Returning to Dunedin

We hadn’t been in Dunedin for years. We visited here in the past for a few reasons. We had seen the Greek Sponge Divers in Tarpon Springs, where they harvest natural sponge in deep sea diving suits. We also attended some Spring Training games – the Toronto Blue Jays and the Philadelphia Phillies both have stadiums here. Unfortunately, the season doesn’t start until February.

We rediscovered the Pinellas Trail – a 34-mile section of rail that was abandoned by the Atlantic Coastline Railroad running from Tarpon Springs to St. Petersburg. The Toronto Blue Jays stadium is right along this trail, and we biked from our RV park to the games last time we visited. This time, we just biked some and enjoyed the paved, flat bikeway.

The birding here is outstanding! Just walking around our RV park in the morning with the pooch we see Egrets, Great Blue Herons, Ibis, a lot of Blue Jays, and a smattering of other birds as well. On a stroll along the Pinellas Trail picking up a couple of geocaches, we spotted the Woman’s favorite bird by far – the Little Blue Heron.

And, we got to live our nostalgia for this area by visiting Clearwater Beach. 30 years ago, there was only one bar that was actually on the beach – Frenchy’s Rockaway Grill – and we ate there whenever we wanted a dose of some beach time. We even met Ken and Georgia Halloran there once for dinner when we were passing by. We thoroughly enjoyed revisiting and reliving our memories of being here, always during good times.

Every RV park we have visited in the last month or so has been totally dressed up for Halloween. Even though it was a month early, we got to enjoy giving out candy to trick or treaters in Harrisonburg. Even here in Dunedin everyone is getting in the swing of things.

Tomorrow we get on a plane and head for Lima Peru – a new country for us. Can’t wait!

Talk to you soon.

Finally far enough south!

We finally made it to Florida. We will be here, mostly in the northern parts, until March of next year. However, this year instead of sitting in one place for 3 months, we plan to move around and spend about a month in 3 different spots. We are happy to be here, but the humidity is oppressive!

We paid a visit to the St. Marks Lighthouse. Built in 1829, its location was strategic in many ways. It stood on what locals refer to as the Big Bend – where the shoreline of the Gulf changes from primarily north/south to primarily east/west. Its position warned folks traveling north by water of this change. It also was strategic in the time of the Civil War. Raids on the lighthouse installation were frequent, and the lighthouse itself changed hands between the Confederacy and the Union many times.

It’s nice to be back in Trump country. With the general lack of TV, we haven’t really been able to keep up with the Impeachment Hearings and all the other shenanigans going on. So, to be back where confederate flags are honored is comforting.

The birding in Florida is just so much fun. It seems like all we have to do is watch the power lines and we will spot a Kingfisher chilling. Every small body of water along the side of the road has a Great Blue Heron, or a Little Blue Heron snacking. We have been reintroduced to the White Ibis, and particularly enjoy the Great and Snowy Egrets.

We headed to Yankeetown because the nearby Kings Bay on the Crystal River is a haven for Manatee. In the past, Manatee would spend the winter months in Kings Bay because the Gulf would become too cold for them to survive, and they would seek out the warm waters of the Bay.

Several years ago, the locals began planting the sea grasses that is the main source of food for the Manatee in Kings Bay, and the project was a great success. As a result, Manatee now will spend the entire year in the Bay as the water is clear and their food source secure. So, you can set out and be almost assured you will find them.

New moms particularly like the waters in Kings Bay. A newborn Manatee spends much of the first two years of its life with its mom, and the abundance of food as well as the protection afforded by the interested locals makes this a spot where they are inclined to stay. We hired a guide to take us out into the bay, and we weren’t disappointed.

We spent most of our time with a mom and her pup. We watched as they gobbled up the grasses off the floor of the Bay. It was funny to watch, and they seemed to have no fears of us – they pretty much just ignored us even when we were actually brushing up against them as they ate. I guess that might be because they outweighed us on the scale of 5 to 7 times.

I am not sure I could ever say that I had enough – interacting with these guys was an absolute treat. But eventually our 2 hours was up, and we had to head back to the docks. In my opinion, while swimming with Whale Sharks was a blast, swimming with Manatees was way cooler!

Talk to you soon.

Even further south

We left Atlanta thinking that we would see a couple of Whispering Giants on our way to Florida. But we stumbled on a couple of gems. Andersonville Georgia was the site of one of the largest of the Confederate war prisoner prisons. Of the more than 45,000 Union soldiers confined here, over ¼ of them died of disease and conditions. Andersonville National Historic Site commemorates those Union soldiers confined here during the Civil War, but is also a tribute to all prisoners of war, no matter where they were confined.

About 25 miles from Andersonville is Plains Georgia. Jimmy Carter was born and raised in Plains. We visited his boyhood home, which included the farm where his parents, Earl and Lillian Carter, eked out a living. James Earl Carter was born October 1, 1924 at the Wise Sanitarium (now the Lillian G Carter Nursing Center), which made him the first US president to actually be born in a hospital. We even got to see the room where he slept as a young child.

We visited Plains High School where Jimmy earned his high school degree. We visited many of the school rooms where Jimmy went for his high school education, and where is favorite teacher, Miss Julia, instilled in him the drive that eventually led him to the Oval Office. This classroom is one of Miss Julia’s classrooms where she helped shaped the future president.

Finally, we visited what ended up being the Jimmy Carter Campaign Office, the Plains Depot. Since the town of Plains only had a population of about 700 when Carter ran for office, the locals joke that the reason that the Depot was selected as Campaign Headquarters was that it was the only building in the town with a plumbed bathroom. He stumped much of his campaign by rail, attracting crowds wherever he went.

When Jimmy won the presidency, all the folks in town wanted to attend his inauguration in DC, so they rented the largest passenger train available – 18 passenger cars – and the whole town headed to DC. Because of the primary crop of the State of Georgia, this trek was fondly referred to as the Peanut Express.

Because our side trips took up so much time, we couldn’t actually fit in all the destinations we had planned with those we hadn’t. Luckily, the one time we hadn’t put down a nonrefundable deposit on a parking spot was tonight. So, we decided to spend the night in Dothan Alabama, but not before we visited Mus-Quioan, the 5^th Whispering Giant sculpted by Peter Wolf Toth. While it looks like it needs some TLC like we saw the artist delivering in Cherokee NC, it was still a blast to see.

Finally, before we got to Florida, we sought out the Whispering Giant in Colquitt Georgia. This had been the 4^th Whispering Giant carved by Peter Wolf Toth. But, as far too many of his wonderful sculptures have, it fell to the wrath of termites. It was later replaced by his 70^th Whispering Giant, lucky for us.

Talk to you soon.

Further south

Before we left the Smoky Mountains area, we travelled a fair bit of the Foothills Parkway – at least a fair bit of what has been completed. In 1944, Congress set aside funds to acquire the right of way for the Foothills Parkway, a route much like the Blue Ridge Parkway and the Skyline Drive we had been on for a bunch of our trip. However, the will must not have been as great – today, only about half of the right of way has been completed, with no definite ending date in sight. If ever completed, it will be a bit over 70 miles long, along the Tennessee River in the west, and the Pidgeon River in the east.

We did manage to get in just a glimpse of what the Woman had originally scheduled to come here for. While in most of the National Park where we hiked, there were some emerging yellows and oranges. However, on this section of the Foothills Parkway we saw fall colors on their way to their peak. Awesome!

It turned out that it was the Woman’s birthday today, and we were in driving distance of Gus’s. Nick had first introduced us to Gus’s World Famous Fried Chicken when we met up with he and Valerie in Memphis – the original site for Gus’s. Since Colectiva was parked only a half hour away, we had a special birthday dinner at Gus’s World Famous Fried Chicken.

On the way to Atlanta, we maneuvered a stop in Cleveland Tennessee. We headed to the Museum Center to see the Cherokee Chieftain, the 9^th Whispering Giant carved by Peter Wolf Toth, and dedicated to the city of Cleveland in 1974. We hadn’t seen the worry lines on the brow, or the bags under the eyes in any of the Whispering Giants we had witnessed to date.

We were heading to a suburb north of Atlanta to see the Woman’s uncle Fred Hodoval. We had arranged that we would have lunch at his assisted care center tomorrow, and also spend some time with the Woman’s cousins Scott and Jodi. However, we got a message that Fred passed this morning, so we won’t have the family gathering we were looking forward to. The Woman was still able to get together with Scott and Jodi, but the mood was a bit more somber than we had planned for.

Talk to you soon.

Great Smoky Mountains National Park II

Gatlinburg sucks! The National Park is awesome, but from where we are parked, we have to go through Gatlinburg to get in. Although the population of Gatlinburg is around 4,000, there is only really one road through town, so every time we set out to see anything in the Park, it’s at least a half hour just to get through town, then at least another half hour to get anywhere in the Park. Again, Gatlinburg sucks!

We have had a blast here, mostly hiking a couple of trails each day. We hiked some on top of the ridge, in the haze of the “Smoke” that the mountains are known for. We hiked along the Little River logging over 5 miles, a respectable hike for us. We were hoping to see some elk – we had heard the elk in the Park were rutting, and we listened intently for that magical bugling. However, we had to settle on some deer instead – bummer!

We headed into Cades Cove to take another shot at some elk. Once there, we headed out on the 11-mile scenic loop with our fingers crossed. Sadly, the crowds left the traffic on the loop traveling at under 10 MPH, and often less than half that. Not relishing over 2 hours just to make the 11-mile loop, we bailed out onto Rich Mountain Road, a gravel road that, while still a bit slow, was not nearly as slow at the scenic loop with all its traffic. Bonus! About half way up to the paved road that descends the other slope of Rich Mountain, we spotted this momma bear blocking our way to her two cubs!

Did I happen to mention Gatlinburg sucks? We will be continuing on south tomorrow.

Talk to you soon.

Great Smoky Mountains National Park

While we had been here before, the Woman always wanted to come back in the fall in order to see the colors. It appears because of the unusually warm weather that we might be a bit early for this year, but we will make the best of our time here. How can any time in the Great Smoky Mountains be bad!

It appears that we will get a chance to see first hand how this area was named. The weather forecast says to prepare ourselves for rain pretty much every day, even if only for part of the day. We wasted no time in driving to the center of the Park, on the way to its highest elevation at Clingman Dome. It was exceedingly clear to us just looking around how the Mountain got its name.

Since it wasn’t supposed to rain until the afternoon, we headed out on a hike somewhat under 3 miles that took us to Laurel Falls. While we got dripped on, we’re pretty sure that it was water dripping from the trees above us and not actual rain. The falls was pleasant and the hike as well. Since it started raining almost as soon as we got back to the car, we decided to head into town and see Joker. If there was any place in the US that might be safe to go into a dark movie theater to see Joker, we figured that Pidgeon Falls Tennessee at a theater right next to Dollywood would probably be it.

The Woman wanted to seek out the Appalachian Trail which passes through the Park in several areas. We headed out to Clingman Dome, the highest point within the Park. It turns out that it is also the highest point on the Appalachian Trail at 6,643 feet. The AT runs just past the base of the overlook tower, so we hiked up to the tower from our car, but then hiked back to our car, clicking off another mile and a half of the AT – bonus!

We also sought out the AT at Newfound Gap. We clicked off another 2 miles here – the AT actually crosses a popular overlook and parking lot. We managed to find where the AT dives into the trees on both ends of the parking area. Although the Trail gained a lot of elevation going one way, or losing a lot in the other direction, we still plunged ahead, deciding to spend our time on the section that went up first.

Interestingly, the AT manages to cross the border between Tennessee and North Carolina here. In fact, the border runs smack dab through the center of the overlook parking lot. We both straddled the line, having one leg in Tennessee and the other in North Carolina. What tourists!

Talk to you soon.

Once in a lifetime!

Many years ago, in Little Rock Arkansas, we stumbled across a mammoth wooden carving of a native American outside the Arkansas Art Center. We learned that the sculptor was Peter Wolf Toth, a Hungarian born (1947) who emigrated to the US. He set out on a mission to create a Whispering Giant in every US state, and ultimately has created 74 such sculptures, donating one or more for display in each state. Since that day, we have seen 21 Whispering Giants, but have also seen several empty pedestals where termites or other pests have destroyed these monuments. We had read that Mr. Toth had been doing some repair work lately in New Orleans and Johnson City Tennessee. To our great surprise, we drove up to the see Sequoya outside the Cherokee Indian Museum in Cherokee North Carolina, and there, doing some repair and refurbishing on Sequoya, was Peter Wolf Toth himself – triple bonus!

Not believing my eyes, I introduced myself and asked “Are you by chance Mr. Toth?” He said “No – my dad is Mr. Toth – I am Peter.” After being appropriately chastised, we spent the next half hour talking about his work, telling him about all of his work we had seen before, and just generally chatting in the shadow of Sequoya about his plans. His most current goal was to place one of his Whispering Giants along the Amazon. He had raised nearly all the money he needed to tackle this, and was now looking for the window of opportunity.

He asked where our travels would take us. We mentioned to him we were going to search out his work in New Orleans, and he gave us some directions to assist. We told him that our immediate plans were to drive today to Johnson City Tennessee to see Junaluska. When we asked, he confirmed that he had worked on this Whispering Giant last year, adding some feathers on a horizontal plane, and adding some color to the sculpture. When we got there, both the Woman and I were big fans of the improvements he had made. In the meantime, I had to head to a gas station to buy a Powerball ticket – if we can just bump into Peter Wolf Toth, we must be on a lucky streak!

Talk to you soon.