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Thursday morning we had just started working when Kathleen and Aaron, the two Assistant Mangers drove up. They were surprised at how far we had gotten and how good the building now looked. We finished the north end and as a reward made what may be our last trip to Singletons. With the ferry now running it is really only minutes away. We rode the ferry across the St Johns River and after a great lunch did some shopping and came back ‘home’ for the rest of the day.

It is surprising how friendly the fishermen – and women are. Would guess that 80% are black with a few Orientals and the rest white. The fishing must be good as there are always people using the old bridge. The ‘bait shop’ also houses the restroom facilities so we get to see a lot of folks. Friday morning a group of Orientals stopped just as we were getting our gear together. In somewhat broken English they inquired about bait. We gave them directions on where to buy and they were quite pleased.

We finished the weeks work before noon – only the back or west side to paint now. So we came home and did some chores and split some wood and we will have a fire. We cooked kielbasa over the fire and heated the beans too….very satisfying meal.
They don’t have us scheduled to paint the trim, just the wall sides. Don’t know what they will put on next as we will only have a few days left here. We should finish the back side early Tuesday so that will leave us time to do another small project for them

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In keeping with out ‘bucket list’ of things to do, after church we stopped in town at a little café called “Jack and Diane’s” in the historic district for a late breakfast. It was a neat little place and we had nice meals. After our usual grocery shopping we headed to Pumpkin Hill Creek SP, about 25 miles from LTI. It is one of seven parks/park locations serviced out of Little Talbot Island. It is considered an “upland park” that protects the headwaters of the St Johns River, a source of Jacksonville’s drinking water. It is 4000 acres of scrub, pines and palmetto that has a number of “trails” and pathways for hikers and horses. Many of the pathways are just ‘plow lines’ to separate burn zones to control fires. The soil is mainly pure white sand.

Early Monday morning met with Kathleen about our next task. The small shed will not be ready until probably the middle or end of next week, so that is off our “to do list.” But, she had another more involved project for us and we spent the morning checking it out and gathering our equipment and paint supplies. It’s a building that they are remodeling for us as a bait shop. The contract for a concessionaire is out for bids and they are working at getting it all prepared. It is at the north end of an old bridge that is now used solely as a “fishing” bridge with no vehicle traffic. We will get started on it Tuesday – if it does not rain. We had thought about riding our bikes, but it is nearly 6 miles along highway A1A, which is busy.

This is the bait shop we are working on now. We have painted the front side where the ladder is leaning.

There are lots of people out fishing on this old bridge which was built in 1948. On the weekends it is nearly full. Several places in this area they have left the old bridges standing for use by fishermen.

Monday afternoon excitement! A couple walking the nature trail next to our camper came up to tell us that there was a diamond back rattler on the trail. By the time we got to the spot in the trail, the snake had moved about 5 yards off the trail (out of the bright sun shine) in amongst some live oak saplings. Here he/she is…really hard to spot in the dead oak leaves and sun beams.

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Monday we continued our ‘door painting’ at the shop. We rode our bikes the one mile there and back, an easy ride after the daily trips on the prairie! Finished the outside and overhang, and now with what little paint is left, Kathleen wants us to do the one side that you can see. It is different and weather beaten. The equipment shed at the park manager’s will be next, but it is not nearly ready. She did agree that it made sense to let us paint before the trim is put on. So John Mason (volunteer doing the work) is going to cut and tack on the trim pieces and then mark them and take them off so we can paint them separate - lot less cutting in to do.

Spring beaks have started and there are several campsites full of college kids. We met two girls from Wittenberg who drove down for the week. Looks like a good week weather-wise as it has gotten much warmer.

This is the tractor barn we painted. Oh yes, the inside of the doors are all painted too – as well as the overhang.
As we finished this task and the equipment shed won’t be ready for paint until maybe the middle or end of next week, Kathleen has linked us with Eric, the Park Service Specialist. We will be working with him for the next several days doing a “UTAP” on that trail we trimmed. UTAP stands for Universal Trail Assessment Program and was developed to grade and mark trails all across the country. The goal is to have a trail in Summit County’s Metro Parks, “graded” the same as a trail in Tucson, Arizona or Okeechobee, Florida.

Here are Judy, Eric and Mike working on UTAP.
Judy is recording the data that the rest of us are giving her. Mike and I used devices called clinometers to gauge the degree of grade change from one point to another (could be 20 to 100 feet down the trail) and then fancy compasses to get the direction. I then GPS each point. The first day we did less than ½ mile but on the second we covered over ½ a mile……another mile plus to go and then we have to do the beach and boardwalk portions.

We finished our UTAP of the beach trail a little before 2 on Friday. We had started as usual at 8:30 and as we neared the beach wanted to finish the work. It was interesting working with Mike and Eric as they are both into plants, animals and the environment. At one point Judy was standing by the side of the trail ready to make notes when suddenly a small lizard dropped out of an overhead tree. It scurried a way very quickly. We learned how to tell the difference between a young palmetto and a young cabbage or sabal palm. The weather was cool and damp and when we reached the beach, to the east was a solid fog bank. You could not see the ocean, only the waves as the tide reached high up on the beach

Saturday we went to the Volunteer Appreciation Day at Dudley Farm SP – a two hour drive with Cliff and RuthAnn. We have been with them at KPPSP the past three years and now here at LTI. We toured this old farm/homestead and had a great BBQ chicken lunch. They served 400 people in less that a half hour. Here is Judy waiting through all the speeches before lunch.

At the luncheon they had one of the ‘fire trucks’ that is used by the parks. Each park has at least one of these units to combat wild fires and most of all to be used when they do a prescribed burn of an area. This is what their fire trucks look like. It not only carries water, but also liquids they use to start the burns and back fires. Most all of the staff enjoy the fire fighting/prescribed burning they do at all the parks.

No they aren't red - all white alike all the park trucks, but they do have lights and sirens.

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So far this has been a quite week on the island. Sunday morning a wicked storm blasted through with strong winds and rain and even a tornado warning. Boy were the live oaks and palms swaying above us. But, down at ground level no problem. We debated about church, but around 9 it seemed to clear some so we drove up to Fernandina. Went through some strong cross winds over the bridges, but by the time we got to church all was calm – and when we came out the sun was shining.

After dinner (roasted chicken from Harris-Teeter) we drove down to the Ribault Club (part of this park system). It was built in the late 20’s as a winter recreational resort, similar too but on a much smaller scale than Jekyll Island. It fell into disrepair for a number of years until the park service took it over in 1989. They worked at restoration and it reopened as a park facility in 2003. It’s the site of weddings and wedding receptions and the beginning of a 4.5 mile trail around Fort George Island. The site of the club building is on top of and late 1800’s hotel that burned and that hotel is over a large midden. A midden is an ancient Indian landfill – a place where the early inhabitants of Florida dumped shells, fish bones and even early pottery.

Monday we went back to work on the trail. We now have a new line head for the trimmer and it made the job much easier. As we progress towards the beginning, the dense areas become fewer, but there are more overhanging limbs and branches. Any large branch or tree that needs a chainsaw to remove, we are marking for a park ranger to cut.
Tuesday we took off as Lilly’s vet appointment was in the early afternoon. We will be glad when the ferry starts to run again as it’s a long way around from here to Mayport! In the morning we went to the Reed House and took care of laundry and gave the truck a good bath.

We’ve passed the one mile marker on the trail and are on the home stretch. Today we started early and were done a little after noon. We are within 50 yards of the half-mile marker and that last half mile will go fast. There are several stretches of just white sand so no trimming to do. As we past the ranger station this morning on the way to the trail, Aaron came out and stopped us. He wanted to know when we though we would finish as they have our next task waiting. It will be back to painting. A couple of volunteers have replaced the four big doors on the tractor barn and they need to be painted so that’s what’s up next.

Notice the palm at the right of the picture. It seemed to grow parallel to the ground out of that sand dune.

Here’s a closer picture. It came out so far and then curved up to the sun. If it were totally vertical it would be 25 to 30 feet high.

Well we did it; finished the trail today (Thursday.). It was a little before noon so we decided to celebrate and drove Fernandina for a late lunch and walked the old town…..quite a tourist place. It’s probably quite busy during the summer months.

This is the marker at the start of the trail.
On Friday we went to the shop and got our next tasks. We will paint the newly re-built tractor barn doors and then when we finish that paint small storage building near the park manager’s residence. The doors (there are four are 6x10 T-111 doors) were rebuilt by two other volunteers. We got started and did get the interior portions all done. We had to brush paint them all as this is where all the 2x4 supports are.

Monday we will work on the exteriors and the new over-hang that they had to rebuild too. Will see what we can do for fun this weekend.

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Finished up our week of work earlier than planned. Thursday we were really moving along when the line trimmer gave out. The head would no longer hold the line. We decided to take it back to the shop and see if they had another and so along the ¼ mile ride down A1A, we picked up a lot of trash. No other trimmers but they had new line so we thought we’d give it another shot on Friday.

You could see from one of the pictures how closed in our camp site is. Anyway, on a long shot tried to do the satellite dish using my flag pole mount on the front of the trailer. Some how managed to find a small hole in the trees and hanging moss and got a good signal. Nice to have multiple choices for TV viewing, but we are usually too tired to stay up too late.











Friday we really had to stop early as the trimmer went belly up. The Assistant Managers said they would get a replacement head, probably by Monday so we can finish up the 2 mile trail. We have almost a mile done, and our goal for Friday was to get to the one mile marker. We are about 200 yards short of the goal. So we went to get a few groceries and stopped by a quilt shop. The camp ground is full and you can smell the camp fires.

Saturday sister Judy drove down from St Simons Island to spend some time. We walked the long boardwalk to the beach and showed off the beautiful white sand. Afterwards we headed to Singleton’s Seafood for a late lunch.

Judy and Lilly were soaking up some rays while waiting for Judy to arrive.

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As noted before, we are camped in a very private spot. Here are several pictures of what our site is like. We have no campers on either side of us and to the back about 25 yards through the brush is a nature trail.

Saturday tried to get the satellite dish aimed, but there just seem to be too many trees and hanging moss. The campground was pretty full so we took Lilly for a hike on the trail we are working on. As we walked we kept noting areas where we will need to trim and cut.

We found our way, with the aid of the Garmin GPS, to St. Michael’s church in Fernandina Beach. The church is very old and is located just on the edge of the ‘old town’ historic area of Fernandina Beach. It is located toward the north end of Amelia Island. We drove through some very pricey areas. The church was packed and we had to sit in the balcony.

Here are a couple of pictures of the beach area on Sunday. We rode our bikes to the south end of the actual park. The sand is pure white. The water in this huge tidal pool was extremely cold.

There used to be volunteer camp sites just over the dunes here.

Dinner was the usual, no peak roast with potatoes and carrots. Boy was it good.

We were working on the trail on Monday when the two assistant managers drove up. This was the first time they had been out to see our work. They both indicated that it looked good, but we told them we needed more line for the line trimmer. We drove out to the beach for lunch, but it was too windy to sit in the open. Later in the afternoon a ranger stopped by to drop off a new spool of trimmer line.

These are some of the trees on the beach. The sea, salt air and sand have honed them smooth and the root patterns are really interesting.


This is the view down the beach from where the trees above are located.

After work we drove up to Fort Clinch State Park for a visit. It’s at the very north end of Amelia Island. Construction was started in 1842 and the fort was used off and on from 1847 to 1945. While there we had a chance meeting with the park manager and inquired about volunteering. We will contact the volunteer coordinator there for maybe future jobs.

After work on Tuesday we took Lilly with us to Reed House to do our laundry. She scared up two armadillo. She had fun chasing them some, but they managed to find their way to their den under the drive.

This is what our site looks like. As you can see, there is a canopy of trees and no real way to get the satellite aimed through all those leaves, palms and moss.

Below is the sun through the live oaks and moss as it sets beyond the reeds of Myrtle Creek

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We moved into our site a little after noon on Sunday, quite a difference from the prairie. We are in a canopy of moss draped live oaks, pines and a few palms. Have yet to find a location for satellite reception, but regular tv is not bad.

A little after 7:30 am on Tuesday we showed at the shop and met with Aaron Rodriquez, one of the Assistant Managers here. The maintenance shop is about 1/3 mile south of the park campgrounds and offices. This park is actually has 7 different locations/parks that it overseas and maintains. He told us our initial task will be to trim up a 2 ½ mile trail from near the ranger station to the beach. After showing us around the shop and introducing us to several other volunteers and staff, we piled in his truck to drive the trail. Along the way he told us where we could do laundry and get ice. He said that a 4 wheel drive was needed on this trail because of deep sand in several areas. It took us a while to drive the winding path to the beach where we stopped to turn around….and got stuck. His Chevy would not go into 4 wheel drive. He called for help, but before the other ranger could pickup another 4X4 to get us, we winched our way out. By then it was too late to start work as the vehicle we will use is needed by 11:30 for the late shift, so we went off and did laundry.

The laundry area is located in what they call the “Reed House” – so named for the doctor who formerly owned the house. It’s now used for meetings and training. Here’s a picture of it.

The tall pines look lacey against the blue sky.

Wednesday we were at the shop at 7:30 and Aaron and Tom have agreed to set us up with the ‘beach’ Polaris Ranger to use. After getting it checked out and getting all our tools we hit the trail about 8:30 and worked until 11:30. It looked like bad weather brewing so we headed in. After lunch it cleared so we went back for a couple more hours. After working prairie trails this is different. Here are a couple of pictures of this trail.

The living and dead live oaks form interesting sculptures and the sun peaking through certainly adds to the mystique.

Severe weather rolled through the area over night, well actually early in the morning. It was too wet and windy to get started too early on Thursday so we waited until nearly 10. We packed lunch and worked through until 2. That gives us 24 hours in three days, 4 more than the minimum required.

Friday was our ‘play day’ in celebration of the birthday girl’s day. We headed to Mayport Naval Station to set up the appointment for Lilly’s checkup and get her meds. We made a quick stop at the Navy Exchange to check out necklace chains, but the sales clerk told us to wait because beginning next week there will be a sale. By then it was noon and we headed to Singleton’s Seafood for lunch. It’s a favorite when in this area. If a building inspector were to walk in, not sure it would pass, but the food is great.

Then it was off to Jo-Ann’s to find some special material and then to Wal-Mart to pickup some grocery and other items. When we got back, the campground was beginning to fill for the weekend. Temperature never got much above 50, but it was bright and sunny.