Florida Caverns

What's cool about where I live is that there are lots of fun adventure choices. Kayaking in the Gulf of Mexico. Hiking through rare forest habitats. Exploring new sinkholes. How about trekking through a system of prehistoric caves? BADASS. Off to the Florida Caverns.

We woke up from our snuggling marathon, feeling moderately refreshed after our 50 mile journey from Tallahassee to Chattahoochee, and ready to bike another 25 miles to the caverns. We had decided to stay both nights at Lake Seminole, so that meant leaving the tent set up and being able to ditch all the weight from our gear.

Now, Highway 90 West would have been the most direct route to the caverns, but I had decided on Old Spanish Trail, which paralleled it the whole way. I looked at Google Maps Street View for hints for what the road would be like, but there weren't any photos. When we arrived at Old Spanish Trail, we figured out why. It was a dirt road. Fortunately this part of the Panhandle is straight Georgia clay, hard and compact. So lesson learned: if Google doesn’t show it, it’s most likely unpaved.

Old Spanish Trail was pretty slow going, but it was beautiful. No cars. Seventy degrees. Pretty pine forests. We passed swamps and ponds and cemeteries. By the time we finally made it back out to a paved road, we figured we had probably added an hour on to our ETA.

We entered the park and immediately signed up for a tour. You may think, “Hey, this is just Marianna, FL. What’s the rush?” Well this park was packed. There was a hoard of Russian tourists waiting for their tour to start, and as it was we still had to wait an hour before our tour began.

So this is where I make my plea to up and coming State Park Rangers. LISTEN. You have a great duty and responsibility to make our natural places seem as goddamn interesting as you can. If you can’t make the general public understand why they are special, then we won’t care about them. And if the public doesn’t care about them, then we won’t stand up to developers who want to profit from their destruction. So do your job Park Rangers, and don’t do what Ranger Frank did.

I had high hopes for Frank. He had the age of an experienced ranger, but I could tell pretty much immediately that he was a tour dud. He spoke to everyone as if we were in kindergarten. But forget his tone—it was like Frank was going out of his way to make this tour as uninteresting as he possibly could. There were two things he was concerned about, and they were the size of the puddles on the cave floor and the possibility that you could hit your head.

We descended into the cave. This cave is huge. There are about a dozen distinct rooms visited on the tour. There were 20 of us, and we all fit comfortably in the first room, which was lit us theatrically to highlight the stalactites that hung down in petrified globules. The stalagmites rose from the floor to meet their aerial counterparts, and transparent drapes of dripping calcite ripple down from the sidewalls.

“Now we’ve had a lot of rain this winter,” Frank explained. “If it keeps raining like this in April, this puddle might get so big we might have to close this part of the cave. Yessir, these puddles are much bigger than normal.”

These caves exist because they are made of limestone, just like the rest of Florida is. Limestone is formed out of the prehistoric skeletons of dead sea animals, and Florida used to be submerged in the ocean. Time and pressure from the ocean compressed the skeletons into porous rocks, through which water filters and flows. When water comes into contact with air it picks of carbon dioxide, which then forms a weak solution of carbonic acid. This acid eats away at the limestone, and after millions of years, caves are formed. Carbonic acid is also responsible for the magnificent cave formations, as microscopic bits of limestone care carried down with every drip of water.

“See that rock over there?” Frank asked, pointing with his flashlight. A kid in the back called out, “A duck!” Frank said, “Yep, and that’s why they call this room ‘The Duck Room.’”

A kid pointed at the ceiling and asked, “Is that a bat?” Four species of bats roost in colonies in the Florida Caverns. Colonies of Southeastern bats number as high as 13,000 individuals in the fall. Not only that, the highly endangered Grey bats hibernate in only two caves in the entire state of Florida, and one of those caves is in Florida Caverns State Park. There are only 150 Grey bats in existence.

Frank said, “Yes, now that is a bat. You can look at it, but don’t look at it for too long. What you really need to look at is this step right here. If you’re looking at the bat and not where you step, you could fall.”

Another kid pointed at a puddle and said, “I think I see a crayfish.” Both the Dougherty plain cave crayfish and the Georgia blind cave salamander live in the caverns, and are equally mysterious. Virtually nothing is known about either species because they live exclusively in caves. Scientists don’t even know what the albino crayfish eat.

“Yes, that is a crayfish,” Frank conceded. “Now this part right here, you have to really be careful. Yes, even a short kid could crown his head around this corner. If you don’t want to crown your head, please watch where you’re walking, even if you’re a short kid.”

Human beings lived in and around the caverns for the past 5,000 years. Two village sites have been confirmed, one of them right where the visitor's center parking lot now stands. Most of the evidence of habitation is concentrated in and around cave entrances, which means people were using them as natural shelters. A partially fossilized human femur was found in one of the caves. Other fossils have been collected and identified, including bones from ancient relatives of llamas and horses.

"Now I'm gonna turn these lights off in the back of the room," Frank warned. "When I turn these lights off it's going to be very dark back there. In fact, you won't be able to see anything back there. It's going to get dark. Okay, I'm turning them off now."

The fact that we can walk in the cave is only possible because of the Civilian Conservation Corps, one of Roosevelt’s initiatives as a part of the New Deal. The state bought the caverns in 1935, and the CCC began the work of turning them into a state park soon after. The men of the CCC were given a job to conserve the natural beauty of the cave, and they worked on the project till the park opened in 1942. They dug out the floor of the cave, filling wheelbarrows and buckets with stones and debris chiseled out with picks. They cut passages through solid rock to connect the distinct rooms of the cave.

“This is my second favorite room in the caverns,” Frank said. “My first favorite room is the cake room. I haven’t really thought about what my third favorite room is, but it’s probably the forest room.”

After 45 horrendously boring minutes, the cave tour was over. We emerged into daylight and fortunately, it was still light enough to traverse some of the hiking trails of the Upland Hardwood forest, though the necessary brevity of our woods wandering made me regret the Old Spanish Trail lollygagging. I could probably walk in those woods all day.

But we didn’t have all day, did we. We had to leave those pretty pretty woods so we could make it back to the tent before we got killed on Highway 90 at dark. Turns out Highway 90 is a lot hillier than Old Spanish Trail. I mean we had some climbs. People don’t normally associate Florida with massive hills, but basically all of the Panhandle is marked with them.

We pulled into the campsite well past twilight, but it wasn’t quite pitch black yet. We survived our first real weekend tour since we got back from Colorado last summer. I want more of them, little two night getaways to Florida’s remote parts, but it’s hard since Travis and I don’t live in the same town right now. That will be changing in the fall, so I have lots of little bike trips to look forward to in the coming months.

Lake Seminole

For our February adventure I did something unheard of: I planned a trip! After some map consulting, I planned our route across the Florida Panhandle: the first night’s destination was 50 miles away in Lake Seminole in Chattahoochee, and the second day’s journey was to the Florida Caverns in Marianna.

But first things first.  The most important decision of any trip: who’s gonna watch the cats?? Duh, the cat-sitters (my parents).

From there, we were ready to leave. Well, almost. Though it was a beautiful sunny day, it wasn’t warming up like I expected it to. Aaaaaand this is where my excellent planning didn't really pan out so well-- I had forgotten to check the weather. HIGH of 58? That’s not warm! We made a slight detour to my farm so I could grab my windbreaker, and then we were off. NBD.

We traveled North out of Tallahassee till we reached Shady Rest Road, which takes you right into one of Tallahassee’s sleeper communities: Quincy, FL. The remnants of its prosperous past linger—huge white mansions with imposing columns and brick-laid downtown buildings.

But Quincy and the surrounding Gadsden County have always depended on agricultural to survive, and agriculture is dying out. The thing is, the South never really had much going for it in terms of equality. Unlike Northern colonies, the South was less about settlement and more about resource extraction. After Southern colonists stole land from the Native Americans, they also stole people from Africa, and then a very few people owned very large tracts of land and made a lot of money growing cotton. Slavery and plantation agriculture left a legacy of inequality that didn’t change much after the Civil War.

In Gadsden County the crop was shade tobacco. Before and after the Civil War, the fine, tender leaves of tobacco grown under yellow cotton shade cloth were used as cigar wrappers. Unlike cigarette tobacco, which was grown in full sun and harvested mechanically, the entire harvesting and curing process for shade tobacco was done by hand. Bruised or crushed leaves were worthless. Afterwards, the leaves were hung to cure in tobacco barns for a few months. So even after Emancipation, the work in the tobacco fields continued in startlingly similar conditions.

Tobacco made some people very wealthy. In the late 60s almost every cigar was wrapped with leaves from Gadsden county. But now, as traditional agriculture dies out across the South and the rest of the country, Quincy and towns like it are left in a real tough spot. This is the legacy of plantation farming: the population of Quincy is 64% black, one in five people live under the poverty line, and the average income is $15,000. Farming jobs aren’t as easy to come by as they used to be, and now Quincy is going to have to make itself economically viable another way. The relics of the farming past still stand on the farmland outside of town, and it's crazy to think how much history is kept in this land.

Travis and I are both farmers, but very different kinds of farmers from the producers in Quincy and other parts of the rural South. We both run very small urban farms that specialize in a dozens of crops instead of just one. We both farm using organic methods, which means we don't use chemicals to poison insects and weeds. Urban farming is becoming more and more hip, and as foodie culture becomes more of the mainstream, "local and organic" are the buzzwords that every restaurant uses to draw in more customers. What I'd like to see is the excitement about the local food movement to be translated to economic success for the dying agriculture communities on our city fringes. There are staggering amounts unused farmland that could be used to grow agricultural economies. I want a world where farming in Quincy is not only possible, but profitable.

As it stands now, our rural Southern towns have to go to desperate measures to stay alive, and a lot of times that means they turn to gambling to attract folks in from Tallahassee. Gretna, the town just Northwest of Quincy, has put up billboards all over Tallahassee to entice people to bet on barrel racing and poker clubs.

We came upon a gambling relic as we continued along West, somewhere along Flat Creek Road between Gretna and Chattahoochee. A giant warehouse loomed in the distance, while cows grazed right beside it. I thought it was a slaughterhouse. But as we got closer, we read Big Bend Jai Alai on the sign that towered over an overgrown parking lot.

Though Jai Alai originated in the Basque region of Spain in the 1800s and was once an Olympic sport, its American incarnation was a gambling sport. The first Jai Alai arena was built in Miami in 1925, and there were arenas all over the state in the 70s. Some poor schmuck was convinced to build an arena in the middle of nowhere in the Panhandle in the 90s. Needless to say, the economic boom it promised to Gadsden County didn’t pan out.

At least it was good for some abandoned building snooping. The stadium and playing arena were still in tact, and I could just imagine it being packed with folks balancing rum and cokes and hot dogs, cheering with their friends after work and hoping to win a bet. Now, the most impressive aspect is how quickly the grass has taken over the asphalt parking lot.

We continued North on Little Sycamore Road and cruised into Chattahoochee with plenty of daylight left, and snagged a bag of boiled peanuts from a roadside stand, which also served as a permanent yard sale and BBQ joint.

Lake Seminole is a destination for the region, and the Army Corps of Engineers runs a campsite at Woodruff Dam. The camping was on the other side of the state border in Georgia, so we rode the few miles further North till we saw the park entrance. This park did have “primitive” camping, which means that there were two sites off by themselves on the other side of the parking lot that they didn’t run electricity to. But when they say waterfront camping, they mean waterfront camping.

Lake Seminole is a dammed lake that meets at the confluence of the Flint River and the Chattahoochee River. The Apalachicola River continues on past the lake and flows into the Gulf. The Woodruff Dam was built in 1947 to capitalize on hydroelectric power and to control the pesky destruction that happens when people build their houses along floodplains.

Now Lake Seminole is a fishing destination for people who like to spend time outdoors by packing enormous, gas-guzzling RVs into asphalt parking lots. I am not as judgmental as I used to be (I’m still judgmental), and I understand that RVs are going to be a permanent fixture of most the camping that I do. I actually respect retired people who want to travel and see the country rather than join a country club and play golf till they die. But there’s just the… American-ness of it. We pulled up in this RV park and I saw a guy “walking his dog” by driving alongside his golden retriever in his black SUV. DUDE COULDN’T EVENT GET OUT OF HIS CAR TO WALK WITH HIS DOG. Never mind the fact that all these RVs are fully hooked up to electricity, and most people bring their satellite dishes with them so they don’t have to miss their shows while “out in nature”. If you’re gonna get outside people, then GET OUTSIDE. Believe it or not, the sunset can put on a better show than American Idol.

Anyway. When we got off our bikes and started to set up camp, I discovered that a cotton hoodie is probably not the best way to keep warm while exercising. The temperature was dropping fast after sunset, and if I had actually looked at the forecast earlier I would have seen that the low was 31 degrees. I just couldn’t get warm, most likely because my hoodie was damp with sweat. So that will be my next gear purchase: a wicking jacket that won’t leave me shivering when I dismount my bike.

We still had enough light to collect firewood, and soon enough I built a nice little fire and warmed up sufficiently. Dinner was Indian packs and rice. I read for a while, but once that sun goes down it is difficult to stay motivated to do anything in the cold.

Travis and I ventured into the tent, where we began an epic struggle to stay warm by cuddling. We don’t camp with sleeping bags, ostensibly because of the extra weight but really because you can’t spoon in two sleeping bags. We have one Therm-a-rest camping blanket made of sleeping bag material that we squeeze under, and it has served us well. But there was some DESPERATE snuggling that night. In fact we woke up at least six times so we could switch off who was spooning who. My left side would fall asleep while I clutched Travis' warm little body, then I would groggily murmur "Switch!" and turn over on my right side so he could cuddle me. It almost made me envy the RV-ers. I DO have an emergency blanket but because of my astute planning I left it in my closet at home… so next time I’ll pack it. Just in case. You never know. In any case, the single camping blanket works down to about 30 degrees. Just not very comfortably.

We survived the night, and woke up to a chilly dawn. Then it was time for the second leg of this journey—Lake Seminole to the Florida Caverns, just a quick 26 mile jaunt one way. And this was when we got to see first hand that the Florida Panhandle really is the southernmost tip of the Appalachian Mountains.

St. Marks Wildlife Refuge

St. Marks Wildlife Refuge is a federal preserve at the coast, about 20 miles south of Tallahassee. The refuge is home to bobcats, alligators, whooping cranes, and lots more.

Blue Spring and the Search for Margarito

I debated very little about what I should get Travis for Christmas in 2013.

The man is from Manatee County, FL. He has a giant chestpiece tattoo prominently featuring two manatees (along with a mermaid). Obviously, the right thing to do was to adopt him a manatee from the Save the Manatee Club.

The Adopt-A-Manatee program is an ingenious fundraising campaign from the state's preeminent manatee activism group. If I recall correctly, my parents adopted me a manatee when I was little, which sparked my obsession way back in the day. This is how it works. You pay $35 (a pitiable sum). Then you choose from a list which manatee you'd like to adopt. Then the Save the Manatee Club sends you a certificate of adoption, a biography of your manatee, and a gift, which right now is a heart-shaped ornament. Totally worth it.

The list of adoptable manatees is organized by where they migrate to in the winter- Tampa, Alabama, Homasassa, and Blue Spring. I browsed the options to see which one really spoke to me. Rocket? Phyllis? Whiskers???? All very tempting choices. But then I stumbled on Margarito.

Margarito's mom is Lily, and she brought him to Blue Spring for the first time in 1984. He was supposed to be named Margarita after Margaritaville (Jimmy Buffet is a major supporter of the Save the Manatee Club). However, when he was born male some bilingual problem-solver christened him with possibly the most ridiculous name you can give a one ton sea mammal. But that's not all. He likes to hang out with the guys, spending a lot of time with Howie and Doc, but his best friend is Brutus, the 1900 lb manatee who has been tracked since the 70s. Also, poor Margarito's tail is also pretty chewed up from a motorboat collision, the dude is missing a flipper because he got tangled up in fishing line (throw your fishing line away in the trash NOT IN THE RIVER). I think he's kind of accident prone. Margarito was clearly Travis' manatee.

Serendipitously, Margarito spends the winters in Blue Spring, which is one of the manatee viewing sites listed on Manatee Count 2013/14. So for Travis' birthday in January, I planned a trip to Blue Spring to go find Margarito.

Blue Spring has been pumping fresh water into the St. Johns River for ages, but it's only been protected by the state since the 1970s, when it was turned into a State Park and a manatee refuge. Last winter over 400 manatees were spotted there, but when the park was first established there were only 35 manatees who used it as their winter haven near Orange City, FL.

Because of the massive number of manatees present in the cooler months, the spring run is completely closed off to swimmers and boaters though there is an observation deck to allow people to see them doing their thing. However, scientists take advantage of the conditions to do research, and over the years have created an extensive family tree. Sick and injured manatees are also easier to pick out to be rescued for rehabilitation. The huge number of people who make the trip to to the park put the manatees in the spotlight, as well as the issues that affect them, like clean water and ecology. And if you can't make it to Blue Spring, you can always watch the live ManaTV webcam.

After our trek into the Ocala National Forest, we headed off for Orange City. We arrived about an hour before the park closed, and man. There were a LOT of manatees. The spring run is a little tributary running into the main river, and it is clear and blue and beautiful. According to the gift shop sign there were 164 manatees present that day! I really got to boost the count on the spreadsheet, which, as all you Type A folks know, is extremely satisfying.

I set out on the main mission of the day: Operation Find Margarito. This was not an easy task. Most of the manatees were hanging out on the other side of the river near the opposite bank, and there were so many of them! It was difficult to pick out the one with the one flipper. So we switched tactics and looked for one with his mangled tail. Still no good. I resorted to calling his name. FUTILE. In the end, I had to console myself with the knowledge he had been spotted earlier in the season and must have been one of the manatees we saw that day.

So here's the thing guys. Florida's springs are vital to the survival of manatees, as well as the ecosystems they're apart of. I'm gonna go ahead and get back on my soap box. There are hundreds of lifestyle changes you can make to protect our water, like conserving water and electricity, driving less, buying less, living small, and supporting organic farms and chemical free landscaping. There are also tangible success stories accomplished by folks who care about our environment, like a North Florida dairy farmer who uses a closed loop system to recycle manure on his farm instead of letting it leach into the aquifer, or the citizens of Wakulla County who banded together to prevent development around the Wakulla Springs head springs. But here's something else you can do: support clean water initiatives. In fact, here's an easy thing you can do, just sign this petition. Learn about where your water comes from, and more importantly where it goes after you use it. Because clean and safe water is not just necessary for manatees, we need it too.