Every time I had been on this road previously, it had been nighttime.

Now, in the bright rays of the setting sun, the trees took on a very different setting.

Their scraggy branches stretched in the same foreboding way that I saw during the night, yet there was a new beauty to them. They were bright and green, and the tunnel-like structure they created as they stretched across the top of the roadway was a sight of peace instead of fear. It was calming. It is one of the few times I drove slowly, for I had nowhere to be, and I was in good company.

As we traveled farther into the forest, it felt more and more as if the road did not belong. There was no cut grass that buffered the car from the wild of the Florida jungle, and it gave a feeling that if you ventured in, chances were slim that you would return. This, coupled with the fact that the forest is not only right next to you, but in fact over you, is probably why it serves as a great place to take a midnight trip with friends and tell horror stories. For now, though, I was fine in my car, and continued down the road.

After a while, the forest-tunnel gave way to an estuary, where some locals were fishing off a bridge and the low sun reflected off the calm waters. A crane of some sort flew with us for a minute, and then parted company to show the local fishermen how it was done. I was surrounded by beauty. “This,” I thought to myself, “is what they mean by stopping to smell the roses.” The road wove on, as roads should, forced to curve around the streams and marshes, the water mere feet and in some cases, inches, from the road. I carried on toward the salty fresh smell of the ocean,happy to once again have a sense of harmony and peace that was scarce among this Florida college student’s life.

I take a minute to get my breath back then take a huge gulp of air and dive down. As I move past the logs the cave opens up and I am able to anchor myself under one of the overhangs. It is surreal down here. All I can hear is my heart beat and the clicking of tiny creatures. I look down at the abyss below me. I know it goes down about another 100 feet, but this is as far as I can go without a scuba tank. My lungs begin to cry out for oxygen, so I push off and float to the surface, careful to avoid the tangle of logs.

I dive down a couple more times then decide it’s time to move on. I move back into the water flow and this time I just let it take me. I am flying along just a couple of feet off the bottom, propelled by nature. It is relaxing and exhilarating at the same. I see a split log coming up and I dive through the hole. I’m having way too much fun.

A large object catches my eye as I fly past it. I put on the brakes as best I can and grab on to a tree branch. I turn back to look at what I’d almost collided with. It’s a Spotted Gar. This long menacing looking fish doesn’t normally allow itself to get so close to swimmers. I wonder if there is something wrong with it. I take a closer look and realize it has a serious injury on its back. To me it looks like a boat propeller injury. A wave of anger flows over me as I watch the fish struggle against the current. It moves slowly away from me and I sigh to myself. I suppose anything could have caused that injury, not just Man.

I lift my head out of the water and I can see that I am coming up on my exit point. I put my head down again to get one last look around and I spot something else. Rising up out of the algae is a turtle. It obviously saw me first as it is paddling as fast as it can towards a convenient hiding place made by some nearby debris. Luckily I get my camera going before he disappears completely into the darkness.

My watch shatters the peace as it’s alarm blares, reminding me of my ever present schedule. Time to head back to reality.

Every stone has its own story: Robert George 1920-1998, Silvia Milens 1934-1969, Fabian Wright 1940-2005, and many more all with the same stories. A cemetery is like a book made up of names and lifespans, the most important thing being what you did in between those years, which the “book” does not say. The cemetery is not where you come to judge people, but to reminisce. Seeing graves reminded me of the importance of life, even though the environment is filled with the dead. No matter how big or small my tombstone is; I will die and be satisfied with my life.

Today I woke up and had no clue what to do my blog on. I ran out of locations around the area and my car cant make it very far (kind of ironic how I am in an environmental class and my 1990 Mazda Navajo kills the environment everyday). I was spending the night at my girlfriends house and when I took the trash out there it was, a location on which I can write my blog. My girlfriend lives in Pelican Bay and there are a series of lakes around the complex so I found my special place to make my last blog. It is a pleasant afternoon in Daytona Beach. It is one of those days where nothing matters and if you were to lay down or sit down you would want to fall asleep. The warmth of the sun and the breeze hitting my face was an instant feeling of freedom. The semester is sadly coming to an end which is amazing. But I digress. There are trees all around me and there is a fountain shooting water about ten feet in the air. There is a little island of palm trees on a small bank of the lake which create the perfect spot. I actually fell asleep here and once I woke up i was freaked out because I had no clue how long I was there and if anything happened. Plus my girlfriend was looking for me and was wondering where the heck I went. There was a calm breeze so the water was calm and ducks were all over the place. Quack Quack Quack. I don’t like ducks though because they hiss at you. With the exception of ducks, I think nature is amazing. I love the feeling of relaxation and this little spot next to the lake had it. Especially with all the finals coming up and baseball coming to a close. I needed it.

It appeared that I had wandered onto a lakebed which had been dried up for some time. I kneeled down to inspect what had tripped me up. Sure enough, I discovered a small shelf where the ground dropped slightly. It was hidden by a blanket of this grassy, weedy vegetation whose name escaped me and whose surprisingly purple color was a mystery to me. Whenever there had been water here, this was where it had ended.

A few hundred feet in the distance, out near the middle of the clearing, something caught my eye. As I moved towards it, a hefty breeze sent waves through the foliage all around me. I could see now that what I had noticed was what was left of the trunk of a small tree. It wasn’t in too great of shape; its bark was torn off in sections and it tapered to a messy break 2 feet or so above my head. It was a bit surreal to see such a solitary tree in the middle of this massive forest which seemed to extend forever around me.

I couldn’t help but imagine how this tree had looked when alive and what had brought it to its final demise. Had it flourished for years only to be snapped in half by some rogue storm? Perhaps it would have been safer with the rest of the trees. It was still there though, a testament to its strength. For all I knew, it could stay standing there longer than I could fathom.

My stomach growled at me. I had to get back to my campsite.

      I didn’t have to go far for this nature blog, as I was awoken from my slumber by a rather large hawk. The hawk was perched on the corner of my neighbors screened in porch a perfect perch to hunt his prey from. His shrieking cry was both relentless and ear-piercing. His head bobbed back and forth as he scanned the golf course for food. His keen vision acquiring a target from time to time and he would lower his head and an intense star would ensue then back to random scanning. The Hawk’s technique was almost robotic in nature. He stayed perched motion less for at least 5 min and resembled a statue. Then the motion less body took to flight, accelerating and climbing at the same time like a fighter jet blasting off into the horizon. That was the last I saw of him as he navigated out of sight.

We stopped at a little place on the side of the road as we neared the park and rented floats for the days plans, for you see we had come to float down the river and take in the sights and enjoy the quite while it lasted.  Pulling into the park we noticed that no one else was there at the early hour we arrived.  Parking and getting together our thing for the trip we started walking the trail to the landing we would launch from.

After 10 min. or so we finally made it to the river, and the sight was truly beautiful, the fog was just burning off and the sun was shinning warmly through the Cypress trees the water lapping upon the knees as they poked up through the clear clear water.  We situate ourselves as we get everyone into the tubes, some people had never done this before, taking a couple of minutes and then we are off down the river.

I spent most of the first 30 minutes or so helping people who didn’t have experience floating down a river before guiding them around logs and through slow currents to help keep them in the group, but after a little while everyone had the hang of it and I was free to roam up and down the column as i pleased and chat  with friends while we all marveled at the sights there in front of us.  Having grown up in the swamps and on the rivers of South Carolina it really made me feel at home to watch the turtles sunning and the dragon flies landing on both the tubes and there occupants.  Never in my live have i seen any one flip out so much at the sight of a little ole dragon-fly, but I guess city folk just aren’t quite as comfortable with that kind of thing.

We floated for hours as the day passed around us, at the bottom landing we got out of the water and began to walk back up the road to the parking lot and the top landing for either lunch or another trip depending on how we all felt.  Walking back up the road tube over my shoulder straw-hat on my head, the shoes I had brought held in my hands as I walk barefooted; I stooped to pluck a strand of sweet grass, putting it between my teeth and just enjoying the walk.  Apparently this was just too much for my companions as the y’all busted into grins and laughter at the sight of such a stereotypical country boy.

We returned to the cars had a snack and then as the parking lot filled we decided to make one quick last trip hopefully before the river was too full.  Alas this was not to be, as the landing was packed and the river full as well, the trip was more noisy but still enjoyable, even though we opted for a shorter route the second time.  All in all it was a very fun trip and the sights on he river myriads of turtles, and dragonflies, a woodpecker and even a snake, safely on the bank, made it a day I would gladly repeat any time.

I arrived at the Daytona Beach Sailing Association faced with a sunny sky, a cool breeze and a calm intra coastal ( Halifax River). Great conditions for my first experience of actually doing the sailing myself. I’d been sailing several times on a Catalina boat, but only as a passenger and I was excited to try myself. We would be using a Laser 420 boat, which is smaller than the Catalina (6 person) and fits only 2 people.

Getting started wasn’t too difficult. Once we were out of the shallows our “keel” or centerboard finally stopped dragging and I was ready for direction. My job was working the jib, which is the smaller sail toward the front of the boat. I was given two ropes attached to the sail that pulled it from the right side to the left and left to right.

 The sail that does not have a boom (metal rod that hurts REALLY bad if it hits you in the head) is the jib, and you can kind of see the way my ropes are attached.

Basically, my job was to pull the rope pulling the jib to the the right or left side of the boat catching wind for more power in a turn. At least that’s what I gathered. This process sounds simple enough, I move to the side of the boat I pull the rope to. Simple. Right?

I haven’t mentioned yet that it was also my partner’s first time sailing on his own too. He had some experience helping on a larger boat, but not on our boat.. So we sat still quite often, missing the gusts of wind needed for speed and when we did catch them we would just go straight until we were forced to turn around. This is when everything became very interesting.

The wrong way to turn

The picture above is what happened to us several times when turning the boat in the wind. Notice the horizon to the rope’s clamp, we were in a vertical position when we definitely needed to be horizontal. Luckily we did not fall out of the boat or have it capsize. Eventually, I got the hang of things and established a good rhythm with my partner. Tacking into or with the wind and turning much more gracefully. The waters were filled with people cruising around, enjoying the weather and each other. Unfortunately, I saw no dolphins that day, but I did see around 20 pelicans dive into the water like a torpedo honing in on a target. Most were successful in finding their dinner, and it was extremely entertaining to watch. All in all, a great day.

Frigid moisture, seeping through my lightly insulated Nike tennis shoes, will evermore be my first memory of Lake Placid. Although I was born and raised in Chicago, there is absolutely nothing like a dark, icy cold, upstate New York winter chill.  Here, the immediate start of my annual family vacation has arrived, bringing with it an unforgiving sense of undesirable adjustment. Climbing into our rental car, still shivering, a feeling of relief came over my body, reassuring me that my childish fear of losing a toe or two from frostbite, would not ensue. With the heat on full blast, the tips of my fingers and toes felt that they were in a state of melting, and slowly but surely, regained feeling. As our snow covered car approached our destination the magnificence of awe came over not only me, but my other family members as well. The breathtaking immenseness of this natural structure, this enormously bulky combination of rock and snow, looks as if only God could have created. I stood almost five thousand feet above, and I was about to conquer it.

The now accustomed feeling of the cold was beginning to become part of my winter time vacation routine, and with that, much easier on my delicate fingers and toes. Entering the brightly lit ski lodge, it was not as I had pictured it to be. I had envisioned a Lincoln log style interior, of dark, aged wood beams, a large burning fireplace and mountainous patterns of green and red, but instead a more ‘mess hall’ approach was what I was examining. Although this was to my discretion, the point of our trip was for what was beyond the large, brightly painted doors…the white wonderland of amusement known as Whiteface Mountain

After everyone had dressed in their oversized, puffy, yet irresistibly necessary attire, we ventured out, with me trailing my snowboard behind. Dredging toward the open -aired ski lift, only for a second the sun peered through the grey, cloudy haze, and touched my nose and forehead (the only exposed parts of my body). The short chilly ride quickly ended as I was forced out of my ice covered lift chair. Stumbling forward, I caught my balance just in time before making my first fall of the day. Clicking the attachments on my board, I peered downwards at my provocateur, the heavenly but ghostly white of the glistening snow, blinding me in the process. Lifting myself upwards, my body heavy from my layered clothing, I inched myself toward the slope. I took a breath, my muscles clenching, and pushed myself into the expected path of gravity. The pounding wind seeping through my many layers fabrics combined with the gliding feeling of motionlessness was my kryptonite. This smell of nothing…fresh…smokeless …this smog-less innocence of untouched air filled my lungs. This pure oxygen, combined with the exertion, and the adrenaline already flushing through my veins, I reached a natural high like never before.

I like looking at the horizon, where the endless ocean and the endless sky meet, thinking about the curvature of the Earth, and how much I learned about that in middle and high school… the reasoning behind the crow’s nest was to be able to see farther into that curvature, and how light rays reflecting off that edge makes objects look fatter than they really are… like the sun when it’s rising!  As I look at the blue-on-blue line, I keep wondering how far it is that I am seeing, and, though I know it can’t possibly be true, I imagine that the longer I look at that gap, the farther I can see along it.  Shaking my head, I return to my novel… my place to distract me from the goings on of the real world.  I continually dig my toes back and forth over the bit of sand I’ve collected, not caring whether or not this much sand will follow me into my car.

One of the things I like the most is the ability to stay out in the unforgiving sunshine for quite a few hours, with the least amount of sunscreen possible and not get burned – thank God for Latin heritage!  I know I will get a nice brown tone when I leave today!

As much as I want to read and finish my novel, it does not overcome my longing to just stare at the waves, the part of sand that always gets shiny when the water recedes, the birds, the soft sand by the sea oats… I always knew I’d live by the beach, I just never thought I’d leave it to live in the middle of corn fields, no matter the size of the city.  At the same time, living here for 7 years has been plenty for me for now.  I’m ready to leave.

Farewell, beach.  I shall truly miss you!