Breckenridge is a cool little town with all the amenities a couple of west-coastified vegantarians could want. Good food, several coffee shops with great coffee,  lots of awesome brew pubs and tons of outdoor activities year round.

We may not ski or snowboard, yet, but the area has more to offer than just a world famous 13,000 foot peak – for one, hiking (while it’s still snowless), the things I mentioned above, and about 300 inches of snow to play in all winter.

Our first weekend here we were ready to explore the area. After taking a trip to Denver on Saturday (80 miles each way) to look for a truck – a trip which turned out to be a disaster, we happily found a hiking trail on Sunday to make up for the 60+ hours of sitting at computers and truck seats we do every week.

There were tons of trails to choose from in the area so any was as good as the next as far as we knew- but based on its general description, McCullough Gulch Trail was one of the most interesting and fairly moderate.

On the way to the trail, the aspens, bright yellow and scattered throughout the pines like sunshine in a swamp, lined the scenery like a  cartoon gateway to the stony, rocky mountains we pursued. The road itself was riddled with potholes but nothing deadly, and several areas were lined with cars where other trails, hiking and ATV, were located along the way.

Mccollugh Gulch Road

The elevation had already been taking a toll on my lungs over the week so I didn’t know what a climb up to 10k feet would feel like (Breckenridge is already around 9k). The trail is only about 3 miles round trip but full of steep inclines and a more than a couple surprises.

At first I had some trouble breathing. We’ve been hiking all summer so my legs were ready for the job but my lungs have always been weak. It was frustrating not being tired but not being able to breath. Considering I wear pretty much whatever I want when I hike (aka neither of us wear the “hikers uniform”…), I felt like a serious amateur -  knowing I could hike the trail without incident if it were about 5000 feet lower, but looking like I’ve never hiked before. After we got about a half a mile in, something changed or kicked in and I didn’t need to stop as often and had no problems the rest of the way up or down.

First part of the trail

At first the trail seems uneventful (aside from the awesome views of course) wide and well worn, but soon enough you come to a great little wood bridge, and a small cabin with a couple of flags outside. When we were there, there was a box truck (like a uhaul) next to the bridge and cabin and a man making repairs to.. some structure with pipes (haha, me construction worker). The trail had been wide but it was hard to imagine the truck making it up there safely, but it had made it – even around one corner on the trail that was nearly hairpin and had trees on the cliff side that a truck would probably hit trying to turn. Slightly confused and curious, we continued on and the natural part of the trail began – also known as “the part with way less people”.

This part of the trail is riddled with rocks, roots and numerous ups and downs – you pass small watering holes and, in our case, dried up creeks, and see random traces of (like… scat) animals. Neon yellow lichen is scattered over the stony hillside and, my favorite, gnarled trees, are scattered about like a small hurricane hit Sleepy Hollow (gallery).

After a while you come to a mini cliff – that we choose to go over rather then through – it’s so mini, you can just go around without incident – after that you come to a small valley of rocks, another place we stood in wonder, trying to imagine how the rocks got there. Behind you is a large mountain but between you and the mountain is a flat area – in front of you is a ravine that leads to the base of the mountain in front of you so the chances of a landslide seemed null – maybe the miners? Anyway – from there we could hear the waterfall and by that time, we were not going back and missing it so we ambled over the stones – about watermelon size and grey, avoiding twisted ankles with more ease than expected.  Sometimes I think I’m older and more fragile than I am – but usually it’s just the opposite and I hurt myself trying to scramble up some cliff or jumping down 3 feet farther than my spine can handle.

After the valley of stones the water became louder and we came to a strange wavy hillside/mountain side. The whole area was a grey stripey stone that swirled and waved like nothing I’d seen. Again we wondered how that had happened, it’s obvious I need some geology books..

From here we could finally see the waterfall, which apparently leads to a glacial lake. Had it not been nearly dark already we would have continued on but having no light of any kind and temps below freezing at night, we didn’t need to be the next people in the area on the evening news – missing and presumed dead.

Although the trail is marked easy/moderate we started the hike near several people with kids, and by the time we reached the first lookout, we left them all behind. It’s not a difficult hike per say but your kid will bust their lip if you know what I mean.

The walk down was an ease after the climb up and we ended up the second to last vehicle at the trail head.

After a while of walking through dense forest, fallen trees and wild flowers and observing steep drop offs on both sides of us, we started to wonder if the “Little Grand Canyon” was actually buried deep underneath the miles of piles of vines and post inland hurricane disaster (2009?) and not actually visible, per say. After a while we caught up with the couple who left before us at the Mississippi overlook, one of the highlights on the map, and has to ask if we were on the right trail. Well informed, unlike us, they told us that the true treasures lie ahead and that we were about 1/3 through the hike that totaled 3.5 miles. We decided to carry on and as we left, the couple parted ways and we were joined by a well prepared man who would prove to be good company as well an an informed nature lover. This was our first hike with another human being and a welcome change. I’m a bit of a know it all when it comes to nature. Even if it’s in a state I’ve never been to before, I try and fill my brain with as many local species as possible but usually just sound like an ass no doubt. We saw one snake – I think a bull snake (used a website for that one), a few small tree frogs and one sloppy giant one, one baby skink, potential coyote prints (although later some hiker brought their boxer on the hike so.. may have just been a dog) and some trapped fish who will hopefully make it through to the next rain, oh, and one giant spider.

Through our last few weeks of hikes in this area we’ve seen several caves and canyons, strange rock formations/anomalies and places where gorgeous waterfalls the likes of raging rocky mountain glacial creeks would be if there were not such a drought. The Little Grand Canyon was one of the best so far and it surprised me we had not been told about it by the retired volunteers we ran into last weekend nearby. Maybe because they were older and possibly had not seen it in person. The hike is a little difficult and not what I expected when we entered the trail. I’m glad we both have good hiking shoes now and that the hikes of the past have started to make the more difficult ones easier, humidity permitting. The full canyon trail is a little demanding but doesn’t require any special skill. At one point you have to step/climb down a small waterfall (dry of course) to continue the trail, and at another point, to get out of the canyon, you have to walk up a 90 foot waterfall (that’s a guess and it was also dry) of smooth rock with conveniently placed and mostly natural stair like qualities up the most of it. Some of the steps were hard for a short legged person like me to get up, though even in jeans I managed. Then the incline continues for another infinity or so, my lungs wanting to jump out of my chest, we polished off most our water but took only short breaks. Luckily it was actually a really mild day due to some rain which made it much easier to breath than on our usual hikes this summer. Yesterday had been almost 100 again and our shorter 0.9 miles or so hike at Giant city had wiped us out for the day.

This hike was probably the coolest weather hike we’ve had in a long while, and maybe the longest hike we’ve had in a while as well. It also went more quickly than our usual hikes, where we spend half our time staring into spider holes, harassing beetles, counting rings in trees and taking tedious hdr pics with my new droid app (PROHRD).

We left Little Grand Canyon at around 6pm, just an hour and some before sun down and continued our search for Larue Pines. When we found it, it was about the same time we had been looking for it last weekend, and it was basically the same place we had already been. We did however come from a different direction this time and saw some great cliffs, oddly situated across from farmland. I stood in the back of the truck and made a video for later editing.

Our drive home from there was through some great Amish/non Amish country. Horses, buggies, and roads with names like Rattlesnake Road and Pitbull Lane. Illinois is a greatly underestimated place.

G’night!

This park is great. Hilly for some difficult bike rides (which we’ve been taking advantage of daily), riddled with wildlife like wild Turkeys, tree frogs, toads, friendly raccoons, possums, rabbits, all the usual southern birds like cardinals and blue jays (and supposedly 58 other species)  - and a selection of insects as big as anyone could ever want.

The cicadas click and chirp a consistent song day and night while giant leaf shaped grasshoppers jump at you and thumbnail sized horse-flies buzz around you, aching for a taste of your flesh. On one of our bike rides we saw the elusive and quick footed Cow Killer, a kind of a wingless wasp also called a Velvet Ant  – and came across several giant dragonflies who swerved in front of our bikes, going well over 20, and turning on a pin just before you get a mouthful.

I am a huge mammal person usually but ever since we’ve been traveling I’ve seen so many amazing insects that I’ve become a bit obsessed with how strange and awesome they are. Such a huge variety. and such an incredible pain in the butt to photograph.

Last weekend we spent our Saturday hiking in Hoosier National Forest and saw tiny yet demented looking orb weaver spiders, another cow killer and a huge (sadly dead) moth/butterfly in pale green with kite like tails on its wings.

When you hang out outside and hike as often as we do, you just tend to see a much larger ratio of insects to mammals and birds so naturally you start to pay attention.

Here are some of the most recent beasties from Indiana:

We arrived at the Liberty Harbor RV Park in Jersey City on a Saturday evening with no idea what to expect. Our space was near a corner, harbor side, and backing in was pretty easy, the only debate being how much space to leave for the people who would show up behind us. We had read reviews about how small the spaces were but it didn’t seem like anyone had problems anywhere in the lot. There was plenty of room in the roads of the park for any size RV and we saw everything from coaches to tents in the week we were there, most people staying only a night or two. The roads also had to be wide to accommodate the boat cranes that drove down them occasionally (see the video of the boat crane in action).

A couple people managed to get out their awnings, partly by facing each other and parking as close as possible to the guide rail (slats of wood) but some people were lucky just to have enough room to get out their stairs. Everyone have room for slide-outs through, further taking stair space from their neighbors, but no one seemed to be complaining to each other so it worked out. The only problem we noticed was that some people possibly new to camping insisted on parking within a couple feet of their hookups, even though their cords and hoses would likely reach – therefore parking with our bikes at their front door rather than somewhere in the 20 feet of empty space ahead of them. We shared a corner with an amazingly arranged 3 other people, in some sort of vehicular gridlock, each spot long enough for everyone and their cars, in our case with the truck – is over 50 feet long (website says 45 foot spaces but we fit the truck and trailer fine in our spot without parking at an angle). So although the spots weren’t wide, they were plenty long and the managers knew what they were doing when they handed out spots. The people who had no electricity or water, who stayed in the parking lot on the other side of the fence, had plenty of space – but no A/C in most cases (unless they had an awesome generator).

The bathrooms were good, though some of the doors in the women’s bathrooms didn’t really close. The main door was secure by pin number and the showers fairly clean and spacious with good water pressure (just don’t touch the mildew covered shower curtain and it’s great). Camping full time makes you fairly tolerant of imperfect bathroom situations, I totally have a “wear some sandals and get over it” attitude at this point. Although RV parks are a service, if you keep your expectations a little lower and don’t expect everywhere to wipe your nose and pat you on the back, you’ll be much happier.

As for the name of the harbor, you guessed it, the Statue of Liberty is in there. Some reviews said that you couldn’t see the statue from the RV park but – I say to these people – “shutup – be happy you are staying in an RV park next to Manhattan Island” – AND you can see the statue from the entrance of the RV park next to the guard tower (yep there is a guard tower – there are like 5 million dollar yachts in that harbor). However the Statue of Liberty is super itty bitty. I was shocked as hell to see it in person (from the harbor) after having pictured it walking down the road in Ghostbusters or her head tumbling in the street in Cloverfield. My reality was a bit crushed when I saw her – Thanks France.. thanks allot.

All in all, we weren’t staying in an RV park in a harbor parking lot for the comforts and aesthetic of the park, there are no trees, the gravel is some horrible dark spiky mess but the roads between the rows of RV’s were paved and the surrounding opportunities of New York City, awesome.

Liberty Harbor RV Park and Marina (long exposure at night)

Liberty Harbor From Brooklyn – See how small she is!! (The RV park is somewhere near the center most lens flare)

NYC

Nothing can replace the location of this park so we were willing to put up with quite a bit for the opportunity to walk 2 blocks and get the Path train to Manhattan and be sitting at an awesome restaurant within 20 minutes. Since there wasn’t much to setup at the campsite, we got out of there as soon as the animals were comfortable and fed. We had no trouble finding the Path station and getting a metro card (though I think we should have got a smart pass). Using the maps on our phones, which had the numbers or letters of the trains and of course the names of the neighborhoods, we just headed to Greenwich Village since it was one of the first stops on Manhattan Island in a long list of places we had heard of before (from movies and TV haha). As soon as we got off the subway and walked a couple of blocks, we ended up finding Vegetarian Paradise II and after eating, spent the rest of the evening walking around the area.

Every day we were there (7 nights) we worked early and tried to leave the trailer around 5pm, spending the rest of the evening on subways to various places around the city that we had heard of so many times in films, books and TV. From Hell’s Kitchen, to China Town, to Brooklyn and Curry Hill, we walked miles nearly every night in search of nothing more than things to see and there was no shortage of that. We used a walking app some of the time (when my phone wasn’t dead and when I remembered to start it) to track some of our walking and made it into a map. We kept ending up at Times Square, a busy but ultimately fascinating place. The lights were as bright as daylight with ads the size of..well..more how I had imagined the Statue of Liberty, and excited tourists and shoppers filled the late night mega-stores overcrowded sidewalk (and of course Broadway theaters). The plazas themselves were surprisingly relaxed. One area had some bleachers full of people, who were apparently just resting and soaking in monster sized ads, and another had 2 chaired tables a concrete baseball mit filled with relaxing couples who were never left waiting for a spot.
One of my favorite memories of New York is our first night in town, we’re walking around times square and can’t decide where to walk next, so we stop on a corner and just look around at everything – trying not to get run over by the crowd. Across from us, a couple of men were up against a wall in front of sheets on the sidewalk filled with fake designer purses. One man randomly pulled up his sheet into a knapsack, looked around nervously and put it back down. A minute or so later, both men gathered up their sheets and started running through the crowd and down a side street. I look to see where the emergency was and saw two slow walking cops crossing the street towards us, shaking their heads and laughing in the direction of the purse peddlers – but indeed “following them”, though at a pace incapable of catching anyone. Maybe they were just walking that direction. It may not sound that interesting but to me it was straight out of a movie, and an exact stereotype of NYC – fulfilling some of my expectations early on in the trip, NY could never let me down after that. My second favorite part of walking around the 20 some miles over the week, was the rats. Real New York rats and sometimes mice – more fulfilled expectations, and cute furry ones.

Much of the time we were out walking it was night time, so I didn’t get as many photos as I wanted during the week but I did get some digital photos, videos and checked in at about 50 places on 4 square.

Droid Photos & Videos

[Show as slideshow]

Every night we were out we had a great time looking at buildings and people, imagining NY through the eyes of John McClain (that’s Die Hard’s own – which we have all on blue ray) but also looked forward to Saturday when we could spend some time outside the Trailer and be in the city during the day. Unfortunately it was raining and not exactly warm on Saturday, but it didn’t stop us from heading out as soon as we got up (which wasn’t too early but earlier than a weekday). We had lunch at Vegetarian Paradise II for the last time and checked out the Lomography store in East Village. I stared longingly at the $500 Horizon Perfekt camera and bought a ring flash for my Holga. It took me a while of staring at the menagerie to come to terms with maybe never seeing a Lomo store again but I remembered that I could actually get everything there online, and cheaper, so I was ok with it in the end.

After East Village, we had planned to look at sneakers in Brooklyn, and what better place? Everyone know that’s where the coolest sneakers in the U.S. come from (well that was my assumption). The coolest shoes in Brooklyn actually happened to be in glass cases in what appeared to be pawn shops – but weren’t pawn shops, just strange shoe and bling dealers, and weren’t really what we were looking for. We were hoping for crazy Japanese only Nike and strange limited release shoes but most were fairly calm. We checked out a couple large shoe stores after the un-pawn shoe stores, Dr. Jays being one I had heard of online as being one of the best. Unfortunately we still didn’t find what we were looking for and left for Coney Island shoeless and wet – these weren’t bad things. “Shoeless and wet” meant we had saved ourselves some money and Coney Island wouldn’t be overrun by tourists and teenagers!

The ride to Coney Island was unexpectedly long but provided a great view of Brooklyn and following neighborhoods from an above ground view via the former subway train (the E line). When we got there we quickly found the boardwalk, a pier filled only with a few fishermen and a strange religious group having some kind of white robed drum fest. While looking for some batteries for my new ring flash, I found an awesome little store called Lola Star where a young entrepreneur had her own t-shirt designs for “I <3 NY”, “I <3 Coney Island” and more. I got one with a giant fat cat holding the Statue of Liberty in one paw, and the Empire State Building in the other that says “I Love NY”. If you have been to Coney Island or just want to check out her stuff, go to www.lolastar.com. She has some really cute “Coney-Islandesque” – sailor, beach, tattoo, carnival like designs. I love it.

We finally made it to the “carnival” section of the boardwalk and I was a bit disappointed. It’s obvious that Coney Island is suffering and much of the carnie history I longed to see is gone, but overall it was still a really cute place. There was really nothing we could eat on the boardwalk but there were a few bars and the beach looked inviting, although the weather said otherwise.

 

 

Coney Island Beach

Train Station Coney Island

Coney Island Pier

The last night in town, we were both getting fairly sick from the abuse, 3 day heat wave and low quality air warning, then the rain. We decided to spend our last night just driving around the Manhattan, being wary of what streets we could even fit down, but getting a chance to see some places we’d missed, like Harlem. This was the first time we had used the truck all week since we had the Path train just a couple blocks away, and good thing we had the train because it was a $16 toll to get into the city. We wanted to see Williamsburg and the Bronx but had developed a fear of the tolls and had plenty of driving to do from lower Manhattan where we crossed over, to the top of Manhattan Island around Harlem. Ross did great in the city traffic, pushing his way in like a dump truck when cabbies thought they could bully their way past us. There weren’t a whole lot of big trucks aside from delivery and construction vehicles in the city but as long as we stayed on the main roads, it didn’t seem to matter. In the neighborhoods, some with much older and smaller streets, it may have been a different story.

By the time we got home, we had a lot of packing up to do to leave in the morning. We were much sicker by then and sad to leave a city we had enjoyed so much. We had walked over 20 miles, eaten at some of the best Vegetarian places in the country and seen almost every neighborhood we had heard of, and all in a week, mostly in the evenings. We definitely want to return and see more, maybe even have a real vacation there (staying at Liberty Harbor of course). New York is definitely my favorite North American city, so far.

We started by driving through the center of town, the street were filled with meandering tourists and their hyperactive kids, adorned with brightly colored spray paint tees, funnel cakes and bags full of quirky “Smoky Mountain” memorabilia. We decided to park in a garage at the farthest end or town and take our chances walking to find a place to eat.  As usual, searching for places that have vegetarian food in a small tourist town can be hit or miss (usually miss) so we headed to a place that had pizza. It was appropriately called, Smoky Mountain Brewery, and oddly our waiter and several other people working there were German. In many ways Gatlinburg reminded me of the German settled Fredericksburg, Texas, though with a lot less reference to its German origins. Since it was a Saturday, the restaurant was full, as was every place in the 8 blocks of downtown Gatlinburg, from Fudge Shoppe to Olde Tyme Photo Studio (Gatlinburg has about 20 of these). The pizza was actually pretty good, a veggie with white sauce and lots of tobasco. We went home with leftovers and a little bewildered from all the sights and sounds. Compared to the places we usually stay, Gatlinburg was to us, like a dance party is to a slug .
Having previously been excited about seeing the Movie Car museum and the Ripley’s Believe it or Not franchise, we realized that just walking past these places was almost as good. One of Ripley’s many buildings had great and creepy animatronic circus folk outside, luring people in with their surreal, desaturated demeanors. And the Movie Car Museum had the Dukes of Hazard car and Herbie the Love Bug parked right in the doorway- what more could you want from a Museum that most likely holds none of the original cars anyway. I was more interested in a small dose of people watching, than the attractions themselves. Although the main event is that Gatlinburg is the “Gateway to the Smokies”, and that was the supposed reason many people were there, the majority of people didn’t seem like the “hiking in the mountains” types and I suspect many of them were on a little day trip from Pigeon Forge, where they went to Dollywood, watched hillbilly family feud reenactments like the Hatfield & McCoy theater show, went to the Titanic Museum and had Southern BBQ every day. This may some of my anti tourist sentiment. Travelers and tourists are very different. At the same time, I don’t really blame anyone for wanting to get the hell our of their routines, kids and all, and go somewhere where they can just tune out, I just wish people wouldn’t encourage the atrocities that happen in downtown Gatlinburg and main street Pigeon Forge. Off the main strip, Gatlinburg can be really pretty.

Downtown Gatlinburg, Tennessee

Gatlinburg Downtown & The Space Needle

On Sunday, we headed straight for the park. We stopped at the Visitor Center where there was a small display of stuffed local flora and fauna, from poisonous plants to strange exotic flowers to the large and woolly, wild boar. From there we headed, whichever direction seemed interesting, and saw the signs for numerous trails, but the first one we pulled off the road for was probably my favorite. It was a seemingly uninteresting trail, but our first in the Smokies. It just sort of headed up a hill into the trees, no creek or cliff side to be seen, but the eerie lighting was great. The southern forests always make me think of epic and overly emotional independent films (sometimes horror films). Generally any film where the forests provides a creepy mood throughout (this is a good thing, I love movies). The climb took us to the top of a low peak with a fairly nice view. There was a small clearing with unmarked stones placed in rows, and for some reason, it took seeing a name on one of the stones to register that we had come across a cemetery – on a trail, on a mountain, in a National Forest. I imagined a family from 140 years ago who used to live on this land before it was a National Park, but the strangeness of a headstone from as recently as 1992 said whoever’s cemetery it was, was still somewhat around. We joked that someone must have snuck the body up the hill one night, headstone in tow, to put them in the family cemetery. How else does one get buried on National land? I know if I had 7 generations of family buried in a private cemetery in the Smoky Mountains with a great view I would.. somehow.. hmm.. maybe getting too morbid here.

The next place we came across was the Laurel Falls trail. There was actual parking for this trail, lots, and several cars already there. We brought only our regular walking shoes, mine flat black Keds and Ross with some worn out Asics. This didn’t actually matter though, the trail was relatively wide, paved and occupied by some of the larger and more elderly tourists that I thought I’d never see off the streets of Gatlinburg. Surprisingly, the trail wasn’t as short and easy as I expected. It was about 1.3 miles each way, a steady climb though with little to no risk to life or limb. Along the way we ran out of water, unprepared to need more than one bottle, and filled it from a small waterfall coming out of the rocks. When we reached Laurel Falls, there was a bridge over the water and about 15 people lingering about. Some resting, others taking photos. We looked around for a place to sit and opted for the more inaccessible lower falls, which could only be reached by maneuvering down a rocky cliff side trail, difficult with flat soled slippery shoes, but worth it to see the jealous faces of the people above who were unable or unwilling to climb down.

Lower Laurel Falls

After Laurel Falls, we continued our drive into the park, finding a campsite we could never stay at (because of our need for internet for work), and stopped for a cold pizza picnic next to a postcard perfect creek – complete with a fly fishing Boy Scout and dorky swimming teenage girls (there weren’t many places to pull off the road). We watched the young boy continuously get his fly caught in the trees, and quietly laughed as we watched the girls’ sandals float down stream. The ants had left us alone and it was time to move on. We had time for one more trail before heading back to check on the animals. This trail was marked and had some parking, but was ultimately unchallenging. Really a perfect trail for the end of the day and a great place to see some of the flowers and insects of the park. The trail basically stayed on even ground, leading into an “open” meadow filled with amusingly placed fallen trees and enough sunlight for life to be interested in.

We headed home to our lonely pets after that. Dreading  the work week ahead but with 3 more weekends in the Smokies to look forward to and a great view, we couldn’t complain too much. Our campsite, right across from the park, and neighbour with 15 bird feeders, would prove to be a great view while we worked.

Chena at Smokey Bear Campground, Gatlinburg Tennessee

We requested the 4 hour Echo Room Tour on a Saturday and by Monday we were scheduled for Wednesday Morning. This didn’t give me much time to limber up or get into shape, my muscles weak from excessive time at the computer and staying indoors most the winter, but I stretched as much as I could the night before. However, the night before was not followed by a restful sleep but rather a night of no sleep, old movies and Battlestar Galactica on my iphone. We stayed up all night because our schedule would never work well with a 9:30am cave expedition. I would rather be “haven’t gone to bed” tired than “just woke up” groggy. Staying up all night also allowed us to go to breakfast at 7am at a restaurant in town that serves vegan food, but is only open till 1. I imagined the carbs and calories from a great tofu scramble and fluffy biscuit would give me more energy for the 4 hours of labor ahead, though I really had no idea what to expect of the cave.

The only shoes I had were my 80s rebocks that I was planning to throw away because of their unfixably ugly tongues. They were the grippiest shoes I had so I hoped I could depend on my years of skateboarding and gymnastics to keep me on my feet and out of crevasses.  Ross had hiking boots so he was set but neither us had any disposable clothing. Our guide was a tall bearded professional “cave tour aficionado” looking guy named Jerry Wallace, who also happens to be the cave’s photographer and graphic designer. I was happy we didn’t get a cocky young guide with a napsack full of ego and only enough facts about the cave to impress an 8 year old. Jerry knew everything we asked and was loaded with tons of geological, historical and biological information to please our curious and tired brains.

The first part of the tour was the Crystal Palace, a developed part of the cave filled with  stalactites, stalagmites, cones, drapes and various other crystallized formations. While the rest of the tour was wild aside from the various butt and knee polished areas along the way. During the cave tour we crawled through spaces I didn’t think my head would fit through, climbed a rope up a slippery slope, slid down a 20 foot rock slide, teetered over a canyon, talked about the move The Descent, and spent allot of time on our knees. Randomly we would enter rooms like the echo room, whirlpool room, elvis room, music room and several awesomely tall dome rooms with crawls between called things like the back scraper, the 49 cent squeeze, the birth canal and the ankle breaker. At first I was a little worried about how I would feel in the tighter squeezes but after I learned how to crawl through them, using your finger tips and pushing with your toes ( I started by trying to drag my legs haha, fool!), I enjoyed the tight fits and awkward mid tunnel turns. When we got to the Sandpaper slide, looking down at a steep rock slide with presumably, rocks at the bottom, taking the plunge felt like the last time I tried to roll gracefully into a half pipe and ended up on my back on the concrete 12 feet below, or driving my motorcycle into the back of the truck with the ramp at a 45 degree angle (15-20mph needed with 3 feet to stop – I don’t do that anymore). When I finally leaned forward and just did it, the bottom was only a 2 foot drop and you were tossed forward into some dirt. Aside from my wrists already hurting from all the lifting needed (and my time on computers) it was a completely painless trip down.

Photos by Jerry Wallace

Four and half hours later – my legs, shoulders and arms sore, scraped and weak, we finally exited the cave alive and getting along pretty well with our guide. I’m an awkward conversationalist with strangers so I made my share of morbid or strange statements and jokes, while Ross balanced us out by being the sane one with little to say. At the building where we turned in our gear we swapped flickr accounts with our guide Jerry and I gave him the address to Nerds on the Road. Hopefully our next guide, at our next cave (if even possible*), we will have a guide as good as him.

Jerry takes all the photos in the gift shop/cave entrance as well as the website for the cave and has had his awesome photos published. Check some of them out on his flickr and check out the Raccoon Mountain Wild Cave website to see some photos not found there.

* find out more about why caves around the country are being closed (link) (Federal are already closed and there are threats that private caves may be closed as well).

The unpopular beaches and old bridges were the best part of the Keys for me, especially the remnants of an old rail road bridge that still ran along side parts of the main bridges. We stopped at one of many state parks along the way and walked around the beach a little but the second state park we stopped at, Long Key State Park, had far less people and a beach-side boardwalk that was missing the typical “no dogs allowed” sign you see on Florida state park trails. We walked about a quarter mile and stopped on a small deserted beach covered in shells and dead tree branches. My kind of beach. The water was cold but tolerable enough to wade in and Chena got a chance to cool off but unfortunately kept trying to drink the water.

We ate at a little cafe, too early for the lunch menu (by like 20 minutes) and had banana, pineapple, coconut covered pancakes with a side of papaya syrup. For pancakes they were great though unfortunately not that filling. To make up for it, we later tried to find a pizza place but ended up finding a raw bar and had pita sandwiches, also not so fulfilling, but the raw bar was inside a health food store and book store and luckily they had the awesome and completely satisfying Stonewall’s Jerquee bites (vegetarian jerky) for us to snack on during the drive home.

Our last goal before turning back was the 7 mile bridge, At the end we found a pull-off just where we watched the sun go down and said our goodbyes to any chance of warm sunny beaches for a long time.

The next day we left to north Florida’s St George Island State Park, where it would be down to 22 degrees the first night. After enjoying an average of 83 for the last month, this was going to be a rough change. Sure enough I was sick within the first day. I think spending 3 days in the car between the Keys and the 600+ mile trip north probably didn’t help either.