Avoiding Gators

I am afraid of alligators.  There, I said it.  Alligators fascinate me but I am afraid of running into one of them when I letterbox in Florida.   The first time I ever walked in a tropical park while trying to find a good spot to place a letterbox, I was sure that every rustle of palm leaves that I heard was an alligator coming for me.  Palm leaves are very stiff and make lots of noise if there is a breeze so I was hearing lots of imaginary alligators.  Not to mention the squirrels.  Did you know that squirrels also sound exactly like alligators?  I do have to mention that I have never seen an alligator while boxing in Florida but perhaps that is because I am very careful about where I go searching.  So I had planned my day alone very carefully, sticking to more urban type parks where I imagined there would be no alligators.

My first stop was in a very pretty little river side park in Cape Canaveral called Manatee Sanctuary.  There I found two boxes, both very nice boxes, but my main reason for celebrating was that one of them was by Turkey Feathers.  Now, Turkey Feathers lives in my neck of the woods, kinda sorta.  OK, he lives hundreds of miles from me but much closer than his vacation spot in Florida which is probably about 1200 miles from his home and 1000 miles from mine.  But I scored a Turkey Feathers box.   Hurrah!  And there were no alligators in either park.

While I was in this area, I noticed that I was meandering around I Dream of Jeannie land.  I also found a second Turkey Feathers box in honor of the tv series that we enjoyed so long ago.

Another really exciting thing that happened on my days of avoiding alligators, was that I found a total of 22 boxes by 3 Flamigos.  Even more exciting was that I actually met Mae, the driving force behind this family of boxers, at the Rotary Park Nature Center.  She is so warm and friendly that it only took a few minutes to feel as though I had known her forever.  The really unusual thing for me is that I didn't take any pictures of us together.  Oh, well, I will have to correct that mistake when we meet again during a February Florida event that we will both be attending.

I am a reader of the message boards on Atlas Quest and one thing that I have heard mentioned again and again and again by Kirbert, a Florida resident, is that he plants boxes in cashew jars.  All of this time, I envisioned the cashew containers that we have here in Pennsylvania and it didn't make a lot of sense to me but several of the 3 Flamigos boxes that I found were in large plastic jars like the one in the picture.  I checked inside of them and as best as I could tell, this was a cashew jar, not at all what I was expecting. But I liked them, they were big enough to comfortably hold a logbook and stamp as well as a hitchhiker and they all seemed nice and dry when I found them.  I wonder if I can convince Bill to buy cashews when he goes back down after Christmas.

 

As I have mentioned before, I love finding boxes along the water fronts and when one is in this part of the country, another reward is the sight of the NASA building.   I had a similar view from so many of the parks that I visited that Bill and I checked several of them out before we chose the final park where we watched the rocket Orion take off on December 5. 

 

Another thing that I love in this type of parks is the large amount of boardwalks that wander through them, often showcasing particular trees or geological views that are so fascinating to me as I get to know this area that we spend so much time in anymore.

   

There happened to be a few areas that I visited that were not of the well maintained boardwalk type.  They were more wild looking and definitely looked as though alligators would be happy to visit them.  Ulumay was one of those spots.  I drove down a dirt road into what looked like a very small peninsula shaped area jutting out into the river.  It was covered with palm trees and other jungle type growth so I couldn't see the water from the road I was on.  I tentatively got out of the car and walked past a gate to search for the box, all the time sure that I was going to have my alligator experience here when, magically, there was a trail and there were lots of people on it.  Here, in what seemed like the middle of nowhere, was an access point to a four mile trail.  Considering that I thought I was on a peninsula, I am not sure where it led and I didn't have time to explore that day but it was just another one of the many surprises that I get when I search for my boxes. The picture below is of my view as I stamped into the box.

 One of my favorite boxes this trip was found at a little Veterans' Museum on Merritt Island.  Since Bill is a Vietnam veteran, I always look for spots like this to take him to visit later.  We didn't have the opportunity this trip but since we go to Merritt Island often, I am sure we will make a stop there at some point.  The box was great and filled with stamps related to the military and the volunteers working in the museum were thrilled when I found the box.

 

After leaving the museum, I headed for another box that I really wanted to get but was a little nervous about going after.  It didn't involve alligators at all but it did involve walking through a private airport. It was a box by Kirbert and placed by 3 Flamigos so I knew that it had to be ok to go for it but I was nervous nonetheless. 

So I bravely walked by all of the airplanes as though I had every right to be there and entered the office to look for the box.  The room was full of pilots for these private planes and I almost felt as though I were in the United Nations as I listened to many of them on their phones speaking in foreign languages or with strong accents.  Once again, the ladies who were working at the desk were delighted that someone came to find the box and I was more than happy that I  made the effort in spite of being nervous about it.

 

 Since I live most of the time in Pennsylvania, a state that played a large role in the Civil War, I rarely think of Florida as a state with the same type of history.  But DC Stones had discovered a secret about this area and its involvement with the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln and had placed a box in its memory.  DC Stones is another boxer who lives much closer to Pennsylvania than to Florida so it was a pleasure that I was able to find a box by another good letterboxer, even if it took me 1000 miles to find it.  Once again, I ran into a group of the lovely live oak trees, whose spreading branches were probably 20 to 25 feet away from the main trunk of the tree.

 While searching for the box, I ran across this pathetic little grave.  It made me sad to think that no one had the opportunity to provide a more permanent memorial to this person.  Someone obviously cared because there were flowers there but perhaps the funds to add a tombstone were just not available.

 This was the tombstone in whose memory the box was placed.  As I was typing this, I had to twice correct myself when I instinctively typed "in whose honor" instead of  "in whose memory" because I certainly don't think that the memory of the plot to assassinate people is something to be honored.

 And thus ended my letterboxing experiences for this trip.  I didn't see any alligators but I did find lots of boxes and made a new letterboxing friend.  I also came back to Pennsylvania with lots of ideas about where to place boxes of my own and what type of boxes to construct that would withstand the Floridian climate.