Smithgall Woods Redux – Day 8

22 November 2024

Apparently, I was very tired last night. I turned out the light at 7:30 pm and got out of bed at 4:30 am. I seem to feel OK and don’t have any after affects of whatever bothered me yesterday.

I had a strange dream last night. It’s a recurring dream of me taking students on field trips to a wetland area, and an area of hoodoos and then a canyon. Where Florida gets hoodoos and a canyon, I have no idea – it’s a dream and I can have hoodoos and canyons in it if I want them.

In this dream, I didn’t take students. I wanted to make sure everything was as I remembered it in preparation to take students on a field trip. My first stop was this beautiful little springs with all kinds of fern allies growing that I liked to show my students. It had Psilotum, Lycopodium, and Selaginella, all very primitive plants. I have an idea where I got this dream and it’s Fairchild Tropical Garden in Miami that has all these in their greenhouse.

Next I headed to the hoodoos. In previous dreams, we climbed the hoodoos to get to the canyon – a definite no no in reality. In this dream, who ever owned the land had sold it to a developer and everything was scraped clean and level. I was shocked, shocked that a developer would do that to a beautiful nature area. I suspect the hoodoo part of the dream came from Bryce Canyon National Park.

The canyon had been filled in. Needless to say, Florida doesn’t really have any canyons or gorges but I have seen a few in my travels.

At least I can explain where I get the images of my dreams but not the meanings.

I had a devil of a time figuring out the shower this morning. Normally, when you turn on a shower tap, you turn it counterclockwise which this one did. It got tepid but that’s it. After letting the water run for a ridiculous amount of time I turned it clockwise. That worked. Why they would do that is beyond me.

I ate breakfast in their restaurant and did the buffet. I had a hard time getting anyone’s attention at the front desk to find when they served breakfast – so did several other people. I’ve stayed in three Hilton hotels over the years (the Roosevelt in New Orleans and twice at the downtown Hilton in New York). You come to expect a certain type of service and no one manning the desk was a little disconcerting.

Anyway, I mostly ate fruit, grits, eggs and two slices of bacon. I’m beginning to get my taste for bacon back it seems. The buffet was $24 and I simply charged it to the room.

I left Ocala at 7:30 am and arrived home around noon thirty. I unpacked the Jeep, started a wash, opened the storm shutters, picked up palm fronds around the pool, and then put away everything from the trip. I’m still washing and folding clothes at 3:30 pm. I’m bushed!

It was a great trip. I really enjoy Stephen and Jimmie’s company and it’s always good to see them. Hopefully we’ll have many more trips like this one.

Stay tuned!