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My last two posts* talked about Finishing Some Unfinished Business. The unfinished business was paddling a kayak – or canoe – all the way across the Okefenokee Swamp, from east to west. I first got the idea of doing that back in early 2015. It took awhile – eight years in fact – but just this past February 2023 I finally got to say, “Mission Accomplished!”

But first I need to apologize. It’s been over a month since I last posted, on Getting “ready, for the Okefenokee.” And we finished the job on February 18, well over three weeks ago. But since I’ve “mission accomplished” – and so likely won’t be going back into the Swamp again – I wanted to make this my magnum opus on the subject. And to explain why anyone in his right mind would go into such a place. A Swamp that’s been called “sinister,” “mysterious,” and full of lurking dangers beneath those seemingly tranquil waters. (Gators, cottonmouths and the like.)

As explained in 2015’s Operation Pogo, it all started when I was 10 or 12 – I’m 71 now – and saw the movie Swamp Water. (That would be back in the early 1960s.) In one scene I watched in horror as Walter Brennan got bitten on the cheek by a smiling – and sinister – water moccasin. (As he knelt over to part some bulrushes and get a drink, of “swamp water.”)

I’ve been fascinated ever since…

I suppose it’s a matter of “that which horrifies us also fascinates us.” (Kind of like how I used to feel about visiting New York City.) But back to the subject at hand…

My first time in was a simple day trip in September 2015. I paddled in from the east, with no supplies. The trip took about two hours. I just wanted to get a feel for speed, to see how long it might take to cover the water miles from east to west. Based on that limited first outing, I thought I could bisect the Swamp in two overnight trips. (One from the east entrance and one from the west.) That didn’t happen, not for another eight years anyway, and took this year’s extra five-day trip. But as it turns out, if you can paddle two miles in an hour, you’re doing good.

My first real try came weeks later, in October 2015. I put in at the Suwanee Canal Recreation Area (SCRA). I had the same kayak, with a “tagalong.” (A small rubber dinghy, towed and holding camping supplies and cooler, complete with two cold beers.) Unfortunately, that time of year is popular, so most platforms were already reserved. The only shelter available was Cedar Hammock, a mere three miles in from the SCRA. Paddling to Cedar Hammock didn’t take long, so I headed down toward Monkey Lake, for exercise. But I had to turn around early and paddle back to Cedar Hammock, in the dark. (Complete with slews of grabby water lilies to paddle through.) The second day I made it as far west as the Coffee Bay day shelter. (No camping allowed.) Bottom line: I didn’t make much bisecting progress on that first trip. 

Then in June 2016 I kayaked in from the west side. I put in at Stephen C. Foster State Park, east of Fargo, Georgia. As noted, my original plan was to bisect the Swamp, east to west, and this time I made it to the CANAL RUN shelter I’d reserved. (Nine miles in from Foster State Park.) That was still an all-day paddle, and it still left a big gap between Canal Run and Coffee Bay.

But finally, last February 2023 and eight years after my first attempt, I closed the gap between Canal Run and Coffee Bay. I had finally bisected the dreaded Okefenokee Swamp.

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I never let the dream die, even as years passed. Then came a boost from my brother.

Last September (2022), Tom, his wife Carol and I hiked 150 miles on the Way of St. Francis, in Italy. Somewhere hiking in the Appennine Mountains I mentioned this “Unfinished Business.” (Possibly over a cold beer at the end of a long day’s hike.) A bit to my surprise, Tom expressed interest, possibly at the prospect of enjoying a break from “icy arctic blasts” such a part of winters in Massachusetts. We settled on a tentative date, in mid-February 2023.

The result was a plan to take five days, using Tom’s two canoes, instead of one eight-foot kayak. (Towing a rubber-dinghy tagalong.) I’ve done two earlier posts* on preparing for the trip, and closed the last one saying, “I’ll keep you posted.” So, here’s that final report.

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For starters, on Monday February 13, we met up at the Newell Lodge, northeast of Folkston. As it turned out, Folkston was halfway between the Lodge and the east entrance (SCRA). That night we packed up what we could. I had my last shower and last cold beer until the following Saturday. Four nights without a beer or shower. Not a real shower anyway; I brought along some Dude Shower Wipes. (One of many alternatives, I just learned via internet.)

The next morning, Tuesday, February 14, we put in at the SCRA boat ramp about 10:30. Our goal for the day was Monkey Lake shelter, seven miles away. (The Monkey Lake I tried to reach back in 2015.) Along the Suwanee Canal, and up until the turnoff to Monkey Lake, we played paddle-tag with a boat full of tourists, complete with a guide yakking on a bull horn. He’d stop and talk awhile and we’d pass him, then he’d motor by and get up ahead of us, then stop again. It was annoying in a way, but we heard some gems along the way. Once he pointed out the plentiful Spanish moss lining the Canal, and said that such “moss” is related to pineapples. (?)

We got to Monkey Lake by 3:30, after five hours on the water. (With breaks and a short Lunchables lunch.) Two breaks involved standing up in the canoes. Very carefully. (I call them “butt breaks” because paddling five hours without changing position really gets to you.) At the shelter we first unloaded the canoes, then set up our tents. For supper – the one hot meal of a typical canoeing day – we had hot dogs and baked beans, with crackers and a fruit cup dessert. After that I washed the dishes and enjoyed a shot or two of “O-be-joyful.”

Which brings up a word about “washing those dishes.”

The first step involves “slooshing” the sticky stuff off plates, pans and dinnerware, followed by a real wash and rinse with hot water from the camp stove. And two of the shelter platforms were heavy-duty plastic going all the way down into the water. But the other two, Monkey Lake and Canal Run, were raised wooden decks. They left a gap between the bottom of the deck and the water, and with my active imagination I could just see a gator lurking underneath that deck. (Attracted by the slooshing and food particles.) Nothing ever happened, thankfully. On the other hand, I did “sloosh” those dishes very quickly on the two wooden-deck camping platforms.

That gap between the water and bottom of the deck reminded me of my 2016 second trip in. Because it was so early in the season, the canoe-only trails were much vegetated-over. Which meant that many times I had to “butt-scootch” the kayak over a barely-sunken log. Sometimes I also had to stick my hand out, grab another branch and finish pulling the kayak over. The last time I reached my left hand out I saw a patch of white.  It turned out to be a gator – a small one, but a gator – “smiling” nicely at what he thought was a tasty snack.

That memory came back as I slooshed the dinner dishes at Monkey Lake camping shelter.

But, dishes done and O-be-joyful enjoyed, that first day ended with dusk and a chill setting in at 6:15. I’d brought along a head lamp, and stayed up – in the tent, away from the mosquitoes – reading and also writing in a journal. I actually sat in my camp chair, beside the cot, inside the tent. That brings up the fact that I love my new bigger “six-person” tent. Even with its bent support-pole, courtesy of an 80-mile-an-hour windstorm on the Missouri River back in 2020.

We retreated to our tents that early the next three nights as well; in our cots and at least trying to sleep for the next 11 or 12 hours. Much different than my daily routine back home.

Also different from my daily routine back home: Seeing so many alligators sunning themselves on the banks of the Suwanee Canal, and also in those Okefenokee “prairies.” But my magnum opus is getting way too long for one post, so I’ll have to continue it in a “Part Two.”  

In that Part Two I’ll describe the last three days of our Okefenokee adventure. That will include the climax – the denourment if you will – of the trip: Where a canoe with two Scouts in it capsized, not far from where I photographed this gator. Stay tuned!

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I took the picture at the top of the page. The “scout overboard” incident happened on the last of our five days canoeing around the Okefenokee. Also, for this post I borrowed from past posts including Getting back up to speed – for canoeing and Another paddling adventure – January ’23. And it all pretty much started in 2015 with Operation Pogo – “Into the Okefenokee” and following.

The descriptive terms “sinister” and “mysterious” came from the cover of the Swamp Water DVD I just got from a local library, based on the original movie poster.  

Re: Cottonmouths. See Agkistrodon piscivorus – Wikipedia, on the “pit viper in the subfamily Crotalinae of the family Viperidae … one of the world’s few semiaquatic vipers … and is native to the southeastern United States. As an adult, it is large and capable of delivering a painful and potentially fatal bite.” I didn’t see a single cottonmouth in any of my four excursions.

Re: The Canal. “The Suwannee Canal was dug across the swamp in the late 19th century in a failed attempt to drain the Okefenokee. After the Suwannee Canal Company’s bankruptcy, most of the swamp was purchased by the Hebard family of Philadelphia, who conducted extensive cypress logging operations from 1909 to 1927.” Okefenokee Swamp – Wikipedia.

Re: Tom’s two canoes. The same canoes we used for the the July 2020 trip down the Missouri River. (Sioux City to Omaha.) See On my “new” Missouri River canoe trip. Apparently I never did a post-mortem on that trip, even though it featured us surviving an 80-mph windstorm that obliterated Tom’s tent, and left my tent with a fractured support-pole that I had to repair with a lot of duct tape. The COVID outbreak had just started, so the post included a lot of detail about how to stay healthy on the up to and back from the trip. We used the same canoes for a trip from Kingston Ontario up to Ottowa in 2018. See The “Rideau Adventure” – An Overview.

Some nuggets about Spanish moss. It has been used as building insulation, mulch, packing material, mattress stuffing, and fiber. In the early 1900s it was used commercially in the padding of car seats. In the desert regions of southwestern United States, dried Spanish moss is sometimes used in the manufacture of evaporative coolers, “colloquially known as ‘swamp coolers.'” Wikipedia. See also The Antioxidant Benefits of Spanish Moss – WholisticMatters.

Re: The second (2016) trip in, to the CANAL RUN shelter, nine miles in from Foster State Park. Among other things I saw fifty alligators during the first hour of paddling. After that I stopped counting.

“O-be-joyful” is a code-word for ardent spirits. We brothers – originally four of us – started packing samples in past canoe trips, like down the Missouri River from Fort Benton, MT. That was a way of following in the footsteps of Lewis and Clark, and other American pioneers. Back in the old days of our country, whiskey – for example – was used instead of hard currency:

One of the first media of exchange in the United States was classic whiskey.  For men and women of the day, the alcohol did more than put “song in their hearts and laughter on their lips.”  Whiskey was currency.  Most forms of money were extremely scarce in our country after the Revolutionary War, making monetary innovation the key to success.

See Why Whiskey Was Money, and Bitcoins Might Be.

I also took the Gator picture at the bottom of the main text. But he was a good mile or so away from the capsized canoe. (I’m pretty sure…)

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I started working on this blog-post on Saturday night, February 11, 2023.

Which is part of what is shaping up as a busy weekend. One part came earlier today when I started packing up the basics for my next paddling adventure, a five-day canoe trip into the Okefenokee Swamp. Tomorrow will be even busier. I have to be at church by 9:00 a.m., for a special meeting, then take my sweetheart to lunch after church. Then I get to finish whatever packing I can do, aside from last-minute stuff on Monday morning. Then I’m heading to a Super Bowl party in Stockbridge. (Riding with a friend, so by the time I get back to his house I’ll be “sober as a judge,” fit to drive back to my house.) Then – as early as possible on Monday morning – I’ll drive down to Folkston GA to meet up with my brother and his two canoes.

Then on Tuesday, the 14th, we’ll head into the Okefenokee for those five days of canoeing.

As I started packing up – and otherwise getting ready – past canoe-adventure memories started coming back. That actually started last Thursday when I put up my alleged “six-person” tent. The one I used in the last canoe trip we did, which I previewed in On my “new” Missouri River canoe trip. The July 2020 canoe trip in which I survived an 80-mile-an-hour windstorm that ruined my brother’s tent, and snapped a hold-it-up fiberglass pole for my tent.

You can see the proposed (preview) of the trip in the “new” Missouri post, but one thing we didn’t count on was that 80-mile-an-hour windstorm. It happened on the Iowa side of the river, and my job last Thursday included sweeping out the river-bank sand from so long ago. For some reason I didn’t do a follow-up post on that trip. But my journal from 2020 noted the “[stuff] hit the fan,” the night it happened, from 1:10 a.m. to 1:50 a.m. That’s when I thought “my time had come,” pinned to my cot as I was for 40 long minutes by the front part of my tent. As the wind whirled around us, tore off the tent flap designed to keep rain out, and otherwise blew all kinds of equipment hither and yon. Next morning, a Sunday, July 12, 2020, we “picked up the pieces.” The first thing we noticed, No canoes! Or at least not where we left them, tied up so carefully to tree branches high up on the bank.

But not high enough, as it turned out.

We did find the canoes, eventually. One was sunk in the river, or practically so, up to the “gunnels,” about 20 feet out. The other was downstream, tightly lodged in some dead tree parts piled up on the bank. And not only did we find the canoes, and paddles, we managed to paddle the remaining 25 miles to Omaha, where that trip ended. (With a steak dinner and two beers.)

Which brings us back to my next adventure, and some more good news. As I found out last Thursday, wiith the judicious use of duct tape, that snapped tent pole can still hold my tent up for the trip into the Okefenokee. (Even though I had to duct tape one joint together, so the dismantled segments don’t fit neatly together in their bag like they used to.)

Then too, the ritual of putting up the tent – then taking it back down again – brought back some memories from past canoe trips started. Like each morning having to dismantle the tent the same way, together with the swanky cot I got for that last trip, not to mention the ordeal of stuffing all that into their respective storage bags. And the regular morning breakfast of lukewarm coffee and one and a half breakfast bars.

Then memories came of later in the day, after paddling a canoe for hours – the best part – of having to set up the tent, cot and other camping gear. Followed by the one hot meal of the day, then my “slooshing” out the dinner pans and dishes, then washing and rinsing them in the water boiled nicely on the Coleman stove. (By custom, my brother cooks and I do the dishes.)

Followed by some prophylactic swallows of O-be-joyful.

I’ll do a follow-up post once I get back. (The plan is to drive home Sunday, the 19th.) Hopefully with tales of relaxing days canoeing in the peaceful Okefenokee, with chirping birds and alligators who mind their own business. But for a review of our last canoe trip before the one with the 80-mile-an-hour windstorm, see The “Rideau Adventure” – An Overview, from September 2018. But before that I did a preview in Next adventure: Paddling the Rideau “Canal,” from July 18, 2018, and later that month – July 31 – “Naked Lady” – on the Rideau Canal? Here’s a heads up: I didn’t see any naked ladies on the Rideau Canal in Canada in 2018. But come to think of it, we did go through some severe weather on that trip too, paddling to Colonel By Island 

That overnight campsite included a violent rainstorm and raccoons breaking into our plastic food containers and taking our supplies of breakfast bars, crackers and trail mix.  That in turn was preceded by us paddling through a veritable monsoon, on the afternoon of Tuesday, August 21[, 2018].

And that’s why they call it adventuring. As in an “enterprise of a hazardous nature,” or preferably, an “unusual or exciting experience.” Or maybe just relaxing? Either way, Wish me luck!

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The upper image is courtesy of Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge – Image Results. From the article, National Wildlife Refuge System celebrates 114th birthday. 

“Alleged six-person tent.” It seems tent sizes are always overstated. After the 80-mph windstorm my brother shared the tent with me, a combination of two people, and it was a really tight squeeze.

“O-be-joyful” is a code-word for ardent spirits. We brothers – originally four of us – started packing samples in past canoe trips, like down the Missouri River from Fort Benton, MT. That was a way of following in the footsteps of Lewis and Clark, and other American pioneers. Back in the old days of our country, whiskey – for example – was used instead of hard currency:

One of the first media of exchange in the United States was classic whiskey.  For men and women of the day, the alcohol did more than put “song in their hearts and laughter on their lips.”  Whiskey was currency.  Most forms of money were extremely scarce in our country after the Revolutionary War, making monetary innovation the key to success.

See Why Whiskey Was Money, and Bitcoins Might Be. It’s in that spirit that I take some “O be joyful” along on such trips. As in “I just had my fifth swallow of ‘Oh be joyful,’” and then, “Which helps a lot.”

The lower image is courtesy of Swamp Water – Wikipedia.  That article describes the “1941 film directed by Jean Renoir, starring Walter Brennan and Walter Huston, produced at 20th Century Fox, and based on the novel by Vereen Bell.  The film was shot on location at Okefenokee Swamp, Waycross, Georgia, USA.  This was Renoir’s first American film.  The movie was remade in 1952 as Lure of the Wilderness, directed by Jean Negulesco.” 

Here’s what I wrote about the film in 2105, in Operation Pogo – “Into the Okefenokee:”

I saw the movie Swamp Water back in the early 1960s.   (When I  was around 10 or 12.)  The part I remember best was watching Walter Brennan getting bitten in the face by a snake. In the scene, he kneels over and parts the bullrushes to get a drink… As Walter does all that, the viewer can see a grinning cottonmouth off to his right. (The viewer’s left.) The grinning cottonmouth then proceeds to bite him “right on the cheek.”

I’ve been fascinated ever since…

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Welcome to the “Georgia Wasp…”

This blog is modeled on the Carolina Israelite. That was an old-time newspaper – more like a personal newsletter – written and published by Harry Golden. Back in the 1950s, people called Harry a  “voice of sanity amid the braying of jackals.” (For his work on the Israelite.)

That’s now my goal as well. To be a “voice of sanity amid the braying of jackals.”

For more on the blog-name connection, see the notes below.

In the meantime:

I just ran across a post from March 2019, on a kayaking misadventure back in 2013.

I called it On a 2013 kayaking “adventure” and what brought it to mind was a new venture coming up next month. My brother and I are planning a five-day canoe trip into the Okefenokee Swamp. I’ve already camped overnight twice in the Okefenokee, in a small kayak, but they were solo journeys. (Remembering the Okefenokee, and links therein.) But this trip will feature two separate, large canoes, not one 8-foot kayak, trailing a small rubber dinghy. (“Tagalong.”)

I’ll have more on the Swamp trip later, but first a word about the 2013 misadventure.

I had just bought the eight-foot kayak, after getting back from canoeing 12 miles off the coast of Mississippi. (An eight-day primitive camping trip, as in “dig a hole and squat.”) But I hadn’t gotten too well acquainted with it yet. For example, I didn’t know about the drain plug. And so the post started out, “There I was, in the middle of a local lake around here, on a fine sunny summer afternoon. I was happily paddling away in my spandy-new kayak, when suddenly…“

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It was only my third time paddling the kayak. I had put in at Lake Kedron, and getting in a kayak is always awkward. But this time it tipped over a bit too far to the side, so once I got in I noticed what seemed like a small bit of water sloshing around. But I didn’t want to go through the whole process of getting out, emptying the water and then getting back in. I figured, “No problem, I’ll just put up with water sloshing around a bit until I finish,” in an hour or so.  So I paddled out, then turned around and headed back when I noticed what seemed a bit more water.

I kept paddling, and in a bit glanced back and noticed the back end seemed much lower. That’s when I discovered a big difference between a kayak and canoe. I couldn’t twist around to get a good view of the back end, which led me to this: “You know, I’ll bet there’s a drain plug somewhere on this kayak. I wonder where it is? I’ll have to check the instructions when I get back.”

To make a long story short, I ended up in a reverse-Titanic. (Titanic sank bow first. The kayak sank stern first.) And while it was a bit humiliating – the lakes in that area are all surrounded by homes – it didn’t turn out that bad. You can see the gory details in a 2013 kayaking, but here’s a final note. I sent out an email to family members, and my oldest brother – not the one I share travel adventures with – had this reply: “I don’t think I would have shared that.”

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So anyway, back to that other adventure, upcoming, the one into the Okefenokee.

Back in October 2015 I kayaked into the Okefenokee from east side, using the same kayak. I put in at the Suwanee Canal Recreation Area (SCRA). Then in June 2016 I kayaked in from the west side, where I started at the Stephen C. Foster State Park east of Fargo, Georgia. My original plan for these trips was to bisect the Swamp, east to west. However, in October 2015 the only camping shelter available was at Cedar Hammock. Unfortunately, that was a mere three miles in from the SCRA entrance, so I couldn’t make much bisecting progress.

Still, the next day I made it as far as Coffee Bay day shelter. Then in 2016 I made it to the CANAL RUN shelter, some nine miles in from Foster State Park. That was still an all-day paddle, and still left a big gap between Canal Run and Coffee Bay. But next month, with two canoes and five days to paddle, we should make it from the east entrance to Canal Run, by way of Round Top shelter. And that’s not to mention “by way of” Monkey Lake.* (Finally getting down there.) That’s the plan anyway, to bisect the Okefenokee at last. I’ll keep you posted…

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All of which leads in to another travel adventure. This one is coming up next fall, and was possibly “preordained before the beginning of time.” Or at least foreshadowed in the post, On canoeing 12 miles offshore, from May 2015. It talked about Robert Louis Stevenson’s 1879 book Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes. And about why he would do such a foolish thing as embarking on a “12-day, 120-mile solo hiking journey through the sparsely populated and impoverished areas of the Cévennes mountains in south-central France in 1878.” His answer:

I had been after an adventure all my life, a pure dispassionate adventure, such as befell early and heroic voyagers; and thus to be found by morning in a random nook in Gevaudan – not knowing north from south, as strange to my surroundings as the first man upon the earth…

And such is the nature of pilgrimages. They give us a break from “real life,” from the rat race that consumes so many today. Which is why they can be described as “religious ritual on the move.” Through the raw experience of hunger, cold and lack of sleep, “we can quite often find a sense of our fragility as mere human beings.’” Put another way, such a pilgrimage can be “one of the most chastening,” but also one of the most liberating of personal experiences.

In case I’m being too subtle, after the canoe trip into the Okefenokee, my next great travel adventure will be this fall of 2023, hiking the Robert Louis Stevenson Trail in France. (With my travel brother and his wife.) Which again raises the question – for some anyway – “Why would anyone your age want to do that?” For a good answer check out John Steinbeck, who based his 1960 book Travels with Charley on Stevenson’s In the Cévennes travelog.

In Charley he noted many men his age – he was 58 at the time; I turn 72 this year – who are told to “slow down.” In turn they “pack their lives in cotton wool, smother their impulses, hood their passions, and gradually retire from their manhood.” But that wasn’t Steinbeck’s way:

I did not want to surrender fierceness for a small gain in yardage…  If this projected journey should prove too much then it was time to go anyway.  I see too many men delay their exits with a sickly, slow reluctance to leave the stage.  It’s bad theater as well as bad living.

Or as we used to say hiking the Way of St. Francis, “it beats playing bingo at the Senior Center!”

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The upper image is courtesy of Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge – Image Results. See also Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge | U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.

The “misadventure” link formerly included that add-on, “(blub, blub, blub).”

About Monkey Lake, and the Cedar Hammock shelter. In the October 2015 trip I paddled in to Cedar Hammock and checked it out, but since it was still early in the day I decided to padde down to Monkey Lake. And that’s where I went head-to-head with a big bull gator in a narrow canal, complete with two “bumps” that prompted me to paddle much faster. Here’s what I wrote a bit later:

I saw a big bull gator – who eventually submerged – in a very narrow canal. This was on the canoe trail to Monkey Lake. As I paddled over the water where the gator had been, I could swear he came up and nudged the bottom of my kayak.  I figured it was an accident. But the second time? That added some spice to the trip.

I turned around before Monkey Lake, and got back to Cedar Hammock way after dark. (See “Into the Okefenokee” – Part III.) I ended up paddling, in the dark, through a slew of water lilies, which led to: “That Monet guy can take his stinkin’ water lilies and ‘stick ‘em where the sun don’t shine.’”

Stevenson Trail. It’s also known as the GR 70 – see Wikipedia – or the Chemin de Stevenson.

The lower image is courtesy of Robert Louis Stevenson Trail – Walking in France. See also a post from my companion blog, On donkey travel – and sluts. A side note: Stevenson’s use of the word slut was grammatically correct at the time:

Slut first appeared in the written language in 1402, according to the Oxford English Dictionary…   At that time, slut meant roughly what one sense of slattern means today: a slovenly, untidy woman or girl.  It also apparently meant “kitchen maid” (”She is a cheerful slut who keeps the pots scrubbed and the fires hot.”).

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Re:  The Israelite.  Harry Golden grew up in the Jewish ghetto of New York City, but eventually moved to Charlotte, North Carolina.  Thus the “Carolina Israelite.”  I on the other hand am a “classic 71-year-old “WASP” – White Anglo-Saxon Protestant – and live in north Georgia.  Thus the “Georgia Wasp.”    

Anyway, in North Carolina Harry wrote and published the “israelite” from the 1940s through the 1960s.  He was a “cigar-smoking, bourbon-loving raconteur.”  (He told good stories.) That also means if he was around today, the “Israelite would be done as a blog.”  But what made Harry special was his positive outlook on life.  As he got older but didn’t turn sour, like many do today.  He still got a kick out of life.  For more on the blog-name connection, see “Wasp” and/or The blog.

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October 22, 2022 – In the last post, “Some highlights,” I noted what was to me the highlight of my recent 140-mile hike on the Way of St Francis. (From Assisi down to Vatican City and St. Peter’s Basilica.)

It came on the first day’s hike out of Assisi, on September 1, 2022. That first morning we reached Eremo delle Carceri. That was after getting through the city and hiking 3.2 miles for an hour and a half, just in time to see the day’s foreboding weather forecast come true. That forecast was for thunderstorms and a lot of really heavy rain. But before I get into the highlight of the 15-day hike – a highlight involving lots of cute jungen Frau – here’s some background.

Eremo delle Carceri is a hermitage complex on Monte Subasio, in Umbria, central Italy. The name “Carceri” comes from the Latin carceres, meaning “isolated places” or “prisons.” Which is basically what religious hermits like Francis wanted, a place to shut themselves away from all the crap going on in the outside world. Which I can understand, at this time just before the election of November 2022, with all those hateful, negative political ads. (Although in Francis’ case he gave a reason that sounded better,* to wit: A place to pray and contemplate.)

Around 2015 – 10 years after he first went there – the Order of St. Benedict gave him the site and its few buildings. Francis then “dedicated himself to a life of preaching and missions, but throughout his life he would frequently withdraw to the Carceri to pray.” And near the site of the hermitage is a stone bridge and an ancient oak. That’s where – according to legend – “Saint Francis preached to the birds as they perched in the oak’s branches.”

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Anyway, we three hikers had toured the site and visited the “facilities,” then gone to the concession stand near the entrance of this isolated hermitage. It was still early, but as it turns out, the Way of St. Francis features very few places to stop for lunch or mid-day break of any kind. So we took advantage of the situation and settled down with our sandwiches and drinks under one of the few umbrella-covered tables, in peaceful isolation. That’s when the heavy rains hit.

In a “New York minute” the heavy rain had overwhelmed the umbrellas, so we scooted over to the limited overhang of the concession building itself. And were soon joined by a horde of other visitors, all jostling and crowding in, with one tall gent positioning himself perfectly in front of me so the rain that fell on him came cascading down on me. (Okay, it wasn’t really “cascading,” but it was annoying.) I scootched around to a better position, cursing my luck, when all of a sudden we were joined by a flock of young high school ladies, apparently out on a field trip.

In other words, we three hikers thought ahead and found a good spot, sheltering beneath the two-foot-wide eaves, but then all the other pushing-and-jockeying-for-position visitors included a host of young ladies, all speaking German and all part of some field-trip group.

[T]hose pushing-and-jockeying-for-position visitors included a host of young ladies, all speaking German and all part of some field-trip group. The rain kept up for quite a while, but somehow the presence of all those jungen Frau – together with the challenging linguistic exercise of trying to figure out what they were talking about – made the situation enjoyable.

To which I can only add, “I’m just old, I’m not dead!”

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Anyway, in getting ready to write this blog, I thought it might be nice to compare this last Camino hike with the first one, back in September 2017. Kind of an Alpha-and-Omega thing. Or a compare-and-contrast thing. I covered that first 2017 pilgrimage in three posts: From October 3, 2017, “Hola! Buen Camino!” Then from October 23, 2017, “Hola! Buen Camino!” – Revisited. And finally, after my brother and hiking partner thought I was too negative in the first two posts, on December 6, 2017 I added “Buen Camino!” – The Good Parts:

Some people reading “Hola! Buen Camino” might think I had a lousy time in my five weeks hiking the Camino de Santiago in Spain… {T]here was my comment on the first 10 days – after starting in Pamplona – being “pretty miserable. My left foot constantly throbbed, until it blistered up and got tough.” And that it took about 10 days for that to happen.

Which brings up some big differences between that 2017 hike and this last one. For one thing, I didn’t have near as many problems with my feet on subsequent hikes, especially the last two. (In 2021 and 2022.) My feet still got a bit sore at the end of each day, but not as bad as back in 2017. Routinely I would end the day back then by laying down on the hostel bed, laying my pack at the end of the bed and propping my feet up on it, then telling my brother, “You go ahead and take a shower. Take all the time you want!“

For another, after leaving Pamplona in 2017 we hiked for 30 days, with only two days off: After 10 days a break in Burgos, and in another 10 days a break in Leon. That’s where we had to stop hiking and rent mountain bikes. We were running out of time, even though we’d tried to hike the 15 miles a day recommended by the Brierly Pilgrim’s Guide to the Camino de Santiago.

That experience led us to lighten up a bit. In the new normal we try to average 10 miles a day, depending on stopping places being available. (Sometimes we hiked six miles and sometimes 12 or 13 miles, but the average was ten miles.) And we take a day off every four days or so. (We are “getting up there,” with me at 71 YOA.) And about those mountain bikes. I thought they’d be a welcome break from hiking and sore feet, but the result was just different parts of the body getting way sore. Not to mention one time I rode off into a deep ditch, covered with brambles on both sides and the bottom. But we did end up making better time on that last third of the trip.

Other differences: The trail on the Camino in Spain was much better marked, and featured a lot more choices in places to stop for the night. One place even had a beer machine in the hall, and then there was the one place that featured pour-your-own and all-you-can-drink wine:

…at the end of the first day’s hike we stayed at the Albergue Jakue, in Puente la Reina. That was September 13, [2017,] when we made 15 miles but didn’t reach the albergue until about 8:00 p.m. The good part: “They had a $13 dinner special, which included wine. I GOT MY MONEY’S WORTH!” To explain: The wine came in a serve-your-own set of three spigots, not unlike those for draft beer. (Except for the privilege of “pouring your own.”)  

But alas, when we went through again in 2021, those pour-your-own wine spigots were gone. (Because of COVID.) That’s the trip where I hiked over the Pyrenees … finally, and that was because I wimped out in 2017. My brother hiked over those steep mountains from St. Jean Pied de Port, but I chose to avoid that and meet him in Pamplona.

In other words I eventually got to cross hiking over the Pyrenees off my Bucket List.

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The original post had an upper image courtesy of St. Francis Of Assisi Preaching Birds Image – Image Results, with the added note, “original artwork by Henry Stacy Marks RA.”

 Re: Eremo delle Carceri. Here’s a more complete review, gleaned from the Wikipedia article. In the 13th century, Saint Francis would often come to this place there to pray and contemplate, like other hermits before him. Soon other men followed him to the mountain, finding their own isolated caves nearby. The oratory became known as Santa Maria delle Carceri after the small “prisons” occupied by friars in the area. The site was probably given by the Benedictines to St. Francis in 1215, at the same time they gave him the Porziuncola in the valley below. Francis dedicated himself to a life of preaching and missions, but throughout his life he would frequently withdraw to the Carceri to pray. Around 1400, Saint Bernardino of Siena built a small friary and extended the earlier chapel by building a small church, which was also named Santa Maria delle Carceri. In the centuries that followed, various buildings were added around St. Francis’ cave and the original oratory, forming the sizable complex that exists today. Today some Franciscan friars live there and visitors are welcome.

“Reason that sounded better.” Dale Carnegie once said there are two reasons to justify any action: The real reason and the one that sounds good.

“Hola! Buen Camino!” That’s a phrase you heard a lot from fellow pilgrims hiking the Camino de Santiago. It got on your nerves after awhile, and especially on my brother’s nerves. It got so bad he eventually took to taking long detours…

Re: Wimping out in 2017. The year before, in 2016, we had hiked the Chilkoot Trail, “meanest 33 miles in history.” See Remembering the “Chilkoot &^%$# Trail!,” and links therein. That experience soured the idea of mountain hiking for me, at least up to and through 2017.

The lower image is courtesy of Bucket List Image – Image Results. The link adds that it was first used by people facing imminent death, but recently just means “a list of things that I would like to do someday.” The phrase came into wider use after the December 2007 release of the self-styled movie.  

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Saturday, August 20, 2022 – A week from today I’ll be flying over to Rome. (The one in Italy.)

I previewed this adventure back on April 17, 2022, in Getting ready for Rome – and “the Way of St. Francis.” That post told of a new adventure, starting on September 1. It will be the fourth of three hikes on the Camino de Santiago. The three earlier ones came in Spain, Portugal and a short section in France. (For details type “camino” or “paris” in the search box above right.)

In this upcoming September adventure three of us – me, my brother Tom and his wife Carol – will hike the 154 miles from Assisi to Rome. Specifically, we’ll be hiking from Assisi to St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. (In Italian it’s the Via de Francesco.) The April post noted that because of its “challenging topography, the Way of St. Francis is a challenging walk.” The first few days are – it has been said – as challenging as a “walk over the Route [de] Napoleón that crosses the Pyrenees. A daily climb of 500 to 1000 meters is not unusual.”

Which is a hike we did back in September 2021. (See Hiking over the Pyrenees, in 2021 – finally!)

The April post noted that in preparing for the hike, I first had to find an affordable flight to Rome, then figure the best way to get to Assisi from Rome. At the time I thought the best way to Assisi was by bus, leaving Rome at 8:30 in the morning. But since then I found the Trenitalia website, and got a later train – leaving Rome at noon – to Assisi. And the place we’ll be staying in Assisi is a short walk from the station. (Whereas it’s a two-mile hike from the Assisi bus station.) And I got an affordable flight to Rome and back, mostly because I could pay for it in installments. (Thanks to my American Express – Delta – Sky Miles credit card.)

Meanwhile I’ve been making plans for my first day or two in Rome. Once settled in my B&B by Roma Termini station, I hope to visit a place called “LET IT BEER,” about two miles northeast. (I just like the name.) Later, or maybe the next day (Monday, August 29) I figure on hiking down to the Isola Tiberina. (Tiber Island.) That’s an island in the middle of the Tiber River, kind of like the Île de la Cité in Paris. (Which we visited last September. We got our required COVID shots at a tent set-up by the Pont Neuf. We had to get them to take a train down to Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port.)

Also, based on a recent video I saw on Rome, I may try a fried artichoke in the Jewish Ghetto. (Highly recommended, for the adventurous anyway.) Google Maps shows “La Taverna del Ghetto” that may have it. “La Taverna” is a mile and a half southwest of my B&B, and Tiber Island is just beyond it. The Colosseum and Palatine Hill are pretty much on the way.

We’ll see how those plans work out.

Also this past week, I got 250 Euros from my local bank. Last Tuesday I did a four hour hike – figuring six miles at 24 minutes a mile actual hiking time – at a local Nature Center. (We”Il average ten miles a day.) I carried 17.4 pounds* including a pack and camp chair for an occasional break in the woods, without getting chiggers. (Always a problem in the Southeastern woodlands.) I covered up pretty good but still got a couple bites, one on my right tricep that still itches.

Next Tuesday I hope to get in a 7-mile hike along some local golf cart paths, with a full pack but no camp chair. And I plan to take a break for lunch, at a local sports bar, with a prophylactic beer, just to get into the Camino rhythm. And by the way, I have a hard and fast rule for those Camino hikes: I never have a lunch-beer before noon. (Well, “Hardly Ever!”)

Finally – and BTW – I’ll have 48 hours in Rome before heading up to Assisi. (Between getting settled in my B&B and taking the train.) But once we finish the hike we’ll have three full days for touristy stuff in the Vatican City area. (Across the Tiber and three miles from Roma Termini.)

Stay tuned for updates!

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The upper image is courtesy of Roman Holiday Film – Image Results. See also Roman Holiday – Wikipedia, on the 1953 American romantic comedy starring Audrey Hepburn “as a princess out to see Rome on her own and Gregory Peck as a reporter.” Hepburn won an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance. The film was shot on location around Rome during the “Hollywood on the Tiber” era. “In 1999, Roman Holiday was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being ‘culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.'”

Re: The much better deal on getting from Rome to Assisi. My train leaves at noon instead of the crack of dawn, and gets to Assisi by way of Foligno a couple hours later. And a confusing note: The “Trenitalia” train ticket lists the day first, then the month, as for example “22/09/22,” instead of the American way, “09/22/22.”

Re: The 17.4-pound backpack. The ideal for Camino hikers is ten percent of your body weight, which in my case would be about 150 pounds.

Re: “Hardly ever!” See H.M.S. Pinafore “What, Never? [Well,] Hardly Ever!” – eNotes.com.

The lower image is courtesy of Isola Tiberina – Wikipedia.

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