructed on the base of their original signification in order to maintain its utility but give it some intellectual, spiritual, or simply amusing interest. The final objective? That traffic keeps flowing without us feeling spoken down to!”
I had forgotten about these photos until recently, when I was selecting photos for the last post. I’m glad I was able to dredge them back up!
View from the observation tower at the Shark Valley Visitor Center in Everglades National Park
I had always thought of the Everglades as a swamp, but it’s not. While there are swamp areas in and around the park, the Everglades per-se is actually a 60-mile wide freshwater river, running from Lake Okeechobee to Florida Bay, and eventually to the Gulf of Mexico. It is only a few feet deep in most places. Because the water flows across a limestone shelf, there is little or no silt or sediment, so the water is remarkably clear. The flow of water has been greatly impacted over the years by development and diversion of the water to major cities, but recent efforts to stem the loss of wetlands has at least slowed the loss of this ecosystem.
Observation platform on the Anhinga Trail in Everglades National Park
For our visit, we wanted to see as much of the park as possible, so we didn’t really spend a lot of time in any one place. It would be possible to spend weeks in any one area, but to get a good overview we concentrated on three main areas. We stayed in south Miami near Homestead, so we had a good bit of driving to do to get anywhere, especially the second and third areas mentioned below.
Anhinga Trail in Everglades National Park, FloridaThe Gumbo Limbo Trail in Everglades National Park, FloridaAnhinga Trail in Everglades National Park, Florida
The southernmost part of the park starts near Homestead and stretches from the Ernest Coe Visitor Center down SR-9336 to the Flamingo Visitor Center. We spent time on the Anhinga Trail, which is an easy 0.8-mile path and boardwalk through an area that is home of a large number of wildlife.
Baby alligators along the trail from the Shark Valley Visitor Center in Everglades National ParkTram tour from the Shark Valley Visitor Center in Everglades National Park
The section that is probably most familiar to visitors to south Florida is the section that is bisected by US-41, known as the Tamiami Trail. Because the Tamiami Trail only borders the National Park on the south side, and only in a relatively small section, this is the place where all the air boat rides, ‘gator rasslin’ places and trinket shops are located. The Shark Valley visit center is probably the most visited center in the park, and unfortunately has the smallest parking lot. It’s not unusual to have to endure long waits to get into the parking lot, with the alternative of parking on the road and walking about a half mile in to the visitor center. That wouldn’t be bad in February, but I wouldn’t want to do that in August! Then again, I want very little to do with south Florida in August!
We were fortunate to have only a relatively short wait to park, then lucked into a tram tour that left about an hour after we arrived. The “loop road” that goes to an observation tower is a 15-mile round trip. Walking it would be the ideal way to experience the trail and the wildlife, but 15-miles is a long way! It’s also possible to bicycle the trail, and it’s possible to rent bikes there. But the tram tour goes slowly enough and stops whenever wildlife is encountered, so for tourists like us it’s a pretty good way to get around.
White Pelican and Cormorants during our Everglades National ParkHistoric Smallwood Store on Chokoloskee Island, Florida
The third area, which is probably more a sub-area of the second, is the area around the towns of Everglades City and Chokoloskee. From Chokoloskee we took a boat tour through the Chokoloskee Bay toward the Gulf of Mexico. We opted for a tour in a small motor boat rather than an airboat, since the motor boat is slower and quieter I think we were able to see a lot more wildlife. Airboats are not allowed in the National Park, so any of the airboat companies up along the Tamiami Trail don’t actually take you into the National Park. Not a big deal, but I wanted to experience the park proper, not just the Everglades in general. We lucked out and only had 4 people on our tour plus the guide. Compared to the option of the airboat I think we made the right choice. I’d love to take an airboat ride sometime, but I think of it as more of a thrill ride than a way to see wildlife up close.
Everglades National Park contains a number of these shell islands that were constructed by the Calusa Indians using only shells. The shell layers are visible along the edges of the water.Everglades National Park boat cruise with Everglades Area ToursDolphins during our Everglades National Park boat cruise with Everglades Area Tours
I’ve got plans for a few more posts detailing some of the highlights from these various areas. I didn’t want to clutter this post up with too many more words or photos, so those will come later.
Brilliance of the Seas docked next to Liberty of the Seas in Cozumel
We didn’t set out to book three cruises, honest! It just sorta…happened. 🙂
Carnival Breeze in San Juan, Puerto Rico
We had previously booked two weeks on Royal Caribbean’s (RCCL) Freedom of the Seas out of San Juan in January. The ship was scheduled to go to drydock for extended renovations the week after we were due to get off. But due to lots of reasons irrelevant to my post, Royal Caribbean needed to move the drydock back one week and cancelled the second of the two weeks. We didn’t want to travel all the way to Puerto Rico for just a week (our preference – lots of people do it), so we decided to cancel the first week, too. We re-used the plane tickets to go to San Juan this past November instead.
Norwegian Dawn in Roatan, Honduras
Because of the cancellation of the first week, we ended up with a credit that needed to be used by February, so we found a 5-night cruise on Brilliance of the Seas, another RCCL ship sailing out of Tampa. We had never sailed out of Tampa before, and figured with our credit that this would be an inexpensive way to take a short cruise and check out Tampa.
Sunrise aboard Brilliance of the Seas
Meanwhile, friends of ours had booked a Carnival cruise out of Port Canaveral for the following week and “suggested” that we might want to go along. It doesn’t take much “suggestion” to get us interested in a cruise! So, we booked a cruise on that ship for the next week.
Aboard Brilliance of the Seas
Our son Kevin likes to cruise also, and he has been sailing with Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL). He mentioned that he wanted to take a cruise in February and suggested (there’s that word again!) that it might be fun if we went together. So we checked around and found a cruise on Norwegian Dawn out of Tampa. But the catch was that there was a week’s gap between the two cruises, so we would need to find something to do for a week. In Florida, in February? Not hard to do.
Schooner Bar aboard Brilliance of the Seas
We have been working on visiting different National Parks, and had never been to The Everglades. So we decided to find a place to stay in South Florida for a week, where we visited Everglades National Park, Biscayne National Park and drove through some of the Florida Keys. More on those later. Then we drove back to Tampa to meet our son and take the third cruise. When it was all done we had logged about 3,000 car miles, who knows how many cruise miles, and about 4,000 photos!
Grand Atrium aboard Norwegian Dawn
A few thoughts:
– People ask us about the different cruise lines, and although it sounds like a cop-out, they are all good. Different lines tend to cater to slightly different demographics, but things like ship size, home port and cruise length tend to make a bigger difference than the name of the cruise line.
– We tend to prefer smaller ships and this was borne out on these cruises. The RCCL and NCL ships were each about the same size – approximately 2,000 passengers, while the Carnival ship was about 4,000 passengers.
– We’ve always assumed that shorter cruises would attract more of a party crowd, but the 5-night RCCL cruise was one of the most laid-back we’ve done, and seemed to have a very high number of repeat cruisers. The Diamond Club, a lounge for passengers with a certain level of cruises with the line, had so many people that it overflowed into an adjacent lounge. The Carnival and Norwegian cruises each had a high number of first-timers – a very interesting contrast.
– Cruise line food is very good regardless of the line. Dining choices are either fixed, with the same table and waiter at the same time each night, or flexible, where you eat where ever you want each night, but with a different waiter and different table each time. We have always preferred fixed seating, as we like to establish a relationship with our waiter. But one of the disadvantages of fixed seating is that a lot of the food has to be prepared at once and can sometimes be overdone. Flexible seating tends to be more cook-to-order, so the food is often fresher, hotter and usually properly done. This is especially important with fish!
– We really liked cruising out of Tampa and did it twice. The city is nice – much like Charlotte in terms of age and size, but on the water. The port is very easy to get in and out of, and parking is a snap.
Sunrise aboard Brilliance of the Seas enroute to Tampa, Florida
I’m sure that’s more than anyone wants to read about my vacation, so I’ll leave it at that for now!
