Wednesday February 18, 2009

It was cloudy, but warm when we woke up this morning. We finished identifying the artifacts that we had worked on yesterday and then started on a new batch from the same site. These came from 110 to 192 cm below the surface and are full of small fish and snake vertebrae, turtle, leg bones of small mammals, some shell and some limestone. We did find a raptor claw and a polished bone that had obviously been used as a tool. It is hard on the eyes though as the pieces are incredibly small. We ate outside again today - cloudy, but in the 70's. By the time we got out of the lab, it was raining lightly. We gassed up the car and then came back to the motel. We decided to eat in tonight. Dave had mac and cheese and I had soup that we had picked up at the local Publix. We also had dessert that we picked up there - mango key lime pie - not as good as straight key lime, but good none the less and I believe one of the few desserts we have had on the trip. We bought half a pie so have enough for another night. We got a few valentines in the mail this morning and also got a note from Dan's school. He made a small cardboard boy named Flat Stanley (after a character by that name in the Flat Stanley books). His teacher sent it to us and we are taking pictures of FS while we are here in Florida. Today he posed with some of the artifacts that we have been working with along with some cool skulls that we found in the bone lab - a huge cow and a sea turtle. I think FS will have a good vacation here in the Sunshine State.

Tuesday February 17, 2009

We went back to the lab today. We spent the day identifying shells, turtle shell and bones, as well as small mammal bones. We are still working on the artifacts from the Gumbo Limbo Hammock site from the Everglades. Amazingly enough, we did find a freshwater mussel shell in the mix - not sure how it got there, but I'm sure there is a story behind it. We ate our lunch outside at the picnic tables today - got up to the high 60's and it felt great in the sun. Mike Russo (the bone expert) was delighted with the armadillo bones that Dave and Carla found last week out at the dig. He will add them to his collection for use in identifying unknown bones. Carla is very excited today as she found out that she got a spot for graduate work at the University of Georgia in Athens. She was trying to decide between Georgia and Oregon, but Georgia came through with a nice package for her. Everyone seemed to have had a good weekend. We are doing a load of laundry and then will stay in for the night. We have plenty of leftovers between Olive Garden and the blue crab cake I had left over from yesterday. Not too much else for news here - hopefully tomorrow will have something more exciting to tell you.

Monday February 16, 2009

We had a lovely dinner at Olive Garden last night and of course had plenty of leftovers. Dave had seafood alfredo and I had shrimp and asparagus risotto - yum! We woke up to a chilly but sunny day with a promise of a beautiful day so after breakfast we went to the Tallahassee Museum (which serves as their zoo of sorts). The animal part consists of many native creatures that are being rehabbed. They had birds of prey, deer, wolves, a bobcat, Florida panthers, a black bear, foxes, and our favorite - river otters. We spent quite a bit of time watching them play in the water - they are so personable and cute although you wouldn't want to get your hand too close if you value your fingers! The elevated wooden walkway meandered through and over a cypress swamp (pictured above) where the Spanish moss hung down almost to the water in places - it really was picturesque. The rest of the "museum" consisted of a collection of buildings which were moved here from a variety of places. These included a schoolhouse, an African American Baptist church, a small plantation house and a slave house. There also was a section which was set up like a 19th century farm with a mill, farmhouse, and a commissary for a turpentine camp. It was very interesting and it was a great day to be outside. We then drove to Woodville to the Natural Bridge Battlefield Site. This was the place where the Confederate soldiers prevented the Union soldiers from reaching Tallahassee (the only southern capital east of the Mississippi not captured during the Civil War. It was located on the banks of the St. Marks river and the natural bridge comes from the fact that the river disappears into a cavern at this point and doesn't reappear for 150 feet. We got in the car again and decided to go down to the shore. We drove down to Panacea and stopped at a marine lab. It was quite small, but they did have a couple of very cool octopuses among some of the more normal native fish, sponges, starfish, and turtles. We continued on and followed the shore to Apalachicola where we stopped at a seafood house for linner (lunch and dinner). Dave had grilled shrimp and I had some awesome blue crab cakes. We walked around the town a bit, but it was a typical seashore town with tourist shops filled with gee-gaws so on the road again. We continued along the shore until we turned north at Port Saint Joe and then back to Tallahassee. We left here at 9 this morning and got back at 7 tonight - it was a fun day! Back to the lab tomorrow so we will stay in this evening. By the way, there are a lot of small fundamentalist churches in this part of the world. Most of them have lighted message boards in front of them. Some of the sayings are quite clever. Our favorite today was, "The best vitamin for a Christian is B1."

Sunday February 15, 2009

Wow! We had a totally laid back day today. It has rained off and on all day so we decided to hole up in the room and read. Dave and I each finished the books we had started yesterday. We did take a walk over to Kohls while the maid cleaned the room - we found a couple of sweatshirts on sale for 80% off - a great deal. We made lunch out of what we have here and read some more in the afternoon. It looks like the rain is ending so we will go out for dinner in a while and get some fresh air. It is supposed to be better weather tomorrow so I think we will go to the zoo. I think we have seen all of the inside museums in Tallahassee so maybe we will go out of town next weekend and explore another area. We are still enjoying warm weather despite the rain - I think it will be in the 70's most of this coming week.

Saturday February 14, 2009

Happy Valentine's Day! We woke up to rain this morning although, I have to say, it wasn't as bad as predicted. It did rain off and on, but was not steady and there were no thunder storms. After breakfast, we drove down the street and Dave sat in the car and read while I went in to get my hair cut - it was getting a bit long. We then went into Publix and did our shopping for the week for lunch items. We decided since the weather was a bit iffy to go to the Mary Brogan Museum of Art and Science. I can't say I was impressed with most of the museum, but the reason that we went was that they had the "Our Body" exhibit on display. It was awesome! They had actual plasticized cross-sections of bodies displayed with nerves, muscles, circulatory and nervous systems, etc. Everything was well labeled and detailed. It really was amazing. We spent two hours studying everything. We came back to motel for a light lunch and did some reading. We went over to the mall to get our walk in out of the rain. Took at lap around the top floor and then another around the bottom. At 4 we went over to the cinema and saw "Taken". It was rather intense, but good, if a little gory in spots. We decided to have a quick dinner at Whataburger (thanks for the introduction in Texas, Cookie and Ron) rather that opt for something fancier as we knew there would be long waits at the fancier restaurants because of the special day. We don't know what we will do tomorrow if it rains again, but we will think of something.

Friday February 13, 2009

We slept in a bit this morning - we must really have been tired. We spent part of the morning doing errands: laundry, bills, etc. By 10 we were ready to go out and enjoy the day - and what a glorious day it was - sunshine and close to 80! We went to Mission San Luis first. This is a reconstructed Spanish mission which housed Spanish soldiers and families as well as Apalache Indians from 1656 until 1704 when the fort and mission were destroyed by the British. They did a lot of archaeological work on the site before reconstructing the buildings so what we saw today looked very realistic. The native buildings were round with thatched roofs while the Spanish buildings were rectangular (using the Golden Rectangle - all you math geeks). We had a lovely time checking out everything and our time was enhanced by chatting with the many costumed guides that were on the ground and in each building. We spent about four hours there and then decided to enjoy the beautiful weather by staying outside so we went to see the Lake Jackson Mounds. These are earth temple mounds built and used by Native Americans whose time there probably peaked about 1200 AD. After walking around a bit and climbing on a couple of the mounds, we decided to get something to eat. We finally found a Pizza Hut and ate at 3:15 - we will have the leftovers for dinner tonight. We came back to the motel and read for a while and will probably stay in tonight. I heard from the girl at the desk that Extreme Makeover is building a house in Tallahassee next week and I saw one of the camera men unloading his car in the parking lot so I assume some of the crew is staying at our motel. I'll let you know if I see Ty!

Thursday February 12, 2009

I read over the blogs since Monday and realized that I had made a few errors in spelling, etc., but have not figured out how to go back and correct them so I apologize for the mistakes. Hopefully, you have been able to figure out what was meant. I also realized that I forgot to mention that on Monday, while Thadra and I were mapping along the dirt road, we saw a young man who was hiking the Florida Trail. He was very excited to hear that eventually he will be able to walk more along the river instead of detouring out to the road at times. As more property is bought, the trail becomes more scenic and that is a very good thing. He has been averaging 30 miles per day! He also has hiked the Appalachian Trail twice!

Today we got up and packed our gear into the car. We also carried the other's personal suitcases. After check-out we took both cars to the site we had left off on yesterday. Again the teams were Jeff and I, Dave and Carla. Thadra continued to get GPS points on the first parcel (she didn't get to finish yesterday as the batteries quit). When she was finished, she met up with us and mapped out the rest of our line to the river. We started at hole 6 today and did through hole 19 before lunch. We all met up at the river for lunch - beautiful day - probably got up to 80 - and the river was lovely. After lunch, Thadra hooked up with Dave and Carla and mapped ahead for them. We quit about 2PM so we could drive back to Tallahassee and unload some of the gear at the office. We had several unusual occurances today - while Jeff and I were working, we heard a huge crash and saw a tree fall down in the forest. Fortunately, we were not right next to it. We walked over to it to see what had happened. It appeared to be a very large dead tree that just gave up the ghost - no wind and nothing unusual to make it go over - it just did. Thadra saw an owl fly over at about the same time so we fear that its home was destroyed. The other thing was that as I was screening, I heard something metallic. When I was able to clear the screen I saw that it was part of Jeff's shovel! Some of those roots were real killers! Fortunately, the shovel still worked so we were able to keep working. We dug through to hole 24 - only one more to go on our line to get to the river. They will be coming back in two weeks to finish this parcel and start on another nearby. Jeff said we did okay as we dug 126 holes this week. I just feel badly that he did all the digging when he worked with me whereas Dave and Carla were able to switch. He will certainly sleep like a baby when he gets home tonight. We stopped on the way home from the lab at a pharmacy as Dave got into poison ivy somewhere out in the woods. We both enjoyed the shower and snacked on crackers and cheese instead of going out to dinner. We have tomorrow off as we worked four 10-hour days and we just heard that the lab is closed on Monday because of Presidents' day so we have a 4 day weekend! I'm sure we will find something fun to do although it is supposed to rain most of the weekend. Am enclosing two pictures. One is of Carla matching a soil sample and the other is of Jeff standing in front of the famous sign. I'm not sure the picture of the sign is large enough for you to see, so it reads, "KEEP OUR ER GIT SHOT". Are you humming the theme song to Deliverance yet?