a southern naturalist almanac: Revisiting Marine Origins

FLORIDA TRIP CANCELED. Going to Monroe, LA for graduate studies.

All life on earth began in the sea. The story of my life is no different.

I grew up in the water. "River rats," we were, my brother and I. We swam in all kinds of water: ponds, reservoirs, sandy streams, mud creeks. A lot of the water was dark as coffee from the tannins of cypress and tupelo trees, but the rest was a muddy blue brine of the Gulf of Mexico. We spent countless summer days on shores of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida and Georgia, collecting shells, digging through sand toward the other end of the earth, constructing canals, dykes and moats in the shifting sands of the tidal zone (my first study in hydrology). At night we chased fiddler crabs, fished or stared out at the moon on the water.

I've always seen my childhood as a foggy dream, perhaps the abundance of water contributed to that sense of weightlessness. Propelled forward by an old brown and beige Ford pickup, my father showed my brother and me how to enjoy life. It seemed that Dad had planned this series of discoveries perfectly, so that I would later feel compelled to draw and paint, to write poems and songs. It took me a while, but towards the end of my four years of studying poetry at LSU, I began to write specifically about the coast and memories of those many special places. Before I moved to Ohio, Dad took us the kids on one last road trip to Key West. It was a return to the sea, to the water where our childhood began.

Me, Dad, Jace, Kelly and Joey after snorkeling the coral reefs!

So with these memories, I am happy to announce a new journey southward this June back to Southern Florida, in Pompano Beach. In a sense, I'll be following in Dad's footsteps: as an environmental educator, my job is to help kids enjoy (and understand) nature.

I'm extremely happy to be joining my original naturalist mentor, Jonathan, as well. He encouraged me in much of my natural history studies and let me take his field guide on Carribean fish, coral and reef creatures (Humann and Deloach) to the keys.

But the journey down should be just as spectacular as the destination. I will be traveling through 10 major physiographic regions across much of North America's great eastern deciduous forest. The amount of fossil fuels and money it will take to get down can only be justified by a trip that takes full advantage of the East's wonderful biodiversity. Ultimately, I will say goodbye to the land of deciduous leaves and say hello to the land of broad-leaf evergreens and continental U.S.'s sole tropical paradise.

The part-time job itself should be relatively simple compared to my past job experiences, but I am looking forward to doing lots of writing, botanizing and preparing for graduate school in Monroe, LA. The keys and the everglades are also right down the road, so there will be many weekend trips, hopefully.

I began planning this journey last week and so will add my map and notes here for friends and family who may be curious.

Time on road: 8 days
Total miles: 1,100

View Epic Trip to Southern Florida in a larger map

Some distinct vegetative communities along the way, as gleaned from the EPA's Level III U.S. Ecoregions Map: