Travelling Photographer

Lake George Forest and Wildlife Management Area & Haw Creek Preserve – February 8, 2021

The 8,062-acre Lake George Forest and Wildlife Management Area is part of a 35,380-acre wildlife management area that provides more than 20 miles of contiguous habitat for many species of Florida’s wildlife along Lake George and the St. Johns River. The Lake George area has the second largest population of bald eagles in the lower 48 states.The trail along Lake George winds through hardwood hammock dominated by live oak, sweet bay, magnolia, and sabal palm with an understory of palmetto. Wildlife along the trails may include osprey, bald eagle, barred owl, pigmy rattlesnake, black bear, bobcat, river otter, fox, deer and turkey. Too bad the only wildlife I saw were a few crows.

Haw Creek Preserve is a beautiful peaceful place that is a hidden gem near Bunnell. It’s hidden back in the woods behind acres of cabbage farmland. The Haw Creek Preserve is right on the Haw Creek, where you can kayak and launch a boat. The hike is a bit on the shorter side. The whole thing is on a great boardwalk. The total distance round trip is a little less than 1.5 miles. Along the boardwalk there are turnoffs that take you over to the Haw Creek. From the turnoffs you have great views of the creek.

February 16, 2021 4

The Morse Museum & Polasek Museum – February 2, 2021

The 2nd started out as a rainy day so we skipped golf and headed to Winter Park Fl to do some inside activity. Rained while we were at the Morse but cleared so we decided to visit the Polasek of course after a great lunch in downtown.

The Morse Museum houses the world’s most comprehensive collection of works by Louis Comfort Tiffany (1848–1933), including the artist and designer’s jewelry, pottery, paintings, art glass, leaded-glass lamps and windows; his chapel interior from the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago; and art and architectural objects from his Long Island country estate, Laurelton Hall. The Museum’s holdings also include American art pottery, late 19th- and early 20th-century American paintings, graphics, and decorative art.

Albin Polasek (1879 – 1965) is heralded as one of America’s foremost sculptors of the twentieth century.

Celebrated in his own lifetime, Polasek created figurative works based upon the true structure of nature. His goal was to show the essential unity of form and the beauty of “movement,” the flow of one form into another. He felt that movement made the difference between a work exuding life and something inanimate. Polasek’s ability to capture the spirit of his subject provided inspiration to successors such as Richmond Barthe, Sylvia Shaw Judson and Ruth Sherwood..

Born in 1879 in Frenstat, Moravia (now Czech Republic), Albin Polasek apprenticed as a woodcarver in Vienna before immigrating to the United States in 1901 at the age of 22. After four years working as a woodcarver in the American Midwest, Polasek began his formal art training at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia. Under the guidance of sculptor Charles Grafly, Polasek learned the traditional classical techniques of sculpting, while refining his own distinct style. As a student he first created Man Carving His Own Destiny (1907) and Eternal Moment (1909), two of his earliest well-known sculptures. In 1909, while still a student at the Pennsylvania Academy, Polasek became an American citizen.

February 16, 2021 2

Coastal Strand Trail – January 30, 2021

The Coastal Strand Trail is a sandy 2.5-mile hike which begins at Smith Creek Landing in Ormond by the Sea, FL.

The first portion of this leisure hike takes place in a shady maritime hammock. It occurs on old coastal dunes that have been stabilized long enough for the growth of a forest which can be found in interrupted patches along much of Florida’s coast. The vegetation is pruned and flattened by the salt spray, angling away from the ocean.

Reaching the powerlines, you will be traversing through sunny coastal strand and looping back. These coastal dunes are vegetated with a dense thicket of salt-tolerant shrubs. It is excellent cover for small mammals, rodents, reptiles and birds. You can even catch a glimpse of the Atlantic Ocean from one of the high points on the trail.

Well-placed, interpretive signs are located along the hiking trail covering local resident species such as the gopher tortoise and Garberia, an increasingly rare plant that lives in dry, scrubby habitats.

February 14, 2021 4

Paynes Prairie Preserve State Park – December 12 & 13 Road Trip

Paynes Prairie Preserve State Park is a Florida State Park, encompassing a 21,000-acre savanna in Alachua County, Florida lying between Micanopy and Gainesville. It is also a U.S. National Natural Landmark. Paynes Prairie is unique in many ways. Nowhere else in Florida can visitors experience wild-roaming bison (all we saw were bison chips) and horses. Nearly 300 species of birds also frequent the park along with alligators, deer and many other animals. The day started out rainy and chilly but improved throughout the day. We started the day with umbrellas in hand on the Lake Wauberg trail – just .8 miles with views of the lake and the savanna. Then on to the Bolen Bluff Trail a 2.5 mile loop with a spur trail into the savanna with an observation tower which gave us a good view of this expansive park. Finally the 3 mile La Chula Trail which is a mix of boardwalks and a grassy trail around the Alachua Sink with sightings of alligators and many birds.

January 17, 2021 3

Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Historic State Park – December 12 & 13 Road Trip

To break our bout with cabin fever we decided to take a road trip to Micanopy FL to do some hiking and sightseeing in a covid wary manner. We stayed at the Herlong Mansion B&B (mainly because only 3 of the 13 rooms were occupied). On the 12th we visited Rawling SP and on the 13th we hiked Paynes Prairie SP (see next post).

Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings was an American author who lived in rural Florida and wrote novels with rural themes and settings. Her best known work, The Yearling, about a boy who adopts an orphaned fawn, won a Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1939 and was later made into a movie of the same name. In 1928, with a small inheritance from her mother, the Rawlingses purchased a 72-acre orange grove near Hawthorne, Florida, in a hamlet named Cross Creek for its location between Orange Lake and Lochloosa Lake. She brought the place to international fame through her writing. She was fascinated with the remote wilderness and the lives of Cross Creek residents, her “Florida cracker” neighbors, and felt a profound and transforming connection to the region and the land.

January 17, 2021 1

Silver Springs State Park – October 9th Road Trip

WORLD FAMOUS!

Glass Bottom Boats have wowed visitors to Silver Springs since the 1870s with views of underwater life and the many springs that feed the Silver River. In fact, the Glass Bottom Boat was invented here! You can take a tour aboard one of the historic Glass Bottom Boats and marvel at the beauty and sheer size of Mammoth Spring, the river’s head spring. You’ll explore many other beautiful feeder springs and see countless species of fish, ancient Native American and Spanish artifacts and even underwater movie props from the days when Hollywood productions flourished at the park!

NOT THIS TIME

I came here to hike – first the Sandhill Trail, a 1.7 mile loop trail, which explores a portion of the park’s longleaf pine uplands.

Then the Swamp Trail (1.9 mile loop) & River Trail (1.3 mile loop, ). Both feature scenic overlooks of the Silver River.

December 2, 2020 4

Mala Compra Hiking Trail – September 14, 2020

Mala Compra Hiking Trail is a 2.8 mile moderately trafficked out and back trail located near Palm Coast, Florida that features beautiful wild flowers, ponds and ocean views and is part of a historic plantation.

Mala Compra Plantation History – (next trip I’ll get to see the plantation)

In the early 19th century, the plantation was home to Joseph Hernandez, who served as everything from a brigadier general in the U.S. Army to a committee member who helped select Tallahassee as the state capital. The site is part of Bing’s Landing, an eight-acre county park. Today, visitors can walk on an elevated boardwalk around the perimeter of the plantation remains and read interpretive displays that explain the site’s historical and cultural value.

November 30, 2020 4

Smyrna Dunes Park – November 23rd Road Trip

Continuing our Monday roadtrips – We headed to Smyrna Dunes Park in New Smyrna Beach, a 2-mile hiking trail / boardwalk, with side trips off the main boardwalk taking you to ocean, inlet and river views. We got to enjoy gopher tortoises, kit surfers, and views of the Ponce Inlet lighthouse. On our way back home we stopped at Hollyland Park in Holly Hills FL to check out the eagles – but only a long distance glimpse. However herons and woods storks were around.

(see https://floridahikes.com/smyrna-dunes-park for more info)

November 28, 2020 4

Jacksonville Arboretum — November 2, 2020

Another of our Monday outings –

The Jacksonville Arboretum & Gardens is a 120-acre urban woodland full of trails for you to explore and enjoy. Interpretive signs and over 100 labeled plants enhance the loop. Over three miles of rustic hiking trails wind quietly through a series of distinct ecological habitats. The Arboretum is developed and managed by the Jacksonville Arboretum & Gardens, Inc., a non-profit entity that leases the land from the City of Jacksonville.