It's been an eventful past few days. After my last post I went out to Pensacola beach with some friends from flight school. Usually the waves in the Gulf of Mexico are pretty lame, but thanks to Ike we had some decent surf. I did have one local lady tell me that she was going to "paddle my bottom" if I went back out in the waves but luckily she was all bark and no bite. It would've been a little awkward to get a spanking from some lady that I don't know.
I received a call on Friday morning informing me that I would be allowed to start the initial flight screening on Tuesday (today), even though my flight physical isn't complete. I still have to go into the flight surgeon on Thursday and hopefully get my "up-chit," which will allow me to begin flying. Today I attended the in-brief, which should have taken 20 minutes but took 4 hours. I guess it's the Navy way to cram 20 minutes of material into 4 hours of repeating the same things over and over. I'm beginning to see why they call this the "Coast Guard Appreciation Tour" because I'm already looking forward to graduating and getting back to the Coast Guard full-time.
This weekend I went camping in Apalachicola, which is not something that I would recommend. The trip started well with a stop at the Ponce De Leon freshwater springs. These were the springs that were supposedly the "Fountain of Youth," and while it was very refreshing to take a swim in the cool water I didn't gain everlasting youth. The springs were pretty cool because you could swim down to where the springs were pushing out the cold, cold water (67 degrees) and you could feel the large amount of water they were producing. According to a plaque near the springs they produce 14 million gallons of fresh water daily! Pretty amazing.

After leaving the springs we went to a local BBQ establishment right down the road. One thing that you notice down here in the south is that to have a southern accent all you need to do is make up words. "Ah aint skeered" "go'on en git" etc etc. Life is definitely different down here with these laid-back country folk. The tables in the restaurant had literal legs, which I thought was pretty inventive, but a little freaky.




We left the springs and headed to the campsite in the Apalachicola forest. We made camp and headed out to go fishing in the Apalachicola River. We caught some small fish but heard from the locals that there really isn't great fishing in the area. The local town, Blountstown (apparently pronounced in a mumbled Bluntston) had a largemouth bass on its "Welcome" signs, but when asked about it the locals laughed and said it was "a lil' misleadin'." After fishing we headed back to the campsite and this was when things began to go wrong. My friend Jesse (the huge 6'6" guy next to me in the springs) had a scorpion drop on him from a tree. While it was a "small scorpion" (probably 3" or so) and wasn't poisonous it was still disconcerting to have scorpions dropping from trees. There were also fire ants (which bit us) and numerous spiders that resembled black widows. We attempted to fire up the camping stove that Jesse had brought (and had fired up the day before to make sure it was working), but were unable to do so and had to make a fire on the grill to cook our dinner. I actually slept in the back cab of the truck to avoid making friends with fire ants and scorpions, and I actually slept rather well considering the situation.




The following day we packed up our stuff and headed back to Pensacola. On the way we stopped at Falling Waters State Park, which features Florida's highest waterfall, which was unique because it started at ground level and fell into a sinkhole that was about 80 ft deep.
At one of the gas stations we saw this gem: 2 ft of pure sugar. I'll put that at the top of my list of foods that my kids would never eat on a long car trip. I can only imagine the sugar rush the "Big Fat Hissee Fit" would produce.
Although I had a good time on the trip overall, I was reminded that I'm not really an outdoorsman. I like "camping" where you maybe go on a hike or go out on a lake during the day and sleep in a cabin with running water, heat/AC, and a full-size bed. I know that's probably not really camping but it is comfortable!

I have to include this last picture to sum up the trip. It's lovebug swarming season, and they were all over the place when we were driving down I-10. This picture was taken after we arrived in Apalachicola, so just imagine the truck with twice as many bugs on it! We also hit a small bird on the way back and had a patch of feathers stuck to the windshield for much of the return trip. I was hoping that we could also hit an alligator and a deer, but we were unsuccessful.