swamps and suburbs picture post
I have decided to split my last set of Florida pictures into a west coast section and a Miami/Keys section. You're going to have to cast your minds back 3 weeks for this stuff. The first pictures are from the last little bit of the panhandle, after i turned inland from Carrabelle, and the last pictures are from the Everglades, just before i got into Miami.
The opening shot is of something i didn't really expect to see in the east - a firewatch tower! I came across several of these in the forests of Florida, and they were all like this - very tall towers built to be higher than the highest tree. Florida is flat as a pancake, so i guess once you've climbed all the way up there you can probably see a fair way.
These "share the road" signs are a common sight in Florida, but usually they just have bicycles on them - or occasionally golf carts. Sometimes you will see a rider on horseback, or a motorcycle, but this one has a rare turtle on it too. Feels like something out of a Nintendo game.
Coming up next is one of several roadside BBQ restaurants i found in the swamps of northern Florida. This one was a formal restaurant, although the smoker was out there on the road, filling the air with the smell of roasting pork... but a bit later on i found a guy with a towable smoker attached to the back of his pickup truck, just cooking up meat on the side of the road.
In High Springs there was a funky little diner that was a diner in the front and something like a tiki bar in the back. They served a bunch of vegan food and had a live band playing jazzy gulf'n'western. This was a preview of what the Florida Keys and several "tiki bars" down the coast would be like, except it was done better than all of those places.
Here's a little shot of the backyard i camped in on the way down to Tampa. This was located in an older lake house district that hadn't been completely suburbanized yet, although for miles around it was pretty much all depressing gated communities.
One of the most obvious signs to me that the development in Florida is unsustainable is a picture like this. Just cycling randomly along the road, not even after a big rainstorm, a whole community was basically under water. Ducks were floating along beside the road, and people had to drive their cars through ankle- to knee-deep water to get to their homes, as water lapped on their front doorsteps.
I was getting so sick of the suburbs at one point that i had to make a big detour out to a little island community. At the end of this road there is a tiny island with about 50 houses on it, and a small beach.
Riding down the coast in the directon of Tampa, as close as i could get to the sea.
Tampa is a cute little town with an utterly disgusting sprawl of suicidally miserable suburbs around it. The most famous district is Ybor City, which is now a super-cheezy "historic neighborhood" filled with touristy stuff and a little bit of street art.
Heading out of Tampa i paused at a railroad crossing as this general manifest train got built in the nearby yard.
I didn't take any shots of the thoroughly depressing gated community landscape that lasted three days straight, except for this one. That line of cars is all waiting to be let in through the guard tower. The line stretched out onto the main road. And it was like this at gated community after gated community. Note the water pooled in the drainage ditch which is made of non-native golf grass, the high walls around the community, and the palm trees which almost certainly did not grow there naturally and were instead transplanted from the island in the next next photo.
I really wanted to kill myself cycling past all the gated communities, so i took a mental health break on an island called Pine Island outside of Fort Myers. For now it is still mostly an agricultural area, with palm plantations and a cycle path that goes all the way up and down the island.
Sheltering from a storm on Pine Island, i took a quick circle up to the fishing pier.
I couldn't decide which photo i liked better, so this is a second photo from the pier.
After checking out the fishing, i retired to the marina for some beers and seafood.
There is a gap here where i went through Fort Myers Beach and Naples. There are a lot of gaps in this series, mainly because the suburbs of Florida are so fucking depressing. Instead, here is an action selfie of me cycling into the Everglades.
The Everglades were almost all brown, green, gray and black. It's a very oppressive landscape, in particular at this time of year. But i did catch one little flower growing and wanted to take a photo to remember it.
This is a road photo so you can get a bit of an idea of what it's like to drive through the Everglades. It's just one road that goes mostly straight for over 100 miles. All there is on either side is marsh and swamp. They blasted limestone out of the ground to make the raised section for the road, so there is a canal alongside (on the left of this picture) that was created by the rock that was blown away.
Another Everglades selfie. Even though the environment is not really my kind of thing - very damp and soggy - i was just overjoyed to finally be out of the relentless suburbs.
Here is a picture of my campsite in the morning, as i woke to a rain shower. Behind me was a lake with several alligators swimming around staring at the campers on the shore.
I thought this was an amusing sign heading down a dirt road into Big Cypress National Preserve. To non-Americans it probably looks even more ominous because it's riddled with bullet holes. However, Americans know that pretty much every street sign in rural areas is riddled with bullet holes, because something something a well-regulated militia is necessary bla bla bla.
Here is a straight-on view of the road, and a better idea of what the Everglades looks like when it's not along a highway, and in the parts of it that aren't marshland.
Trees growing out of black, stagnant water. Swamp as fuck.
But if you thought that last photo was swamp as fuck, check this one out. Those weird little knobbles of wood coming out of the water are called "knees", and they're little growths that pop up out of the roots of the cypress trees that scientists aren't entirely sure why they exist. Standing still in a place like this, all you can hear is birds and amphibians and insects and all manner of creepy crawlies making alarming noises. It's terrifying and awesome at the same time.
So that's it for the west coast (plus some inland bits). The upcoming set will be more urban and beachy. I still have some food pictures to post too. Just taking it easy in Miami Beach for now. I got two days here before the place explodes for Art Basel (and the hotels become prohibitively expensive), so i'm enjoying the relaxed pre-party vibes.
The opening shot is of something i didn't really expect to see in the east - a firewatch tower! I came across several of these in the forests of Florida, and they were all like this - very tall towers built to be higher than the highest tree. Florida is flat as a pancake, so i guess once you've climbed all the way up there you can probably see a fair way.
These "share the road" signs are a common sight in Florida, but usually they just have bicycles on them - or occasionally golf carts. Sometimes you will see a rider on horseback, or a motorcycle, but this one has a rare turtle on it too. Feels like something out of a Nintendo game.
Coming up next is one of several roadside BBQ restaurants i found in the swamps of northern Florida. This one was a formal restaurant, although the smoker was out there on the road, filling the air with the smell of roasting pork... but a bit later on i found a guy with a towable smoker attached to the back of his pickup truck, just cooking up meat on the side of the road.
In High Springs there was a funky little diner that was a diner in the front and something like a tiki bar in the back. They served a bunch of vegan food and had a live band playing jazzy gulf'n'western. This was a preview of what the Florida Keys and several "tiki bars" down the coast would be like, except it was done better than all of those places.
Here's a little shot of the backyard i camped in on the way down to Tampa. This was located in an older lake house district that hadn't been completely suburbanized yet, although for miles around it was pretty much all depressing gated communities.
One of the most obvious signs to me that the development in Florida is unsustainable is a picture like this. Just cycling randomly along the road, not even after a big rainstorm, a whole community was basically under water. Ducks were floating along beside the road, and people had to drive their cars through ankle- to knee-deep water to get to their homes, as water lapped on their front doorsteps.
I was getting so sick of the suburbs at one point that i had to make a big detour out to a little island community. At the end of this road there is a tiny island with about 50 houses on it, and a small beach.
Riding down the coast in the directon of Tampa, as close as i could get to the sea.
Tampa is a cute little town with an utterly disgusting sprawl of suicidally miserable suburbs around it. The most famous district is Ybor City, which is now a super-cheezy "historic neighborhood" filled with touristy stuff and a little bit of street art.
Heading out of Tampa i paused at a railroad crossing as this general manifest train got built in the nearby yard.
I didn't take any shots of the thoroughly depressing gated community landscape that lasted three days straight, except for this one. That line of cars is all waiting to be let in through the guard tower. The line stretched out onto the main road. And it was like this at gated community after gated community. Note the water pooled in the drainage ditch which is made of non-native golf grass, the high walls around the community, and the palm trees which almost certainly did not grow there naturally and were instead transplanted from the island in the next next photo.
I really wanted to kill myself cycling past all the gated communities, so i took a mental health break on an island called Pine Island outside of Fort Myers. For now it is still mostly an agricultural area, with palm plantations and a cycle path that goes all the way up and down the island.
Sheltering from a storm on Pine Island, i took a quick circle up to the fishing pier.
I couldn't decide which photo i liked better, so this is a second photo from the pier.
After checking out the fishing, i retired to the marina for some beers and seafood.
There is a gap here where i went through Fort Myers Beach and Naples. There are a lot of gaps in this series, mainly because the suburbs of Florida are so fucking depressing. Instead, here is an action selfie of me cycling into the Everglades.
The Everglades were almost all brown, green, gray and black. It's a very oppressive landscape, in particular at this time of year. But i did catch one little flower growing and wanted to take a photo to remember it.
This is a road photo so you can get a bit of an idea of what it's like to drive through the Everglades. It's just one road that goes mostly straight for over 100 miles. All there is on either side is marsh and swamp. They blasted limestone out of the ground to make the raised section for the road, so there is a canal alongside (on the left of this picture) that was created by the rock that was blown away.
Another Everglades selfie. Even though the environment is not really my kind of thing - very damp and soggy - i was just overjoyed to finally be out of the relentless suburbs.
Here is a picture of my campsite in the morning, as i woke to a rain shower. Behind me was a lake with several alligators swimming around staring at the campers on the shore.
I thought this was an amusing sign heading down a dirt road into Big Cypress National Preserve. To non-Americans it probably looks even more ominous because it's riddled with bullet holes. However, Americans know that pretty much every street sign in rural areas is riddled with bullet holes, because something something a well-regulated militia is necessary bla bla bla.
Here is a straight-on view of the road, and a better idea of what the Everglades looks like when it's not along a highway, and in the parts of it that aren't marshland.
Trees growing out of black, stagnant water. Swamp as fuck.
But if you thought that last photo was swamp as fuck, check this one out. Those weird little knobbles of wood coming out of the water are called "knees", and they're little growths that pop up out of the roots of the cypress trees that scientists aren't entirely sure why they exist. Standing still in a place like this, all you can hear is birds and amphibians and insects and all manner of creepy crawlies making alarming noises. It's terrifying and awesome at the same time.
So that's it for the west coast (plus some inland bits). The upcoming set will be more urban and beachy. I still have some food pictures to post too. Just taking it easy in Miami Beach for now. I got two days here before the place explodes for Art Basel (and the hotels become prohibitively expensive), so i'm enjoying the relaxed pre-party vibes.