Reading (For Dummies)

Don't Wake Me, I Plan on Sleeping In

Wrestling alligators and chasing the legend of my biological grandfather were but a taste of what I've been doing the last few weeks.

I was part of a group lead by Polar Humenn and Steve Buer through Okefenokee Swamp in southeastern Georgia. As the legend goes, my grandfather crash-landed some variety of experimental aircraft in the swamp in the late 1940s, and went missing for a day and a half before being discovered by a trapper. I can only assume that the swamp was not a national preserve at that point.

We departed on what would become a marathon drive (after a night of soaking in Polar's hot tub), finally getting out of Syracuse at 8am. We arrived at Buer's apartment in Atlanta sometime around 2am. We didn't stop very often or for very long.

New Year's Eve I got to walk around in downtown Atlanta with David and Jithka. We went to the Martin Luther King Memorial. Seeing the Czech couple's reaction to the civil rights movement made it worth it. Being there even helped shake off some of my own racial guilt. So many of my caucasian friends admit to feeling somehow guilted by what happened our fellow countryment of african descent, even though the days of publicly accepted racism were over long before we were born. Somehow the visit allowed me to distance myself from all that. Surprising too was the racial makeup of those visiting the memorial and museum -- at least 75% were of european descent.

The new year's was celebrated in downtown Atlanta, watching the Peach drop in what can only be described of as a "the South will rise again" show of homosexual pride. C'mon, you're watching a peach drop from a goddamn long skinny phallus-shaped tower. Perhaps I was only reading into things due the vast quantities of Vitamin B-3, L-Arganine, and Yohimbe I've been popping in an attempt at keeping up with my tattooed virgo of a bedwarmer. I may not be 15 anymore, but I'm getting there...

We headed off for Macon after a few hours of sleep, most of us hung over, a few still stoned from the night before, for another 6 hours on the road. We made it just in time to get a campsite, where I slept under the stars...at least until 6am when it started gently drizzling on my face and sleeping bag. We were hurry to put away the last of the previous night's beer and hit the road again.

We were on the water by 10am, paddling south along one of the canoe trails for our destiny. We saw a canoe and a kayak about an hour into the trip; those would be the last strangers we would see for the next four days.

Our first night was on a Chikee, a small wooden platform with a port-a-pot, big enough to sleep 8 -- convenient, as there were exactly that many in our party. Cooking, drinking, and a lot of talking ensued before we decided to hit the sack -- the next day would involve 12 miles of paddling.

We spotted our first 'gator on day 2, with what was later to be revealed as a bobcat hanging from his grinning mouth (not pictured). Kind of unfortunate, as bobcats seem to be becoming a rarity in the swamp. We proceeded to Floyd's Island, where a cabin awaited us.

Day 3 included more alligators, some minor strife with paddlers, some blisters on my hand, and a whole lot of sun and warmth. We spent the night in Roundtop Chikee, where we experience Swamp Ass (not to be confused with Swamp Gas, this is the stuff that comes otu of the toilets when they have been composting human feces for too long).

Day 4 was a quick 5 hour hop back to civilization, then to Florida, where we camped out in Fort <> somewhat illegally. We arrived after the campground closed, let in behine a hapless camper who was leaving (we closed the gate after her). A night fending off raccoons and was followed by swimming in the Atlantic Ocean. Afterwards, we returned to Atlanta to rest up before heading off for some caving.

A front came in, flooding out quite a few of the Tennessee caves, so we went a little further south -- Alabama. Limrock Blowing Cave was our final destination. Buer had been there before and was a pretty good guide. The cave was carved by a fairly large river, making it quite different from New York caves. We were able to walk about normally throughout the cave, the rooms there large enough to stand and jump about in.

We spent over 4 hours wandering inside. I even lead the group through a rather treacherous room of breakfall that was tight to squeeze through -- Buer had never found his way through it, and somehow I managed to convince myself to try. The cave just kept going and going and going after it -- about 2km of huge carved passageway working its way up to the sandstone top of this limestone mountain. Enough was enough though...although the cave itself wasn't cold, we were tired to the point where we needed some gumbo, and headed back to the outdoors to cook it up.

Another marathon 22 hour drive home to Syracuse began in Alabama at 6:46AM. We came home via a waffle house (which left me wanting to vomit at how much grease was involved), Skyline Drive in Virginia, and an ice storm. A much needed sunburnt head and a huge deficit of sleep later, I can honestly say I'm at peace for a little while.