![]() What you really need to look at is this step right here. You can look at it, but don’t look at it for too long. There are only 150 Grey bats in existence.įrank said, “Yes, now that is a bat. Not only that, the highly endangered Grey bats hibernate in only two caves in the entire state of Florida, and one of those caves is in Florida Caverns State Park. Colonies of Southeastern bats number as high as 13,000 individuals in the fall. A kid in the back called out, “A duck!” Frank said, “Yep, and that’s why they call this room ‘The Duck Room.’”Ī kid pointed at the ceiling and asked, “Is that a bat?” Four species of bats roost in colonies in the Florida Caverns. “See that rock over there?” Frank asked, pointing with his flashlight. There were two things he was concerned about, and they were the size of the puddles on the cave floor and the possibility that you could hit your head. ![]() But forget his tone-it was like Frank was going out of his way to make this tour as uninteresting as he possibly could. He spoke to everyone as if we were in kindergarten. He had the age of an experienced ranger, but I could tell pretty much immediately that he was a tour dud. So do your job Park Rangers, and don’t do what Ranger Frank did. And if the public doesn’t care about them, then we won’t stand up to developers who want to profit from their destruction. If you can’t make the general public understand why they are special, then we won’t care about them. You have a great duty and responsibility to make our natural places seem as goddamn interesting as you can. So this is where I make my plea to up and coming State Park Rangers. There was a hoard of Russian tourists waiting for their tour to start, and as it was we still had to wait an hour before our tour began. What’s the rush?” Well this park was packed. You may think, “Hey, this is just Marianna, FL. We entered the park and immediately signed up for a tour. By the time we finally made it back out to a paved road, we figured we had probably added an hour on to our ETA. We passed swamps and ponds and cemeteries. Old Spanish Trail was pretty slow going, but it was beautiful. So lesson learned: if Google doesn’t show it, it’s most likely unpaved. Fortunately this part of the Panhandle is straight Georgia clay, hard and compact. When we arrived at Old Spanish Trail, we figured out why. I looked at Google Maps Street View for hints for what the road would be like, but there weren't any photos. Now, Highway 90 West would have been the most direct route to the caverns, but I had decided on Old Spanish Trail, which paralleled it the whole way. We had decided to stay both nights at Lake Seminole, so that meant leaving the tent set up and being able to ditch all the weight from our gear. We woke up from our snuggling marathon, feeling moderately refreshed after our 50 mile journey from Tallahassee to Chattahoochee, and ready to bike another 25 miles to the caverns. How about trekking through a system of prehistoric caves? BADASS. What's cool about where I live is that there are lots of fun adventure choices.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |