Christmas in Florida

We're down with extended family in Boca Raton for the holiday. ---Christmas Eve dinner with delicious specialties from Colombia, and presents at midnight. The picture is of David and Justine waiting for the clock to strike so that they could fulfill their duties as deliverers of the presents. Christmas day at the beach is kind of a surprise to our northern sensibilities, especially when most of the rest of the family is having a rare white Christmas. (and not too pleased about it)

Long Point Park, Florida

This inlet looks serene. Then a whole school of mullet will jump in the air, trying to escape larger fish, a dolphin fin will cut the surface, pelicans, osprey and fish hawk plummet into the water and emerge with catches. A huge white pelican bobs on the water, looking like a carved boat. Everywhere there are birds. Stalking along the ground, like the wood stork in the picture, ( They are supposed to be endangered, but here they are just moochers, waiting for their favorite fishermen to clean their fish and share. I have never seen them hunt.) wading along the shore, like this heron who thought he was hiding in the mangroves, -- sitting in trees dozing. We are used to life in the bays in the northwest, but here the shape of it is a little different. When you hear a huff of breath behind you, the whiskered face belongs to a manatee, placidly munching reeds. The bird that flies overhead might be an ibis. It's beautiful. We are so glad we came.

Ocean Pond, Florida

This is Ocean Pond, a perfectly round pond, about three times the size of Greenlake, in the middle of north Florida. Why they call it Ocean Pond is a mystery. It is gorgeous at sunset, and in the lazy afternoon when the clouds reflect on its tea-dark mirror surface. We paddled down the marshy bank, in and out of the cypress trunks, not a sound anywhere. Then off to the left, we saw two bumps in the water trailing a V of ripples toward us. Now, in the Northwest, this would mean a playful seal or sea otter had come to see what we were up to. But here, ---- We had heard that the way to tell the size of an alligator is to measure the distance from its nostrils to its eyes: every inch equals a foot of length. We decided not to paddle up and measure this fellow, and headed for home. Our next stop wll be on the inland waterway, where some people report being able to paddle with dolphin and manatee. Now that sounds like worth doing!

marching to Georgia

It was already after dark, and we had been traveling for nine hours. The vast parking lot in front of us fairly vibrated with humming trucks, parked on the back lot of the local Flying J. Dwarfed by the two trucks on either side, we slid into a space and put out the slides. The sound from a hundred idling trucks made the fillings in my teeth hum in sympathy. Over the next several hours trucks peeled away from the group and resumed their journeys while others entered the parking lot. When, at 3:30, a large cattle carrier came within inches of our slides, we, too, joined the stream of trucks on the highway. What a different life they lead from us--criss-crossing the nation with the goods we use, sleeping a few hours at a time in waysides before continuing their ways--off time spent in lounges that look like hospital waiting rooms, fried food buffets and rented DVD's for company. --All so that we can buy our imported TV's and clothes, our transported food, our sale items from Walmart and Target. We don't think often of the army of people who transport our goods and make possible the huge quantity and variety that we enjoy.