The stuff I promised you. Not a travelogue!

Micanopy

Bailey White wrote about Micanopy, and that's why I looked for it on the internet.  It's a sleepy drive from Lake City;  even while we were driving through Gainesville it was not especially stressful.  It was one of those 110° heat-index days that you're tired of reading about, and we cracked the car windows and got out. You can walk the length of the business district in five minutes, if you stop and browse a little.

We spent some time at the Shady Oak Gallery where local artists display and sell their work. The place is air conditioned and the pieces were great. They offer week-long stained glass classes, if you're interested. They also rent suites long- and short-term, in case the place charms the pants off you. And, if you're not charmed out of your pants, well, you must not be wearing any.

I had some serious business on my mind as we walked into the gallery: the only public restrooms in Micanopy.

After that, I could enjoy the wares. Beverly (an artist there) told us the town's name is pronounced "Mik uh NOPE ee" and that it used to be a company town. Everyone worked at a crate factory, and all the stores were company stores. She came for a visit years ago, stayed to work on her art, then took a part-time job in the gallery.  She's living the dream.  Seriously.

The clouds waited too long for the public restroom. We took refuge here:

I was going to take a picture here


and then I saw that he was selling postcards of the same picture, and I imagined me asking if it was okay for me to shoot, and him pointing at the postcard rack, so I took this picture instead:


To add poo to the potato salad, I can't remember the shop's name. "Robe__t_____"?  He sold some interesting memorabilia, including some ancient stuff.  It's a museum where you can touch and buy the exhibits.

Museum of Natural History at the University of Florida, where you cannot touch and buy the exhibits


The picture is fine. I was fuzzy that day.

RAWR!  Mosey away - I am a Giant Sloth.

"Does this mammoth make me look fat?"  Alternate caption: "The Mammoth, and some elephant-thing."  Vote now.  [You KNOW I did not suggest the elephant remark.]

Ichetucknee Springs

This shot is no better than the ones I posted before, but I really took this one.

The spring is the deeper-blue area in the southwest quadrant of the picture

It was 100° that day, and it still took 20 minutes of self-talk to get me in.

At the Blue Hole (a different spring in the same system). Mary offered me her mask, and swam out with me to calm my jitters.

Again with Annie.  Annie would have swim swam swum out with a mask, but says she wouldn't have gone right over the spring's mouth like she did with Mary.

Thanks, Mary! You made our visit 10X better.

Mary and Jack L., originally from Long Island, NY.  It was fun meeting you!

This river was NOT closed. Once I got beyond the sign, I could see it was running just like before. They mean that it was too late to start down the river in a tube - they close that down at 3:30 PM.

The CUTE was not closed!

Eye candy for you

I'm so tired tonight I might say something ridiculous.  Instead, look at these pictures.  Look.  Go ahead, look.  LOOK AT THEM.  Some other time I'll tell you about stuff.

This here is not a democracy, per se, it's a representative form of government by we who are qualified to witness signatures for a small fee.

Payne's Prairie and Annie.  Annie is the one who is not plain.

Prairie

If this cute doesn't make you queasy, you're no longer capable of feeling nausea, and I feel sorry for you.

I thought this prairie was interesting, but I talk about toilets.  

On the trail to the Blue Hole (le trou bleu - see how I'm foreshadowing in a fancy language?)

Outdoor cats preparing to change all that.  I call this "Cats Through a Window."

AIIEIIIIAHHHAYAYAY is the OED spelling

We made our second trip to Ichetucknee yesterday, and THIS time I brought my camera!  THIS time, my camera was dead!  I said three words not technically legal on state land - really, it was the same word three times - but I mouthed them so the rangers without lipreading skills would be fooled. 

We swam in the cold waters of the Ichetucknee Headspring, where several million gallons of 72° aquifer water pour out of the (apparently) 72° earth every day.  Please enjoy someone else's photo of this beauty.  It's hard to get a body-picture of what 72° water feels like.  Seventy-two degrees?  That's balmy!  Picture the last time your kid sneaked up on you with the garden hose.  Remember the sounds you made before you could get control again.  That's Ichetucknee.

We went to, but did not swim in, the Blue Hole.  Standing on the deck looking at it will make your breath catch a little bit, but be prepared to leave your breath wrapped up in your beach towel if you jump in.  There's no wading at this spring, and flippers are essential to get above the hole itself;  it will repel you with the force of 67,000,000 gallons/day.  If you control your panic and stay in for one minute, it will be spewing its 46,528th gallon at you as you haul your frozen butt onto the steps.  That's 775 gallons per second.  The point you should take away is, the cave is not interested in sucking you in.  Instead, it will blow your trunks off in its haste to disgorge you.

Here's another picture I didn't take:

Photo by Wes C. Skiles

Ichetucknee inspires even an aquaphobe like me to get a waterproof baggie for my camera.  Do any of you use such a thing?

ETA:  This photo is my current wallpaper.  You can get it, too, on this National Geographic page.

ETA, A:  The AdSense ads next to this post:

 

I'm not sure I could love this more if it were a bed-wetting cure.

A grab-bag of cute and not-cute. Your standards apply.

"Oh, just a little ducky, eh?"  Step away from the bug or he will CUT YOU.

I am looking fine today!

Eyes front, mister.  This blog is rated Duck-13.

These are the Muscovy ducks I showed you in the Spring.  They loiter in the park, trash-talking and hitting people up for spare bread.  I say bravo ducks! for living life on your own terms.

I wanted to call this post The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, but who's to say?  Urban decay is bad, and ugly, but I dig it.  Muscovy ducks are "hegemonically unattractive," but whose hegemony are you going to believe?  They are possibly an ancestral duck species, and hanging in is beautiful.  

Stephen Foster Memorial: a brief history of the past.

This is an in-between post, because I've been so close to the SFM lately, and it kept feeling funnier until my funnyostomy bag was getting too full. Here's where I empty it.

We visited here eight years ago, and my mother INSISTED we go to the Stephen Foster Memorial. She woke us up to announce departure time. Somehow my 16-year-old son charmed his way out of the trip, which is a shame because he would have made it all better and worse at the same time.

I'll introduce the clip, Johnny. The museum houses several skillfully-constructed dioramas of Stephen Foster songs, a few of which, uh, offended me. Okay, okay, I get offended occasionally, just not as much as Snarky Duck. It's my elitist northeastern way.

A charming volunteer guide (I'll call her Marlene) approached us and asked if she could 'show us the moving parts in the dioramas.' She pointed to a large portrait and explained that it was "53 square feet in diameter." I read that Foster grew up in Pittsburgh, PA, and never got close to the Suwanee River, so I asked Marlene why he romanticized slavery so often in his music. She told me that he tried writing other kinds of songs, but the ones about the South made money, so he reverted to "Ethiopian verbiage."

Marlene led us outdoors so we could hear the beautiful carillon playing.
When these bells ring, my Christian burro brays.
Your Christian burro?
Yes ma'am! He's got a cross down his back just like Mary.

She and my mother hit it off right away, and began to talk about Jacksonville, from which they had both escaped. Marlene was horrified at the memory of the city: Children working at Pizza Hut, and death all around! For eight full years, this has been our shorthand for urban decay.

Squawmama provides a favorable and unsnarky review of the lovely park and the (now surely) more culturally-sensitive museum.
~~~~~

We celebrated the first day of Summer by floating down a cold, lazy river in inner tubes. More later. We want to go back.