Garden of Eden Trail on New Year's Day

Lots of people out for the hike.  Perfect New Year's Day sunny & cool weather.  Beyond that, not a lot to add from the original post about the place.  It was a nice way to start the year.

2024 Wrap-Up

Hm, let's run down the list of months:

• Jan: An attenuated Winter Field Day outing – still fun though!
• Feb: Video & stills of a booster falling back from space & landing for re-use.  Good stuff.
• Mar: Santos Fat Tire Fest post & video.  On the new bike, soooo nice.
• Apr: Radio Free Carrabelle!
• May: Auroras in Florida?  Yep.  Harmless, but more than a little spooky.
• Jun: Old movie, new find: Richard III (1995)
• Jul: New HF radio!  Initial Pics | more details
• Jul, bonus: Please Stop Butchering Your Palm Trees  An important post.
• Aug: Huntsville Hamfest: just back from | more, lots more.
• Sep: A near miss by Hurricane Helene.  All too close.
• Oct: A strong cool snap, so I hiked High Bluff & Wright's Lake back-to-back.
• Nov: A commemoration of Thirty Years of Mountain Biking
• Dec: The post Of Angry Neighbors, Black Mold, and Lawsuits may not be the best ever, but it certainly is raising a minor ruckus.  Yes, there is a backstory, but it's not all that interesting, probably would raise even more ire, and in the end is mostly about a bunch of old peoples' reminisces and muddy gravel bike tires.

Bonus Post: Yaesu FT-891 Ownership Post-Mortem.  Save yourself some money and bother, and get something – anything! – else.  On one hand, kind of a downer.  On the other, what a sense of relief to kick this turkey to the curb and recoup a few bucks on trade-in towards the FT-710.

Top hits?  Mostly a bunch of "how to program this radio" legacy posts.  Nothing from this year.

Let's wrap with the Picture of the Year – already in the May post, but here it is for this one too:

What is an aurora doing in Florida?  At least I didn't have trek the frozen wastes north of I-10 to see it.

Near future: Winter Field Day Cometh, so stay tuned.

I feel like I'm turning in 2024 at the Rent-a-Year place with an empty tank and all four tires smokin'.

Gap Point Trail in the Fog

Hiked the Gap Point Trail on St. George Island yet again yesterday, this time with the eldest brother.  It was so foggy that I didn't bother with pictures, but you can see some from previous hikes here and here.  For all the fog, the land itself was remarkably dry and the usual shoe-damping puddles were merely slightly muddy spots in the trail.

Heard some duck hunters blazing away somewhere out on the bay, and later saw them coming in at the Goose Island boat launch.  They were unloading with mostly buffleheads and widgeon, ducks of dubious culinary value, but hey, you get what you get.

Then we stopped off at the Blue Parrot for lunch (regrettably, Signor Ferrari seemed to be out for the day) and then headed back to Apalach.  All in all, a Saturday morning well spent.  So that's three local trails hiked so far this winter – High Bluff and Wright's Lake done previously – with Garden of Eden, Wakulla Springs, and Sheppard Spring still to go.  Maybe more, time will tell.

Christmastime Fog

These pics show how a fog can roll in on the bay at any time this time of year.  These are from last week, but they could have just as well have been from last or next month.

Looking eastward from the end of Lafayette Park pier.  You can see the uneven underside of the fogbank as it descended on the rivermouth.  In a half-hour this view was entirely obscured by the incoming fog.  Interesting colors, both in the sky and reflected on the water.

Looking westward from the same spot.  Totally different color palette.

Nothing profound, but they are nice snapshots.

Rod Serling's 100th Birthday?

Hard to believe.  Brief bio at Wikipedia.

It Just Wouldn't Be Christmas...

... without the Christmas Comet.  Merry Christmas to all!

Of Angry Neighbors, Black Mold, & Lawsuits

It never ceases to amaze me how people will build their homes in old streambeds and then wonder why the neighbors get upset when they try to haul in fill dirt and shift the water over onto their neighbors' properties.  Or how that new house, built on a lot that gosh nobody ever thought of building on – likely because people in past decades had better sense – always seems to be a tad musty, maybe even moldy.  Or why a some streets always seem to have plagues of potholes, or sometimes even full-on sinkholes.

Look, filling in these streambeds and paving over them a century-plus ago probably seemed like a good idea at the time.  Swamps were widely recognized by then as mosquito havens and malaria was a serious problem.  Draining, filling, putting in proper underground storm drainage, those were all the rage circa 1910.

However.  Storm drains are not always maintained properly.  Land uses shift.  Old memories of "there was a pond there, still is sometimes when it rains" fade.  Finally, new people who Have No Idea move into town and are happy to snap up unbuilt lots at fantastically (suspiciously?) low prices.

No matter where you're considering moving but especially so in the case of Apalachicola, do yourself a favor and look up old maps of the place, and scout out for low spots to avoid.  Inset there's a map of Apalachicola dating from 1857, before these streams and marsh ponds were filled.  (click to embiggen)  Everywhere on the map where there's a red dot, that's where there's frequent flooding, obvious drainage problems, mold & mildew, repeated begging for special exceptions to zoning, lawsuits over midnight hauls of fill dirt, or at the very least, damp and cranky people.  Notice how these spots mostly seem to fall along old streambeds or on low ground near the river or bay.

Gravity, man, it works.  Water flows downhill.  Don't be downhill.