You can take the GRITS out of Florida, but you can't take Florida out of the GRITS!

Monday, November 15, 2010

Bear Island

We were supposed to spend two nights out in Big Cypress at the Bear Island campground last weekend, but plans got screwed up (as usual) and it ended up being only one night.  My youngest boy hadn't been camping in a couple years, so he was VERY excited to be going.


General gun season opened that weekend, so spots were hard to find, but we finally got one...tucked way in the back, off the road.  In fact, if I didn't have a 4WD truck, we couldn't have gotten to it at all.  There were two big mud ditches that we had to get through, but my truck did it just fine...whew!  



I really like our spot...a big cypress stand was right behind us...




As we were setting up the tent, two park rangers came through on foot with a radio tracking device.  They were out looking for a female panther in the area.  About an hour or so later, they came out of the woods behind out tent - no panther, she had moved further north.  Still a little exciting to think there was one close to where we were!




We did some caching (of course) and this guy was eyeing us as we tried to locate a cache across the canal from him.




The best part was building  campfire...throwing wood pieces I had brought from work, pine cones and palm fronds...nothing beats a good blaze!




It was alot of doing for just one night, but it was worth it...I was awakened at 1am by a Barred Owl calling and flying big circles in the area...soft country music from our closest neighbors...it was peaceful and just so nice to get away from the city for a bit.


Continuing the writing exercise mentioned in my last post....


Day 02 → Something you love about yourself.


Honestly...I don't love that much about myself.  I guess I'm empathetic, which is good...but I have too many negatives.  Ok, ok...there has to be something...Ok. I llike that I am not hung up on "keeping up with the Joneses".  Totally NOT me!  I do not fall into the latest, greatest things.  I am anti-"i" anything (ie. iPods, iPhones, etc.).  Pandoras?  What a waste of money!  Things are not important to me.  People are.  


Well, not much of a post for that exercise, but all I can think of tonight.

3 comments:

Sayre said...

That sounds like a fun camping trip! I'm not much for wilderness camping (I like my bathrooms and running water), but my husband and son would have LOVED that!!!

Re: Writing Exercise
It's so easy to find things we hate about ourselves, and so hard to find things we love. Kind of sad, isn't it? I think that's part of what drew me to this exercise in the first place.

The Florida Blogger said...

Looked like a great camping experience. Could you bring a small camper out there or was it strictly primitive camping?

SwampAngel65 said...

It's all primitive, but LOTS of people bring out pop-ups and RVs.