2-8-14 - Fort King George

Today brought us a history lesson, and an interesting one at that. We were maneuvering the van along some narrow residential streets in Georgia, which were populated with old Southern plantation style houses and massive, spreading Cypress trees. We trundled into a parking lot and found ourselves at Old Fort King George. In the parking lot Spanish moss draped from the branches of more Cypress trees. The tendrils of moss swayed softly in the damp breeze. A small rain storm had passed through and left wet puddles that I stomped in happily while Dave examined the fort. We decided to pay the small entrance fee to check things out.

A historical society had restored to exact specifications the old fort, which originally stood for active use between 1721 and 1727. It had a brief and ill-fated run. It was designed to be an outpost to encourage settlement and trade but never lived up to the grand plans of those who commissioned it. The soldiers stationed there were the elderly, wounded and sick, many of whom were sent to the fort directly after a month long hospital stay nearby, intended to restore them to "fighting condition". Considering that a hospital stay in those days consisted of blood-letting, leeches, and poisonous plant-based powders and pills, it's no surprise that most of the men died, and the fort only stayed in use for six years.

The restoration of the fort and grounds today was flawless, and must have truly a labor of love for those involved. When the fort was built, carpentry was a real art form. All of the wooden supports and beams were held together by jointing, an intricate process of puzzle-piece fitting and wooden pegs. I loved the feeling of the exposed, unfinished wood beams under my fingers. We wandered through the buildings of the fort, all of which looked as though the inhabitants had just stepped out and might be around the next corner. I felt slightly nervous, almost like we were intruding on someones private life.

This building was built with an overhanging top level that had gun-ports built into the floor. When the Native Americans or other forces would attack, they would press flat against the walls to avoid being shot, and then storm the inside or shoot through the windows. This new building design prevented them from doing that and gave those in the fort a great advantage.

We went inside and climbed up the hand-made wooden ladders to the top story, where I looked out from a central window. The view was marshland for as far as I could see, and it made me feel isolated and lonely. I can't imagine being in the shoes of the soldiers stationed here, so far from home without hope of reprieve. There were small excerpts from one man's diary inside the museum that gave some insight into the difficulties they found. The fort had also been home to a large sawmill at the same time as housing soldiers, and everything was originally built of the Cypress wood that grew in the swamp. The man's journal described the nightmare of wading neck deep in the brackish water and hauling the huge logs by hand through clouds of thick mosquitoes and flies in oppressive heat and humidity. In 6 years, over 60 percent of the men stationed at Old Fort King George died.

Luckily, Dave and I escaped with our lives and a new sense of appreciation for modern wonders like sanitation and waterproof boots. That night we fell asleep to the sound of cicadas and a soft night wind, with the warm Georgia air soft on our skin.

Updates!

Hello everyone!

Apologies for the long absence from writing. I had some sad news from home and didn't feel much like writing for a while.

Now that I am settled in, I'll be updating the backlog of blog posts and pictures, and posting them up as soon as I can!

Thanks for you patience!

In the meantime, here's a picture of my dog in a bunny costume.

2-4-14 - Blue Skies and Red Sand

After the ladybug incident it took us a few days to work up the nerve to return to the woods. Luckily the cold weather seemed to have demoralized the enemy forces, and there was nary a little bug to be seen, excepting the occasional straggler stowed away inside window frames and loose clothes. We horsed the van down a track of deep, soft sand, stopping halfway through to unload all excess weight and to air down the tires for extra traction. We just barely made it to solid ground without getting stuck and there we set up camp for a couple days. Just up the road I found some bones from an animal of some type, possibly a couple different ones mixed together in a bone pile. The skull looked canine, but the bones looked like a deer or other large mammal. Like a good scientist I tried to piece them together, but couldn't make heads or tails of it.

Jax did his own scientific investigation. Nom nom nom...

After a couple of days we left our little campsite in the woods, determined to finally head North out of Florida. We shot East over to Daytona Beach and it was there that I caught my very first ever glimpse of the Atlantic Ocean. The air was hot and humid, with a stiff wind coming up from the South. We walked down a weathered set of wooden stairs and finally set foot on the East coast. It's funny, I never thought I'd be there. It almost seemed more exotic in my mind than foreign countries thousands of miles away. Yet there I was, with my toes in the red sand, inches away from the roaring winter waves of the Atlantic Ocean.

We walked down the beach for a while, taking it all in and trying to comprehend the massive scale of this journey, of it all. On closer examination, the red sand turned out to be made up entirely of tiny shell fragments. It's amazing the things that lie just beneath our feet and go entirely unnoticed, till you just take the time to look down.

Dave caught a great shot of a surfer coming out of the waves to dry off and warm up. Although the weather was warm, the water was icy cold and the waves surprisingly violent.

Just as we were getting back into the van to leave, we heard a loud buzzing in the sky and glanced up. Two people slowly floated by, smiling and waving. They were seated, attached to a sail and powered by a gigantic fan. It looked like way more fun than any two people should be having.

They slowly floated down the beach into the distance. We hopped into our own brand of motor-fueled freedom and laid the pedal down, headed North towards new adventures.