Santa was good to me this year and brought an Olympus digital recorder that plugs right into the USB port of my computer, an excellent replacement for my long-dead trusty Olympus that kept me company on the trails for the first seven hiking books.
Stir that up with a need to learn about podcasting for my job, and I did a little mixing of old and new to create my first podcast: Lyonia Preserve. It’s a little rough, since I had to make do with a really basic microphone at my computer for part of it, and hey, it is my first shot at this genre. You can subscribe to the feed or listen to it here:
More to follow, eventually … meanwhile, gotta figure out what’s gotten into the new recorder, since it worked for 24 hours and then went kaput!
Here’s my first shot at a little video tour of a trail on Florida Hikes! I just opened a YouTube account today and am hoping Santa will bring me a real videocam for Christmas, but meanwhile I have some slideshow software and digital camera video that I can play with…
I took my parents with me this weekend on an exploration of the trails at Chinsegut Wildlife & Environmental Area near Brooksville. Here’s Mom taking photos of some of the incredibly tall longleaf pines in this stand of virgin forest.
This patch of forest is little-known and, on a perfect sunny morn, we had the entire preserve to ourselves. It’s undergoing restoration of the understory, which probably hadn’t been burned in some time.
Just up the road (and connected by a 2-mile trail that we did not hike, the Prairie to Pines), we did a second hike at the Nature Center Tract. I was surprised that, on such a sunny, cool morning, no one else was out on a hike. But then, I think this may be the only place you’ll find information on the trails other than the FWC website, as I do not have them in any of my books - they’re new to me! - and I don’t think they appear in any others. What a serendipitous find!
I’ve transcribed my written journal to the website this week and tied it all up in one package as the November 2007 edition of the Florida Hikes! online magazine … take a look and let me know what you think by leaving a comment here.
I can assure you one thing: hiking around Lake Okeechobee is never boring. This year’s journey included unusual bird sightings, fabulous morning mists, a string of offbeat hikes planned at the last minute - including walks by moonlight - a trip to the movies in Clewiston to see Beowulf at a classic 1920s theater, and the best weather I’ve ever enjoyed on the Big O Hike.
I took my parents with me this weekend on an exploration of 
