From Wealth of Money to Wealth of Life

Time is the coin of your life.

It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent.

--Carl Sandburg

Today was my second day on Jekyll Island on the coast of Georgia.   I came here yesterday after my hang gliding flight and spent most of the afternoon in my van in a drenched campground since it was pouring rain.  Today, however, the weather has decided to make amends and it was a gorgeous day out.  I decided to go for a bike ride around the island since I haven’t had much physical activity for the past week or so. 

Horton's house has been standing for 285 years!

Florida’s 95-degree temperatures with humidity to match just didn’t encourage much more than beach activity.  Today, however, it was a much more comfortable mid-80s day with air that didn’t contain so much water.  It was much closer to a summer afternoon in California so I took the opportunity to go out and explore.

Jekyll Island has an interesting history.  One of the early European residents of the island was Major William Horton.  Horton was a military aid to General James Oglethorpe, who founded Georgia as a colony.  He built a house and occupied the island in about 1730 when he came to setup a military outpost nearby.  In addition, he brewed beer at the first brewery in Georgia, which was also located on the island.  I rode my bike past the remains of his original house, the walls of which are still standing, and the remains of the brewery as well.  In the several years after Horton’s presence, the island served as a refuge for escapees from the French Revolution and it also was a landing point for a slave ship in 1858. 

This was listed as one of the "cottages" from
the Jekyll Club era.  That's a nice sized cottage!

After the years of colonization, refugees, and slave imports, though, the island took on a rich history, literally.  In 1886, the Jekyll Island Club was formed on the island.  The Jekyll Island Club was an escape for some of America’s most wealthy families at the time (and even into today):  some of the original members included Marshall Field (founder of the department store Marshall Fields & Co.), John Pierpont Morgan (more recognizable as J.P. Morgan), Joseph Pulitzer (who started funding for the Pulitzer Prize), and William Vanderbilt (of the railroad family).  Later families of the club included the Rockefellers and the Morgans.    Not only was the island the play place of these wealthy families, but in 1910 it also served as a meeting place where members of several banks and the US Treasury Department drew up draft legislation for the US Federal Reserve.   The great depression had a severe impact on the island and on the club.  As financial woes spread even to the wealthy families, memberships in exclusive clubs like the Jekyll Island Club were seen as extravagances and people gradually stopped providing financial support.  The numbers declined through the 30s, and World War II in 1942 eventually all but eliminated any funding for the club. 

I think there's more moss than leaves on these trees.

Today, several of the mansions that existed on the island, as well as the original Jekyll Island Club building still remain.  Several have been preserved as tourist attractions, and some have been converted into hotels and shops.  I rode my bike on a path that circumvented the entire island and I passed several of the old mansions and buildings that had long been vacated by the wealthy people.  The path went through groves of trees that were covered with so much Spanish moss that in some instances I think there was more moss than tree.  I wanted to ride about 30 miles, but the entire circumference of the island was only about 15 miles so I took several small offshoot paths and went around the island a second time.  There was one area that was full of tall grass that had small muddy streams tangled throughout it.  As I crossed a bridge over one of the small streams, I noticed what looked like brown bunches of lettuce growing in the murky water so I stopped to take a closer look.  As I peered down at the strange clumps, I saw them spitting:  every few seconds little jets of water and mud would shoot up into the air.  It was then that I realized that the clumps were not some kind of plant, but they were oysters. I briefly considered climbing down and plucking a few to see if I could find pearls. But then I thought of myself covered in mud and muck, unable to pry them from the rocks or even to get them open if I managed to find a couple.  On top of that I don’t even like to eat oysters so I changed my mind about going pearl hunting. 

Those dark clumps are oysters!

By the end of a few hours I had made my 30-mile bike ride and saw the complete diversity of Jekyll Island.  The island that was once available only to the extremely rich and the elite now has a much different characteristic.  There are several houses that “regular” people own, a small soccer stadium, a water park, a few tourist hotels, a campground, sandy beaches, and lots of marshy wildlife areas.  People do come to spend money, I’m sure, but not in the amounts that were spent in the island’s heyday.  Instead, people come to spend their time having fun enjoying the beautiful area it offers and to look at the remains of the wealth that once existed here as curiosities and oddities. 

Up in the Air

Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.

― Ralph Waldo Emerson

The past couple of days I’ve been up in the air—literally.  Yesterday I left Manatee Hammock Campground and headed north.  As I mentioned in an earlier blog, I made a reservation for flying a hang glider this morning in Fernandina Beach.  When I made that reservation the weather was predicted to be clear and sunny, but by yesterday that had changed significantly.  I looked at weather.com yesterday morning before I departed and it was predicting a 65% chance of rain today.  Bummer. That likely meant no flying.  “Oh well,” I thought to myself, “If it doesn’t happen, then I’ll just find something else to do.”  I decided I’d at least give it a shot.

That's tall!

 Fernandina Beach is only a couple hours north of Titusville so I had some extra time to explore on my drive.  I made a stop in St. Augustine, which was only about an hour or so north, right on the coast of Florida.  St. Augustine is the oldest city in the United States.  Well, it’s even older than the United States is, as it was originally founded in 1565 by a Spanish explorer named Pedro Menéndez de Avilés.  That name likely doesn’t sound too familiar to many people, but the name Ponce de Leon probably is more recognizable.  Ponce de Leon is believed to be the first European to have landed in St. Augustine more than 50 years before it was founded, in 1513.   He was on his quest to find the fabled Fountain of Youth when he came across St. Augustine (I guess that explains why so many retired people move to Florida).    There actually is a place in St. Augustine called “Ponce de Leon’s Fountain of Youth Archeological Park.”  It claims to be the original location of Ponce de Leon’s landing and they also sell bottles of water that are supposedly from the Fountain of Youth.  For only $10 for three bottles, you can bring home the secret to never growing old.  However, I found out that it is a privately owned park and that its claims of being the original location are dubious (aren’t all tourist traps dubious, though?), so I elected not to go there.

This was my workout for the day

Instead, I went to the St. Augustine lighthouse.  I figured that if there was a chance that I wasn’t going to be able to go on my hang glider flight, I was at least going to get an aerial view some other way.   The lighthouse is old:  the one that currently stands today was built in 1874.  It actually replaced another even older lighthouse that was built in 1737 but which collapsed and fell into the sea.   The tower itself is quite stunning. It’s painted brilliant white with a black stripe that spirals up to the top like a barbershop pole.  The top is capped in bright red, and the keeper’s house at the bottom is bright red as well which gives the lighthouse somewhat of a whimsical Christmasy look.  I went inside and climbed the 219 steps to the top to get a view of the surrounding area.  At one point, I leaned way out over the railing and held my camera out to take a picture pointing straight down.  Even though the rail came up close to my armpits, I still had a brief moment of uneasiness as I stared the 164 feet down to the ground (which, for my swimming friends, is just about equivalent to a 50 meter pool standing on end!).  I carefully brought my camera back to the safe side of the rail, descended the tower, and made my way back to my van.   

It was about another hour and half drive to my campsite for the night, and along the way I found not only a Starbucks (Grande iced caramel coffee with whipped cream), but also a Trader Joe’s. I was so excited—it was the first Trader Joe’s I had come across since Seattle.  It’s not that I haven’t been able to get the foods of my extravagant diet at other stores along the way (spinach, peppers, tortillas, cheese, Minneolas, apples, and of course dark chocolate), but there is just something comforting about shopping in a store where I’m familiar with all the brands, the packages, and the prices.  That’s one thing that Trader Joe’s does right:  you can walk into just about any individual store and things are laid out pretty much the same in all of them.  I loaded up with about a week’s worth of food, and continued on my way.

50m down.  That's like 25 seconds
of freestyle...(when I was younger)

When I got to my campground in the late evening, I again checked the weather for Fernandina Beach.  It was better, but not promising:  the chance of rain at 7:00am had declined from 65% to 45%, but it still was predicting gray and cloudy skies for the day.  I wondered if I should just call and cancel the trip and have the day free for something else since it looked like it likely wouldn’t happen.  “No,” I said to myself. “I’ll go and perhaps the fates will smile upon my determination.”  I looked up at the sky and told it that it had a bit over twelve hours to clear up its act. I set my alarm for 5:30am so that I’d have time to pack up and leave and make it to the beach in the morning, and then went to bed. 

I ended up waking up at about 5:00am, somehow thinking that I missed my alarm.  I sat up in a panic before realizing it was still dark out, and as I checked the time I also went over to weather.com to see if the outlook had improved at all.  Its prediction for 7:00am:  a 5% chance of rain.  The fates had apparently smiled on me.  I got things packed up, took a shower, and made my way to the beach.  Along the 30-minute drive, the sky looked uncertain:  there were spots of blue mingled with stormy blotches of gray.  At a few intervals the windshield became speckled with drops of water and I had to briefly turn on the wipers.  I again looked up at the sky and this time told it that all I needed was a bit over an hour of cooperation.  I heard it whisper back, “I’ll see what I can do for you.”

View from the top

When I got to the airport, I found my way to the little hangar where Hang Glide USA was located.  I parked my van and went in.  A gentleman of about 50 years old was sitting behind a fold-up table with a laptop computer and a few pieces of paper on it.  He introduced himself as Kent and asked if I was there to fly.  “I hope so,” I told him. 

“Well, it looks like the rain is holding off for now, so if we get out there quickly we just might make it,” he said.  He handed me a blue and red jumpsuit, a headset, and a helmet.  “Have you ever flown a hang glider before?” he asked me.

“No, but I was hoping you have,” I told him.

He laughed.  “I’ve never done it either, so we’ll see how this goes.”

“That’s fine,” I told him.  “I went sky diving before I came on this trip, so if anything goes wrong I’ve already got practice on the falling part.” 

I got into the plane first, climbing up into the back seat.  I say “plane” only because it had a tiny little airplane-looking body.  It really was nothing more than a hang glider with a seat and a big propeller in back.   I left my legs hanging over the side so that there was room for Kent to get in in front of me.  My arms were left hanging out the sides (I couldn’t get any pictures from the air as I wasn’t allowed to bring any loose items up. That was good because they would have fallen out).  We taxied quickly down the runway and took off.   As we ascended into the air, I could feel the force of the wind pushing against my helmet and it was actually difficult to move my head.  My hands still dangled over the sides and my feet were just barely inside the tiny cockpit.  It was kind of like being on a motorcycle tied to a giant kite.  We flew about 1000 feet over the beach. 

Somehow two people fit there

Out over the ocean, I could see the dark clouds with rain falling, and I even could see a rainbow, but where we were flying was clear.   Kent pointed out things in the area below:  Egan’s Creek Greenway, which is a swampy area he said is full of alligators, bobcats, snakes, and other wildlife, the resorts on the beach, a nuclear submarine base, a cardboard factory, and the only two bridges that connect the island to the mainland.  We flew down lower over the beach and waved to people that were out collecting seashells, and we passed in front of a little row of restaurants and bars that were on the sand.   The flight lasted about 40 minutes and then Kent said it looked like the rain was coming close so he decided to land.    We touched down and returned to the hangar.   We both extracted ourselves from the small seats, took off our helmets, and went inside.  By the time I had taken off the jumpsuit, I could see rain starting to lightly fall outside.  I thanked Kent for the ride, got in my van, and departed.

 As I was driving away, fat drops began falling faster and faster and splattering on the windshield.  I turned the wipers to their highest speed to flick the water out of my view.  I leaned forward, looked up into the gray clouds, and thanked the universe for cooperating and allowing my little flight to happen. 

Snazzy suit...not so snazzy hair cut.

Nothing Today

Doing nothing is better than being busy doing nothing.

--Lao Tzu

Today was a day of no adventures, a day of doing nothing.  I’m staying in a town called Titusville (yes, that’s the real name) which is near Port Canaveral, Florida.  I found a spot in an enchanting little park with the comical name of Manatee Hammock Campground.   At first I pictured an actual manatee swinging peacefully in a hammock, but then I found out that “hammock” simply means a grove of trees.   Manatee Hammock, Rattlesnake Hammock, and amusingly Banana Hammock (that really exists in Fort Pierce, Florida).

No manatees in hammocks, but a lot of shady trees here

There are actually several hammocks that I’ve come across in Florida:

But enough of the childish humor in funny names; I’m making my way up the eastern coast of Florida and found this beautiful park to stop in.  Originally I chose this spot because I was considering going to the Kennedy Space Center which is just across the water from Manatee Hammock, but when I arrived here I decided a day of nothing would be an excellent adventure of it’s own for a change.  It’s a very peaceful environment here:  a tall canopy of trees shades the campground and it’s right on the shores of the Indian River.  The trees are apparently full of cicadas or other singing insects, and they fill the air with a constant, almost electric-sounding buzz.  I know that sounds like it might be an annoying noise, especially since it continues non-stop all day long, but it really isn’t.  They create almost a hypnotic background hum that is loud enough that it drowns out any noise from the road or other people in the campground, but it’s quiet enough that it’s not overbearing and is actually a bit soothing.  If I could bottle up the essence of this place it would make an excellent product to sell to people that live in the hustle and bustle of big cities, or even or someone who just wanted to slow their life down a bit. 

That's not his tongue!

I set my folding chair up outside my van and was able to finish Travels with Charley in between a couple of small naps. There were an amazing amount of critters that kept me company while I was reading and napping.  Little lizards kept scampering through the leaves on the ground and jumping up onto the picnic table.  They’d run for several inches, then stop and puff their necks into brilliant red and yellow balloons, and then run again.  Squirrels chased each other through the branches in the treetops above me, while a few hawks swooped down into the campground.  I think the squirrels took note and they’d race into thick patches of leaves or into holes in the ground when the hawk would fly through.  Out on the water, giant blue herons hunted for fish. They’d stand like statues in the shallow edges of the river with the water halfway up their long legs.  Their heads would turn slowly, and then suddenly lunge forward into the water, sometimes returning with a fish in their beak.   There also were some funny, stout white birds with long, curved orange bills that wandered the campground. They looked similar to the sand pipers I see at Pismo Beach, but they were a bit larger and fatter.  None of the animals seemed to take particular notice of me—I think they were pretty used to people being about. 

I like the way the sun caught this cloud in the evening

It ended up being a nice relaxing and sleepy day.  Without any adventures I thought it would pass slowly, but somehow it slipped away and before I knew it, it was evening again.   Tomorrow I’m heading a bit farther north to Fernandina Beach.  From there I was planning to start making my way back west, taking a southerly route through Missouri, Louisiana, and Texas but all the storms and flooding in that area have got me rethinking my route.  I suppose I still have a few days to figure it out, but perhaps I’ll head up the east coast a little bit more and see what happens to the weather in the south in the meantime.  Until then, I have a few more hours left to do nothing.

A bunch of kids were playing with sidewalk chalk. There were lots of rainbows
and clouds and other pictures drawn on the street.
And apparently even the kids know that life goes too fast sometimes!
(It says "Slow it down you butt hole")

The End of the Road

A dream is what makes people love life even when it is painful.

--Theodore Zeldin

Today marks a turning point in my journey.  I’ve traveled as far south as possible and I’ve literally reached the end of the road, so I have no choice but to turn around.   I got up this morning and drove to Key West—the last island on the Overseas Highway, Highway 1.  The Keys are like a string of pearls that dangle off the southern tip of Florida and drift out to the southwest, and Highway 1 is the thin silver chain that connects them.  Key West is a small island, only about 4 miles across the long way.  It is about the same distance from the edge of Florida as it is from Cuba and it feels like it is its own little island country.  The streets are narrow and filled with bars, cafes, and lots of shops selling Key Lime Pie, coconuts, rum, conch fritters, and other tropical goodies.  Its shores are crowded with boats of all sizes—from fancy personal yachts and commercial fishing boats to small rowboats and tons of jet skis waiting to be rented. 

Can't go any farther south than here!

I figured that with it being right after Memorial Day it wouldn’t be too crowded, but I was wrong.  There was a large Carnival cruise boat parked at the terminal and scores of tourists in brightly colored shirts and sandals strolling about.  People on scooters and in small golf carts raced down the streets along with trolleys and little open-air trams that had tour guides squawking on speakers about the history of various buildings and landmarks.  I drove through the tiny streets several times before finally finding a parking spot large enough for my van.  I got out, paid my parking fee at a small machine in the center of the block, and set out to explore.

Not far from where I parked was a large colorful buoy on the street marking the southernmost point in the US.  From that point it is only 90 miles across the warm waters to Cuba.  It literally was at the end of the road: beyond the buoy there was just open sea.  A long line of people wavered several hundred yards up to the buoy. They were all waiting their turn to take pictures next to the marker.  Since I didn’t really care about standing next to it, I walked past all of them and snapped a few pictures from the corner across the street.  From there, I made my way a few blocks up Whitehead Street to the Hemmingway Home and Museum. 

Hemmingway's House

It was the actual house where Earnest Hemmingway lived from 1931 to 1939.  Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the house, outside of its architecture and unique history, is that it is populated by about 50 cats, many of them which have 6 toes.  Ernest Hemming loved cats and believed that 6-toed cats brought good luck.  The cats at the house are said to be direct descendants of a 6-toed cat that Hemmingway himself had owned.  As the tour progressed, the tour guide described various features of the house and told little stories about Hemmingway’s life and tragic suicide, and also introduced every single cat that wandered into the tour.  After the tour of the Hemmingway house, I wandered around the streets of Key West and found an ice cream store.  It was the first ice cream I’ve had on this trip, and after 7 weeks it was fantastic! I indulged in a double scoop of chocolate and Dulce de Leche before going back to my van and driving back to my campsite in Bahia Honda.

As I was driving back I thought a bit about this journey I’ve been on.  When I started I had no real idea of where I wanted to go or what I wanted to do;  I just knew that I wanted to get out and explore.  It’s been a dream that has been in the back of my head for several years, and there have been countless times that I’ve gotten on the road to drive to work or to drive to the store when I’ve thought to myself “What if I don’t stop at the store, but I just keep on going?  How far would I get?”  Now, after nearly 7100 miles and 50 days, I’ve found myself literally at the end of the road.  Unless I get on a boat, I can go no further in this direction. 

See his 6 toes?

But there still is a lot more to explore in other directions.  It was a dream that led me here and it is dreaming which keeps my spirit for adventure alive.  People frequently say, “Follow your dreams,” but I think that is not quite right.  What I’ve found on this trip is that you should chase your dreams, pursue them with a passion.  They should be flying wildly far out ahead of you, and you should feel like you have to strain to reach with outstretched fingers to grasp them and let them pull you along where they may.  And when you do reach them and achieve your dreams, they might not turn out to be what you initially expected.  That’s ok.  When they turn out to be something other than you first imagined, the fantastic thing is that you have the power to come up with new a new dream and follow it down a whole new path.  Other than a couple of markers along the way, I had no distinct direction that I wanted to head on this trip and I let myself be pulled along each day to what seemed interesting and exciting at the time.  Some destinations so far have been fantastic:  the unique landscapes at Yellowstone, the sun setting outside of Mackerricher Park, the striking colors at the Badlands.  And, yes, some were underwhelming: the run-down park in the redwoods, the fog at Mt. Rushmore, the biting cold in Minnesota.   But the great part was that each point along the way was not a final destination, it was just a temporary pause after which I could always pick a new direction to go and look forward to something better.  And it has been the combined experience of all of those stops put together that has built the overall character of this fantastic journey I’ve had so far.  There isn’t a single one that I could pick out which I could say has really defined this trip.

Mile 0 - Literally the End of the Road

As I was thinking about this, I realized it’s been the same with my life up until this point.  I’ve had my ups and downs—successes and disappointments.  But each one along the way has come and gone and always opened up a route to some new adventure in my life:  I graduated high school in San Jose and moved to San Luis Obispo for college; in college I struggled through seven years of classes but it worked out that they led me to the exact time and place to get a fantastic first job at Cisco;  that job paid well and allowed me to build my house in Avila, but eventually the declining stock market and more stressful work led to frustration and disappointment that drove me to another company;  that new company paid me a higher salary but was a much less fulfilling job and it eventually encouraged me to leave the tech industry and get back into coaching swimming;  my divorce also came at about the same time I quit my job which put me in a position where I had to sell my house, but becoming free of the burden of a house eventually is what gave me the freedom to take this journey.  Overall, while I wouldn’t want to endure some of the struggles again, I know that they were all necessary to lead me to where I am now. 

So now, as I find myself turning around at the literal and physical end of the road, I know there are other adventures ahead.  Tomorrow I’m heading north along the eastern coast of Florida.  There is a little hang gliding company up in Fernandina Beach that has a reservation with my name on it for Saturday, and beyond that, well, I really don’t know what is beyond that.    But what ever it is, I know it will be the right thing and the right place to be for wherever I’m headed.

Fishing at the end of the day