September 19th, 2021 … Summer of Fun continues! Florida, so close to home!

We departed Mike Roess Gold Head Beach State Park on FL-21. We enjoyed a quiet night at the campground and did just a little exploring of the park. It’s a great place, if you like to hike and enjoy wildlife! WE saw many areas posted where they were trying to rejuvenate Prairie Grass or other natural features.

Along FL 21, Camp Blanding has training areas. Camp Blanding Joint Training Center is a 73,000-acre premier training center. The training center provides quality service, training areas, ranges, education facilities, simulation platforms, maintenance, and other services to Florida’s National Guard and to numerous federal, state, and local customers spanning the Joint, Interagency, Intergovernmental and Multinational spectrum. As a key stakeholder in the region, CBJTC continues to grow new partnerships and enhance existing ones, such as its relationship with the Keystone Airpark. The availability of this airpark has improved CBJTC’s ability to support capabilities to satisfy or exceed its customers’ expectations.

Since 1909, YMCA Camp Immokalee has helped campers get outside, make new friends, and try new things. After all this time, their goal remains the same: to help everyone that comes through their gates grow in spirit, mind, and body. The vision of YMCA Camp Immokalee is to serve a diverse community and to build spirit, mind, and body through a unique combination of Summer Camp, Outdoor Education, Conference and Local Community Programs. Their goal is that each camper and program participant leaves our camp a better person than when they arrived, and campers are set on the path to do the right things and contribute to a better world as they continue to grow. The core values of caring, respect, honesty and responsibility permeate their programs and activities. These strong, positive character strengths are exemplified by their staff for their campers and guests.

In Keystone Heights, we turned back onto FL 100. The Lawrence Developing Company had purchased thousands of acres of land and named the new town Keystone Heights. Most of the early settlers, along with the developers, were from Pennsylvania, the “Keystone State.” Some of the early buildings had signs or symbols in the shape of a keystone, still seen on several of the historic buildings. Lawrence persuaded the railroad to move its depot from Brooklyn to Keystone, and a new depot was constructed. In 1924, the Brooklyn post office closed and the Keystone Heights post office opened. The Company organized an intensive promotional campaign. Maps, postcards, and brochures were printed and distributed, featuring the colorful maps. The first settlers set about building modest homes, some living in tents until their houses were ready. Some of the first homeowners were from Meadville, PA, where the Lawrence family was from. They were an educated and energetic group that included artists, teachers, businessmen, clergy, and engineers. In addition to home sites, new citizens of Keystone Heights were also encouraged to purchase agricultural acreage near the town, which John Lawrence had already planted with young peach and pecan trees. However, due to problems with soil, insects and other disappointments, this never materialized. However, fruits and flowers did flourish in the gardens of the new settlers.

Water levels in the Keystone Heights area lakes have gone up and down for decades. Lake water naturally seeps downward into the aquifer, and some lakes have active sinkholes draining lake water into the aquifer. Multiple factors impact the lake levels including rainfall as well as surface water and groundwater withdrawals. The flow of Alligator Creek also has been hampered by obstructions over the years. Save Our Lakes Organization members have grown up on the banks of Lake Geneva. They swam, water-skied and sailed on it for years until low water levels cut off the area near their homes from the rest of the lake. 

Save Our Lakes hopes to help restore the quality of life in the community that would come with stabilized lake levels, as well as help protect the aquifer. The water management district data shows Lake Geneva now is less than a quarter full, Lake Brooklyn is about a quarter full and the aquifer has dropped about 12 feet over the years. Save Our Lakes advocates a multi-faceted approach to stabilizing and improving the water levels in the lakes and aquifer. Optimize nearby water for recovery and recharging the aquifer. Re-evaluate the Lake Lowry minimum levels with consideration of water sharing to benefit downstream lakes such as Lake Geneva and Lake Brooklyn as well as the aquifer. Negotiate additional water release from DuPont Florida plant along the Trail Ridge sands east of Starke into Alligator Creek South to recharge the aquifer rather than losing that water to the Gulf of Mexico. Save Our Lakes notes that Alligator Creek remained dry when Tropical Storms Beryl and Debby drenched Northeast Florida, resulting in severe flooding in Bradford County including Starke.

We saw this sign on FL-100, it reminded me of our friend Mud, she is a Florida Cracker and is related to the Bellamy Brothers. We drove across the point where the Old Bellamy Road intersects Highway 100. In 1824, the First session of the 18th United States Congress appropriated money to develop a public road in the Territory of Florida between Pensacola and St. Augustine. It was to follow as nearly as possible on the pre-existing Old Mission Trail. The St. Augustine to Tallahassee segment was contracted to John Bellamy. He completed this in 1826, using Native American guides and his own slaves.

Etoniah Creek State Forest contains 8,879 acres of various natural communities. It is named after Etoniah Creek, a stream that travels 2.5 miles through the eastern portion of the forest. The forest is managed by the Florida Forest Service under the multiple-use management concept so as to restore, protect and manage ecosystem functions while allowing compatible public uses. The forest headquarters is located northeast of Florahome. Located just to the south of the 819 acre Georges Lake, Etoniah Creek State Forest has 491 feet of lake frontage. Three shallow creeks (Falling Branch Creek, Etonia Creek, and Rice Creek) meander through floodplain swamps and bottomland hardwoods.

The forest is home to a variety of wildlife and is part of a wildlife corridor that offers the black bear a vast roaming area, a necessity for its survival. Other types of wildlife commonly found on the forest include white-tailed deer, Species found on the forest that are listed as endangered, threatened or of special concern include the eastern indigo snake, gopher tortoise, black creek crayfish, and Florida scrub jay. Etoniah rosemary (Conradina etonia) is an endangered plant that was first described in 1991 and is found mostly in scrub habitat. Etoniah Creek State Forest contains the only known population of Etoniah rosemary found on public land.

  

Roberts Ranch is the ultimate hunting destination in Florida. They specialize in whitetail deer, but we also hunt hogs, turkey, and exotic animals. They have 11,000 acres of planted pines, oak hammocks, and hardwood creek bottoms. 7000 acres are enclosed by an 8 foot high game fence. They have put premium genetics into the preserve to create the best hunting experience in Florida. They have been the top deer breeder in the state and have produced the biggest whitetails in Florida for the past 15 years. We also do European style pheasant hunts that everyone loves to attend! The pheasant hunt typically runs about three and a half hours long.

Rice Creek Conservation Area includes Rice Creek Swamp and covers approximately 70 percent of this property. Together with Palmetto Branch, Oldtown Branch and Hickory Branch, the swamp forms the headwaters of Rice Creek, a large tributary of the St. Johns River. The area was an indigo and rice plantation during the 18th century, and most of the uplands were managed as commercial pine plantations before brought into public ownership. The site protects a variety of natural communities, including floodplain swamp, flatwoods, dome swamp, floodplain forest and upland mixed forest. The area is also a key parcel for connecting Etoniah State Forest to the Cross Florida Greenway.

One of the special highlights of this property is an historic levee built for an 18th century rice plantation that will take visitors along a walk into the heart of the swamp to view the seventh largest cypress tree in Florida. A portion of the Florida National Scenic Trail also traverses through the property. This portion of the trail includes Hoffman Crossing, an 1,886-foot narrow boardwalk the puts the hiker in the heart of the Rice Creek Swamp. The area serves as a wildlife corridor, connecting several large natural areas. Wildlife seen on property include black bear, white-tailed deer, turkey, river otter, wood duck and diverse migratory songbirds.

In Palatka, FL Hwy 100 merged with US 17. Palatka was established as a trading post in 1821. The name comes from the Timucuan Indian word Pilotakata, meaning "crossing." The original settlement was burned during the Semionole War of 1836. In 1838, the US government constructed Fort Shannon, which served as a garrison, supply depot, and hospital for the forts in the area. During the American Civil War, Federal troops occupied the city. During the postwar period, riverboats plied the St Johns River to points south and Palatka became the gateway to the interior of Florida. Palatka became known as the "Gem of the St Johns" and boasted several world-class hotels that included the Arlington, Saratoga, La Fayette, and the Putnam House, with accommodations to host 6,000 visitors. Palatka prospered in the late 1800s as an enormous resource for timber and citrus and had a reputation for natural beauty that attracted many visitors. A devastating fire in downtown Palatka in 1884 destroyed many of the grand hotels and deep freezes in 1894 and 1895 devastated the area's citrus industry, causing a decline in the area's visitation and industry.

Separating Palatka and East Palatka is the St John’s River. Four life-like copper statues, commemorating the soldiers who served, stand at both ends of the Palatka Memorial Bridge. They are affectionately known as World War I Doughboy Statues.

Palatka's "Navy" sculpture is compared to installations of Viquesney's "Spirit of the American Navy", but was still long thought to be just a variant of that work. However, the sculpture appears in a 1926 Friedley-Voshardt foundry catalog with an item number of S9008 and only the title "Sailor", leading us to believe this was simply a stock item from the company that Viquesney used to fulfill Palatka's large order of four statues. Another two, are closer to home, in Clearwater. The fact that it also appears at St. Ignace, Michigan, as part of an impressive WWI memorial and a site not associated with Viquesney, lends credence to this notion. The "Sailor" is likely the work of Paul Mohrmann, Head of Sculpture at Friedley-Voshardt Company. In East Palatka, we continued to drive on US 17.

Dunn’s Creek is a location and a tributary of the St John’s River. The name Dunn’s Creek comes from John Dunn, an attorney and coffee planter. He received a grant in 1765 that allowed him to farm an area “between the two lakes” in Putnam County. Additional documentation of the time period shows that Lord Adam Gordon owned property located just south of Dunn’s Creek. He, like many of the British land grantees, was an absentee owner. An interesting exception was Deny Rolle, who attempted to establish a utopian settlement named Rollestown on the St. Johns River near present day Palatka. During the British period, Crescent Lake was named Lake Rolle and there were a number of grants belonging to Deny Rolle fronting the lake on the north side. The property set aside for Lord Adam Gordon eventually became the property of Col. John Broward, after whom the Broward land grant, as well as nearby Lake Broward, is named. On August 24, 1816, George J.F. Clarke purchased the property from Broward. During the latter part of the 19th century, the names Crescent Lake and Dunns Creek became formalized, changing from the earlier designations Lake Dunn, Lake Rolles, Lake Gordon, and Deep River.

Along the southwestern boundary of the state park is the town of Sisco. In 1884, Sisco was settled by Henry and Claire Sisco along the Jacksonville, Tampa and Key West Railroad. For the next 40 years or so, the population of the town ranged from 150 people to 60 people and, at times, had a post office, hotel, general store and a steam sawmill. Nineteenth-century Post Office records clearly indicate at least three homesteads located within the Dunns Creek State Park property. The railway station was abandoned in the 1920s and the former Sisco building purchased by a female African-American Mason organization that ran it as a convalescence home. When Highway 17 was slated to run through the center of the building, the Masons moved it and later had it torn down. Today, not much remains of the town of Sisco, but several of the original settler families still live in the area.

Pomona was incorporated more than 25 years after a group of settlers moved here after the Civil war. Many of those settlers were Union soldiers who had served in the area during the war. In the late 19th century, Pomona was a small settlement of about 75 families, was noted for its citrus, grape vineyards, farm produce and long leaf yellow pine. The combination of the fertile soil and year-round warm temperatures produced abundant fruit-bearing groves. In 1887, there were 85 orange groves with more than 14,000 bearing trees and 27,250 nursery stock. There were 2,000 peach trees and 651 acres in cultivation. After the freeze of 1895 many grove owners moved away, leaving their homes, barns and farming equipment behind. “Pomona” was named after the Roman Goddess of fruit trees, usually depicted as holding fruit and a pruning knife. In 1945, the Town’s name was officially changed to Pomona Park. 

The “Park” was added because mail addressed to “Pomona”, Florida and the mail addressed to “Pompano”, Florida were often incorrectly delivered. However, this name change did not solve the problem, because about that same time Pompano changed its name to Pompano Beach, and postal workers seeing the added names for each town, still resulted in improperly sorted mail. It helped some when zip codes were added to the mailing address. Pomona Park has the distinction of being the first Florida town to have a woman elected as Mayor. Eula E. Dunn was duly elected and sworn into the office of mayor in 1928, serving until 1933. We passed several sand dune like areas, where there was evidence of some 4-wheeling or razor driving had occurred. None of them looked like “approved: places to ride, but they certainly were used for that!

The sign for Crescent City, indicates it’s the “Bass Capital of the World.” Any fishermen out there, true? South Putnam was settled in the 1700's when English landowners established rice and indigo plantations along the shores of the St. John's River. Prior to that it was home to Native American Indian tribes that fished the river, hunted the forests and grew food crops. Crescent City, on the western shore of Dunn's Lake, was first settled in 1852. What is now Crescent City was once part of the "Old Oliver Plantation." This was a tract of about 1,800 acres. In 1867 and 1870 large portions of original tract were sold to three men and their wives and became the City of Ellington, named for one of the wives. In 1876, Charles R Griffing and his wife Jennie purchased the land and began CR Griffing & Company. The existing lake, known as Dunn’s Lake at that time, was thought by Mrs Griffing to have a crescent shape. She changed the name of the lake to Lake Crescent. In 1876, an area of the shore was surveyed and platted. The name chosen was Crescent City. Another lake on the west was named Lake Stella because it looked like a star.

The early economy was based on agriculture in the form to truck crops and citrus and tourism. Intensive advertising by Griffing's Crescent City Real Estate Company in the Northeast and Midwest attracted a significant number of winter residents to the shores of Crescent Lake. A movement to form a municipal government was begun in 1883, and two years later Crescent City was formally incorporated. During the Great Depression little in the way of new construction occurred in the city. Both the local banks failed and many residents were forced to seek relief through government-sponsored programs. It was not until after WW2 that Crescent City fully recovered from the effects of the Great Depression. At one time, much commercial fishing took place here with Crescent City becoming known as the "Bass Capital of the World" It was named such by the Putnam County Courier after Al McClaine, fishing editor of Field and Stream magazine selected Crescent City's waters as being the best for largemouth bass.

Pierson FL is the hometown of Chipper Jones, who is he? What began in the small north-central Florida town of Pierson and built through 18 seasons in Atlanta will come to rest in an upstate New York shrine, the Baseball Hall of Fame. Chipper Jones was once a Little League player in Pierson who became a Hall of Fame switch-hitter. How do you become a switch-hitter? Can you write with your left and right hand too? In the case of Chipper Jones, born of Larry Wayne Jones Jr., you would start the process a generation in advance. Nicknamed Chipper because he was such a carbon copy of his father — as in a chip off the ol’ block — Larry’s kid was born into the perfect situation for bringing up a ballplayer who might one day do something notable. Certainly, being a switch-hitter would be a key part of the formula. In tiny Pierson, they know a little about growing things. Big Fern is king. There is no confusion as to where the priorities of this place lie when you drive in. “Welcome to Pierson — Fern Capital of the World,” reads the sign at the town limits. Beneath that, clearly second billing, they’ve added, “Hometown of Chipper Jones.” By the time Chipper was advancing out of Little League, he was on the path to becoming a switch-hitter. He would leave Pierson and finish high school at The Bolles School in Jacksonville to accelerate his baseball development. But even after the Braves took him with the No. 1 pick in the 1990 draft out of Bolles.

To many people, ferns are simply decorative greens arranged around cut flowers. But to the workers and owners of Florida's ferneries, the feathery fronds often mean lumbago and sleepless nights. The floral fern industry flourishes in and around Pierson. The sign that welcomes you says "Pierson, Fern Capital of the World." Driving through the town of 1,500, it doesn't look like the capital of much of anything. There is a sprinkling of stores, a post office and a little flower shop. But only partially visible from US 17 are acres of shaded fern plants tended by families who, in some cases, have been farmers in the Pierson area for seven generations. Eighty-five percent of all the floral ferns sold in the United States are grown on 6,200 acres in Volusia County. More than three-quarters of the greens are leatherleaf ferns. The rest are such varieties as asparagus and tree ferns. A cut frond renews itself in an average of six to eight weeks, depending on temperature. If the temperature falls to 50 degrees, as commonly happens on winter nights in Central Florida, the plants become dormant. A "good winter" is when there are only a dozen nights when the temperature dips toward freezing. It’s then, just like the strawberry growers, the fern growers have to turn on the water pumps. These spray a fine mist over the ferns that freezes and insulates the plants from the colder air surrounding them.

In DeLand, we picked up FL 44. Deland is home to Stetson Wesley University. Stetson University was founded in 1883 and became a college in 1885. Known first as DeLand Academy, after the principal founder of the town, Henry A DeLand, its name was changed to John B Stetson University in 1889 in honor of the well-known hat manufacturer who gave generously of his time and means. Dr. John H. Griffith, a minister, first directed the Academy, but with the founding of the college, Dr. John Franklin Forbes took over as Stetson’s first true President. From the beginning, Stetson had an affiliation with the Florida Baptist Convention and was considered a “Baptist school” until 1995. The College of Law was organized in 1900 as the first law school in Florida. During the first decade of the twentieth century Stetson was the only college or university of fifty or more students in the Southeast that required Carnegie units for admission and four years’ work for the A.B. degree; in the early years it was also one of the few co-ed colleges in the south. Graduate classes leading to first the Master of Arts, then other Master’s degrees, have been offered since early in the twentieth century. The School of Music, long a department of the College of Liberal Arts (now the College of Arts and Sciences), became a coordinate college of the University in 1936. The School of Business was organized in 1940.

  

From FL 44 we picked up I-95. Our choice is US 1 or I-95. Today, we just wanted to get there … so I-95 it is! But, we did see something interesting … for miles … there were small American Flags affixed to the mile marker numbers with red and black tape. We never could get a clear look as we were driving. I snapped a few pictures and hoped they would turn out. The 2 pictures that were clear enough to kind of make out looks like one has an FF before a name, which we are assuming is for Firefighter. The other looks like it says LT, which also could be for a firefighter, who was a Lieutenant or a military or law enforcement Lieutenant. I tried to search it on the internet, no answers … it was pretty interesting anyway.

We got off I-95 onto A1A and we cross over the Indian River Lagoon System is a 156 mile long body of brackish water that forms part of the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway along Florida's east coast. It begins at Ponce Inlet north of New Smyrna Beach and extends south to Jupiter Inlet. This historic estuary provided transportation to the pioneers in the days before highways and railroads. It is known as the "Indian River Lagoon" to more accurately describe it as a salt water estuary rather than a free flowing river. History and local people still call it the Indian River, but it is actually a combination of four separate bodies of water: Mosquito Lagoon from Ponce Inlet to south of Oak Hill; Banana River that separates Indian River from the barrier island; Indian River from north of Titusville to St Lucie Inlet and Hobe Sound from St Lucie Inlet to Jupiter Inlet.

We saw Exploration Tower and cruise ships in the port, before we arrived at Jetty Park campground, our home for the next two nights. What a great sight, to see the cruise ships loading people and heading out to sea! After we rested for a while, we went over and visited the kids, Matt, Bina, Nicole & Zach in Rockledge. We have not seen them, since we left in April. I guess, I should have let Charlie nap more, he was falling asleep at the house, so we headed back to the camper.

Tomorrow is a big day, it’s the Celebration of Life for Charlie Ragland.

#TwoLaneAdventures