[obiwan22]

Have teh funness, make sure the sock kitty doesn't get eaten by a kangaroo...

[Zoo]

There's no kangaroo or moose in north Florida. . . But I do plan to have lots of fun

[Bodom]

Dont get ate

[MA-53]

don't let sock kitty eat any meese. I happen to like meese. If you can't bring Final a moose, bring me a moose. Or something else i can grate. THAT IS... cuddle.... yes... with a cheese grater...

have fun!!

[JGJTan]

I wonder what the tally stands at now for Zoo not being known as a girl.

Anyways, have like a good time camping. And bring back lots of piccies.

[Zoo]

Well, I made it back in one piece (I didn't get eaten, frozen, gored or drowned). I scraped my knuckle on a log and burnt the tip of my finger, but that's nothing compared to stuff I do to myself at work and in class .

I didn't see any moose or kangaroo, or mice. I brought back some tiny crabs for those who might like to grate something.

It was quite cold at times for sleeping (6.5 C on Saturday at 8am, 10C this morning at 7; I think in F the first is 43, and that's after the sun started up) but my site was sheltered by lots of trees. Unfortunately, my site was sheltered by lots of trees. Taking my telescope was pointless. (And I realized, matt, the digital doesn't take a shutter cable, so attempts at pictures would have been pointless too).

Had my really old Canon with me and I got 4 pictures before the battery completely died, so for those you'll have to wait until I buy a new battery, finish the roll, have them developed, fix my scanner and scan them in. I got a chance to use a digital, which was nice (but I miss my own camera ). You can only take so many pictures of a coastal hammock, so I don't have all that many pictures.


Here is what Big Talbot Island looks like from Amelia Island:

Amelia Island looks much the same, but Big Talbot is much more interesting. I wandered along the paths through the woods until I reached a cliff and I'm like . Not too many cliffs in Florida. It used to be the beach, but the beach eroded and left a cliff about 12 or 15 feet above the current beach.

I finally found the beach access and wandered along looking at the driftwood and shells. I found a piece of blue painted china (You can see it in one of the pictures below). I was looking for shark teeth but didn't find any. Probably would've had better luck in that regard on the ocean side.

Eventually I came upon a tidal stream and, being low tide, I crossed it. I wanted a good close look at the marine algae I had seen from the other side. I was surprised at how much clay was in the soil next to the stream (little more than gray clay with sand sprinkled on it). I followed the stream along until I got to some really saturated sand. I stepped on it and stopped. It wiggled, a lot. I had squished the water out by stepping on it and it puddled on top of the sand. Even after that it was still wiggly.

Eventually I found myself in the salt marsh, which was actually rather dry at the time (remember, low tide). I decided to take a look at some plants I kept thinking were scrub rosemary (but couldn't be as rosemary is a scrub rather than a coastal plant). I determined they weren't (huge surprise), but before I got close enough to I saw a little crab scurry to hide among some stalks. At first I thought it was a wierd bug, but then I saw it had claws and was walking sideways. That one was actually about twice as big as the dozens of others I saw, which were about the size of ladybugs.

It was starting to get kinda late then so I began back. Then I saw bobcat tracks. Big surprise, my plaster was about 5 miles away at the time. I did manage to coax the Canon to take one more picture, so I did get a picture of the tracks. I followed the tracks backward into some vegetation. Then I decided I really better head back, the tide was starting to come back in.




And look what I caught sock kitty doing!

I saw him sitting staring at a log. Apparently he was trying to light it by staring at it. I handed him the matches but he just kept staring:


I had to step in:


Here he is trying to decide what to make for breakfast. He started out a little ambitious browsing the eagles and ospreys:


He soon realizes what a task cooking an eagle will be and peruses the selection of titmice and sparrows.


Then he realizes he can't cook food, so he settled for cooking some water:


I helped him out a little and we made the hot water into hot chocolate:


Next up was washing the dishes:


Being a cat, and having done all that work, Sock Kitty decided to enjoy a bit of morning sun:


Later we sat around in the tent a while (hey bigbro! here's a picture of me!):


At night it gets pretty dark, so here Sock Kitty has turned on the lamp:


And lastly, we discovered that things called stars really do exist!

[Pendragon205]

HOLY CRAP! THEY EXIST! THEY ARE PLOTTING AGAINST US! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!!!!

[JGJTan]

Oooh sounds like you had a great time Zoo!

Nice piccies... although I wouldn't trust Sock Kitty to be left alone

[Final F8]

LMAO!!

Nice pics, Zoo!
Looks like you & Sock kitty had fun You're gonna need to teach him a few more camping skills, though.

[Goto]

Sounds like you had a good time, Camping is fun.

Although I'm not sure if 12 feet high really qualifies as much of a cliff...
Even the 50 feet or so cliff near me isn't exactly very big.

[Ratty]

Sock kitty!!

Good thing i didnt light sock kitty on fire last week... or ya wouldnt have those funny photos

Hehe

Good to hear ya had some fun!

Funny pics

[Zoo]

THEY EXIST! THEY ARE PLOTTING AGAINST US! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!!!!

You would not believe (well maybe you would, but anyway) how hard it is sometimes to see anything in the sky over my house

Nice piccies... although I wouldn't trust Sock Kitty to be left alone

He hasn't figured out how to unzip the tent yet so I can usually leave him there while I'm gone. I'm not sure what I'll do when he can get out of there. . .

Looks like you & Sock kitty had fun   You're gonna need to teach him a few more camping skills, though.

I don't know if he'll pay any attention to me. He didn't even try to use those matches.

Although I'm not sure if 12 feet high really qualifies as much of a cliff... 
Even the 50 feet or so cliff near me isn't exactly very big.

I tend to agree, but Florida is basically flat. It gradually slopes up from the shore to the Lake Wales Ridge (and a couple other ridges) which is something like 150 feet above sea level (unnoticeable really, except for vegetational changes). So, to me, that's a cliff . Only other place I know of one is at Payne's Prairie and it is much bigger.

[Goto]

Yeah, while Australia on the whole is fairly flat, it's certainly not that flat. It's got some pretty good cliffs, especially in the coastal regions. When it comes to the scenery, can't really think of any place I'd prefer to be. My dad has a pilots license for small aircraft, and a month or two ago we took a trip along the coast for an hour or two, then back in a more direct route. Was great to look out and see the waves crashing in against the cliffs and look out for landmarks, but the ride back across the land was horrible. it was late enough in the day that the ground had enough time to heat up, and there was too many thermals to rock the plane around.