NATURE MATTERS.  LOOK UP!

 

As highpointers and participants in it's varied outdoor spin-offs, along the trails, one most know, say, moving heads down, what a dead squirrel looks like.  Live squirrels look different.  Try looking up now and then.  Have you noticed the skies? A normal bright blue sky or one with beautiful puffy-cloud skies can be taken for granted.  But what's that track-marked azure that is occurring regularly?  Everywhere.  They are not "jet contrails."  They're chem-trails, aka, "cloud seeding." No?  Look up, then look it up. In the name of global warming control, we're being rained on with a noxious concoction of harmful chemicals!  There's a long list of them and they're mostly not good - the opposite of healthful vitamins and minerals, for sure.  There's more going on here than most people know. From the pics posted, which sky would you prefer on an outdoor venture?  Or anytime?  Pull up YouTube and plug in "chem-trails." 
 

There was once a TV commercial that went, "It's not nice to fool Mother Nature."  As well, "It's not nice to fool with Mother Nature."  If the tracks turn out to be, indeed, "contrails," why is it ok for jet travel to haze up what might have been a beautiful blue sky anymore than it's not ok to throw trash out the car window, littering the roadsides?  The cloud cover causes green house effect, trapping ultraviolet-generated heat between the earth and the hazy moisture blanket.  A conspiracy theory, simultaneously overt and covert?  So be it.  Continue on then, heads down.  Still, what is that stuff, really?!

DRY TORTUGAS - WEST OF KEY WEST
Definitely drier than Key West....

This was a serendipity stop for us on our Southern-Most U.S. 48 trip that turned out to be our south venture highlight. In Key West, we boarded the Yankee Freedom II ferry early Fri, Feb 20 for a bumpy "ocean-in-motion" 68 mile sail to DT. A cold front from the NW stirred the blue sea into 6 ft waves, but we arrived alive 2 1/2 hrs later at Fort Jefferson/DT - an absolutely fascinating historical brick enclave plunked onto a 14-acre dot of terra firma in big water named Garden Key.

The 11-acre fort leaving little left, was the intended "Guardian to the Gulf." Construction began in 1846 but forgone in 1875 resulting in a not-quite completed/armed fort. Still, there are a helluva lot of bricks here (16 million). In the Northern Hemisphere this masonry hulk of it's kind is second to the Great Wall of China.

If we go again, er...if you go: think about sticking around a few days for camping, snorkeling, fishing, swimming, sunbathing, birding, exploring, and generally hanging out, cheap. It's .6 miles around the fort via the moat when you need to step out. Take tent, food, and water (beverages). Per the name Dry Tortugas, there's no fresh water available except to keep the NP staff hydrated.

The return trip was on calmer water. The Yankee Freedom II crew are pros who know the route and these waters intimately. See the borrowed YouTube video below for a nicely presented look at DT.


Dry Tortugas National Park Ferry: http://www.yankeefreedom.com/
NP info: http://www.nps.gov/drto/

STUFF NEEDED TO SURVIVE
Definitive items to carry...



Lost in the woods? Spending the night? Here's a list of 17 items you might wish you had in your pack, recommended by an experienced SAR ranger. Have this stuff already? If not, get out your wallet for these info-ads:
Click here: Backpacker Magazine - Ultimate Survival Kit

TICKS!
A clean solution...

Why did God give us the beautiful outdoors then populate it with man-eating bears, sneaky snakes, and those awful disease-carrying ticks? Ughhh...those ticks really suck! Well, here's a possible solution for getting them off of you:

This is great, because it works in those places where it's some times difficult to get to with tweezers: between toes, in the middle of a head full of dark hair, etc.

Apply a glob of liquid soap to a cotton ball. Cover the tick with the soap-soaked cotton ball and swab it for a few seconds (15-20), the tick will come out on it's own and be stuck to the cotton ball when you lift it away. This technique has worked well consistently and frequently, and it's much less traumatic for kids, e.g., than unrooting them with currently known methods.

Sounds good but you need to know where they're on you first. Do you think the tick is smothered by the soap, needs to back out to breathe or what? Theories, please. We know you bug nerds are out there. Take a chance. Comment. Be imaginative.