Wanderung 1

Key West or Bust

Holts Take Time in Toyota Truck to Tramp Together in Tepid Temperatures!

January-February 2003

Tuesday, January 14, 2003
We slept in a bit to make up for raccoon-induced loss of sleep, but then headed off to our first walk at Hontoon Island State Park about 15 miles northwest of our campsite. The island is served by a very small ferry that only takes foot passengers, so we had to park the car at the marina and wait on the dock for the ranger to notice us and bring over the ferry. But the time was not wasted as I took pictures of a heron, and egret drying his feathers, and a cormorant hunting for food in the shallows right next to the dock. The trip over on the ferry only took about 3 minutes and was fun because the ferry is absolutely smooth and silent; it runs with electric motors. So you get the impression of just gliding across the smooth water and can watch the waterfowl that seem to always be hanging around (different types were there on the return trip).

The route on Hontoon Island is roughly in the shape of a really big “H”. First we walked the length of the island, then we came back about halfway and walked over to the western shore, and finally we walked up to an old Indian shell mound and back down to the ranger station and boat dock. We saw not a single soul on our entire two-hour walk, but were treated to the sight of black vultures, deer jumping across our path, two rather skittish bobcats, and a large hawk as well as fascinating swampy scenery. I have never seen bobcats before, and they looked about one and a half times the size of a large housecat but all black and no tail. They were slinking along just like some cats do but a lot quicker. One of the two saw us and immediately vanished, but the second one (a juvenile?) didn’t notice us at first so I had the chance to shoot three or four pictures before it too melted back into the saw palmettos.

After the walk we did some necessary grocery shopping and stopped for lunch at a Friendly’s to have the mandarin chicken salad. The waitress asked in a friendly way whether we were English! I was surprised and reassured her that while Monika’s accent was European, my accent was just Midwestern twang overlaid by Northern Virginian (whatever that is). Monika thought the confusion might be because of clear diction, but we certainly must have sounded different from the local vernacular. We discussed our strategy for the rest of the day over lunch and decided we had enough energy for a second walk. Based on the descriptions of nearby Volksmarches, Monika picked the one in Lake Helen and we headed over there.

Lake Helen is a town whose prime was in the 1880s when it was a resort area for the rich folks from up north. The first loop of the walk is around the historic district and featured some rather nice old houses and the early library for the community. Stopping at the modern library nearby for a bathroom break, I was surprised and impressed with the amount of community theater activity in the area. No fewer than three separate groups of players were presenting plays in Lake Helen or nearby communities within the next month. If we every retired to a place like this, it would be nice to have that kind of thespian activity to join in with.

The route made a large detour to the east and came back to the unincorporated town of Cassadaga through a country park that had a citrus grove. The instructions clearly said we were welcome to pick a few. We both picked an orange and were surprised how sweet and juicy they were.

The town itself is quite old and has a most peculiar history. It seems like a medium (spiritual type, not steak type) was told by his spirit buddy Seneca that he should come down to Florida and buy land. He did that and furthermore he deeded some 54 acres to be used by an association of spiritualists. They started out having camp meetings here and slowly built houses and settled. The center of Cassadaga is still dominated by mediums, spiritualists, palm readers, etc. However, it seems there is dissension in the ranks and the hotel has been taken over by the crass, commercialistic, “bad” spiritualists. The ads on the outside of the hotel did in fact offer a smorgasbord of psychic potpourri: palm reading, astrology, tarot cards, previous life regressions, and a class in how to do miracles. The “good” spiritualists were in houses along the main street with much more low-key signs offering mainly readings and healings.

From my point of view this is all complete balderdash so this section of the walk offered more “kooks to the click” than any other Volksmarch I’ve been on. That’s unfair, really, since these folks have as much or as little evidence for their set of beliefs as any other religion. Actually, it would be fun to visit all the spiritualists in this town and calculate the degree of “inter-medium reliability” in making prognostications! I wonder if we would find the same types of rater biases among the mediums as we did with airline instructor/evaluators. But we didn’t have the time for such fripperies so we headed back through the park with the citrus grove where we picked some tangerines and oranges to take with. All in all, this was a very nice slice of the “old” Florida including some of the eccentrics who settled down here as well as more mainstream rich folks.

Finishing the second walk, we came home to have some snacks. Monika hustled down to the creek to take some of the ever popular sunset pictures over the St. John River and Blue Springs. When we returned we were visited by the raccoon who turned out to be a mommy with 4 children in tow. I couldn’t help but feel sorry for her. After an evening fire we retreated to the tent for our usual evening of writing and crocheting with Mr. Heater on to take off the chill.

Copyright 2002 by Robert W. Holt
Prolog
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