Adam Eckberg 5/2/19 Adam Eckberg 5/2/19

Goethe State Forest

Godspeed in retirement Jeff, may you never trick anyone into venturing into tick infested forests again!

When I arrived in Goethe I had already been bumming around central and west Florida for a few days. The day before and the morning of I had just finished up visiting an uncle that I had never really met since becoming a, or rather being considered an adult. It was an amazing visit and we share so much in common... Almost like we're related. All that basically means, watch out Goethe, I'm coming in hot!

Even though I'm still in Florida, it's the first time it started to feel a little less Floridy, if I can coin a term here. I drove in on a dirt road as opposed to the paved one GPS suggested. Dirt roads are long in Ruby Tue. She has a stiff suspension and a lot of ass. Taking this back way in led me past a boardwalk. I'll sometimes ignore these as they are mostly built for the 'round bellies' to quote a man I met in Lone Pine, CA. I stopped to see what this boardwalk rolled out the red carpet to. A giant fuckin tree! Not believing that Florida actually had giant fuckin trees I took the walk. I made the grueling walk in 5 or 6 minutes and there it was! The Goethe Giant! As I messed with my camera I heard a truck pull up. (You know it's a good hike when you can hear vehicles pulling into the parking lot)

In a few minutes Jeff came walking down the boardwalk ready to bust some ghosts. He said they blow the leaves off the boardwalk once a week, but I know a ghost-buster when I see one. I asked a few questions about the real trail head I was heading to when he let me in on a little secret. There's a natural spring fed pond a little off trail. He gave me verbal directions on how to find it and I committed it to memory. I wasn't convinced that I would find it, but hey, if Jeff says it's worth checking out, I better try. Hell, he's never liked to me before.

So here in the conversation I mentioned that I won't be getting back home until sometime in May, and that's when he said, 'I retire May 1st!' Congrats Jeff! He had been in the area most his life and been working for the state forest for 30 or so years. Good luck with your retirement Jeff.

I found my way to the black prong trail head and paid my couple bucks to the iron ranger. I went over the map a couple times and even looked at satellite images, but couldn't make out where Jeff's spring fed pond might be. Oh well, either I'll find it or I won't. Time to run!

The spring Jeff told me about. It was even more impressive in person.

Minnie and I took off! The trail we started on, as well as the rest of the trails we ran, were double track. Not surprising I guess as they are mainly used as horse trails. I found a turn off quite similar to Jeff's description about four tenths of a mile before Jeff said I'd find it. He said the detour I would take would be a quarter mile or so. I took the trail until it terminated into woods but saw nothing. I was about to start exploring through the woods when my attention was caught by a clearing to my right. Wow! Just wow. In the middle of swampy sandy Florida scrub sat the most magical, out of place pond I have ever seen. Minnie took a couple dips even as I urged her not to. First as an impulse of living in gator country for the past 5 months, and also as I did not want her to muddy up these beautiful waters. A few more moments of basking in this beauty before it was time to move.

We encountered an armadillo that Minnie chased off the trail. I had to holler and she finally gave up chase. I spent the next 10 minutes not being able to remember the name of these damned armored opossums. I had aardvark, which I knew was wrong, and I had amarillo, the Spanish word for yellow in my head. So close, yet so far.

When I finally solved the armadillo mystery I found myself at an obstacle I did not want to cross. The road had a lake in the middle of it with a wide enough inlet and outlet that I would be getting my feet wet to pass. Armed with a map I knew of an alternate route assuming that one wasn't flooded. As I stood there weighing my options I felt a bug on my leg so I swatted at it. It was still there so I took a closer look.

Shit! A tick!

An even closer inspection found a white dot in the middle of its back. I know this little fucker from his mugshot on line. He's a lone star tick, and he isn't known to give you Lyme disease. No, he gives you a red meat allergy. What's worse? This guy has friends. Lots of friends! I flick a few more off as I not only curse in my head, but I become vocal. Almost all come off with a hit, but two have already started feasting.

I have a tick key. A key chain attachment that easily removes ticks fully intact. I had become lazy about carrying it on runs and today I pay for it. I remembered a trick of using baby oil to drown the tick so it has to release its bite for survival. I didn't have baby oil, but I made a dam with my hand and spit water in to drown the damn lone star piece of shit. It seemed to work. Ten seconds of drowning and the tick wiped away. I tried the same trick with number two and another success!

We closed out our run and now it was time for a chance to play where does Minnie have ticks! Any guesses?? Yes, correct! Everywhere!!! I started pulling these things out of between toes, behind pads, under collar, by every joint on her legs, and even her armpits! What a nightmare. I can't help but get phantom itches and have to scratch my legs as I type this.

I was pissed at these woods. Goethe State Forest had let me down and I wanted to just get away... But it was going to be a clear night for some after hours photography. Dammit, as much as I wanted to leave in protest, I decided to bum around for the night Goethe... But I'm hiding out in the van as much as possible.

I found a dirt road called Wolf Run and pulled down looking for an out of the way place to set up for the night. With much consideration given to not having to call for a tow the next morning, I landed on just parking in an intersection. I left enough room for vehicles to pass, but kind of went on the assumption this road didn't see much night use. I saw one vehicle before I slept, and the GoPro did not show any headlights throughout the night.

I even hopped out to do some shots with the Nikon. I found either a couple sly ticks that avoided earlier capture, or maybe they came in while I was doing my photography thing. I murdered the ones I could find and left their bodies on the running board for any piece of shit ticks brave enough to enter the 'Van of Tick Death'.

I beelined for a Walmart the next morning to stock up on tick murdering chemicals to add to my arsenal. I'm willing to acquiesce that I caught Goethe State Forest on a bad part of the season, but I kind of feel like that first experience may have been bad enough to convince me to drive on by next time. (Not that I drive by all that often. So even though the ticks were pretty small, they dominated the day. I'm pretty happy with the pictures I captured, and the spring fed pond helped keep the run from feeling like a total failure. Also, as I write this, it is May 1st and Jeff will be leaving work for the last time today. Godspeed in retirement Jeff, may you never trick anyone into venturing into tick infested forests again!

Adam Eckberg 3/3/19 Adam Eckberg 3/3/19

The Great American Eclipse Part One

Overview, Trip prep, Day 1 and 2

This is the story of my journey, in an old rusty van outfitted to a camper, to see the Great American Eclipse of 2017. It has been broken up into 4 parts. It was a very important trip for me, and I believe it will be just as entertaining to read about. I hope you enjoy.

Being that one of my interests is celestial objects, I can't believe the Great American Eclipse almost snuck me by. A few months before the eclipse I was listening to a podcast of photographers discussing their plans to photograph the eclipse when it hit me. The seed of van life had already been planted, and I had plenty of vacation time at work not allocated to anything else so why the hell not? I was going somewhere to take pictures of the eclipse!

This story falls into the category of it's about the journey, not the destination. The eclipse was absolutely incredible. The silence, eerie darkness, and the temperature drop that fell over the entire crowd of thousands of people was a unique moment in my life. So even though the eclipse was the cherry, it’s not the cherry on top without an ice cream sundae. So let’s eat.

I spent months researching where to watch the eclipse. A mix of looking at the eclipse path map and looking up landmarks along that path. I went back and forth more times than I care to try to remember. I would pick a spot, research it, rule it out and a week later find myself looking into it once again. One location I kept coming back to was Hopkinsville, KY. It was the point of longest totality. Totality is the point when the moon is perfectly blocking out the sun and it is safe to look at with naked eyes. Going from memory I think it ranged from 40 seconds in some locations, and up to 2 minutes and 40 seconds around Hopkinsville. Hopkinsville was calling itself Eclipseville. Many of my searches circled around landmarks, or unique interesting locations. Some of my candidates were places such as Shawnee National Forest and Land Between The Lakes Rec. Area. (Both places that I included on the trip after researching them.) I was looking for somewhere isolated in nature to view it. Where I landed was far from that, but in hindsight, I think far better.

I kept finding myself drawn to the Kelly Little Green Men Days (KLGM Days). It's a festival every August that celebrates an encounter a family had in Kelly, a small town just north of Hopkinsville. I’ll graze the surface here for you, but much more bettererly written articles can be found on the web.

On the evening of August 21st 1955 a man fetching water from a well saw a streak of light in the sky. He returned to the house and reported the sighting. Then things got interesting. The house and its 11 occupants came under attack of 12-15 goblins surrounding the house and peering in the windows. A gun battle ensued with many shots being fired through the windows and doors.

Here’s a link to a great podcast on the subject for inquiring minds.

Long story short, this sounded too good to miss. Especially since the eclipse fell on the anniversary of the sighting and encounter What are the odds?. The festival was even giving away a used Mitsubishi Eclipse. This thing checked a lot the boxes for a fun time.

Serpent Mound from the Observation Tower

I am not one to waste time, and during my tenure on third shift, always leveraged the odd schedule in my favor. So I finished up work for the week at 6AM Friday morning, packed up the van, and hit the road by ten. I had stops along the route planned and number one was the serpent mound in southern Ohio. I had heard of this site from the television show 'Ancient Aliens'. While I'm pretty sure it's not an alien structure, it is a very intriguing and stunning landscape. It's one of those spots that pictures don't do justice. Sure a picture can encapsulate the entire mound, but being there to walk the perimeter helps with understanding the size and magnitude of this place. The body of the snake also has several astrological alignments. The curves of the body align with the sunrise on both of the solstices and equinoxes, and the mouth of the snake is aligned with the sunset of the summer solstice.

In the photo from the observation tower, the first big swoop seen on the left is the winter solstice sunrise. Next, on the right bottom of the picture is the equinox sunrise alignment. (Both spring and fall.) Just above that is the summer solstice sunrise. Lastly, disappearing into the trees on the right is the head of the snake and the egg shape it appears to be eating.

I left the mounds before sunset with the sleeplessness of an entire night of work and day of driving catching up with me. I stopped at a southern Ohio gas station, plopped into the back of my van, and gifted my tired brain a quick power nap before it was time to drive on. In my rush to hit the road, I subconsciously opted out of a shower at home. I did a quick planet fitness search and found one in La Grange, KY. I caught a shower before they closed up for the night. Even though it was already late, my plan was to push through Louisville and then shoot up into Indiana to find a place to park and sleep in the Hoosier National Forest.

Louisville at midnight was a traffic jam, which is normally no fun, but in Louisville it affords you an extra long look at two beautifully illuminated bridges.

My Campsite in the Hoosier National Forest on Patoka Lake.

When I arrived in the Hoosier National Forest, being dark, I didn’t get a good of a view of anything, but glassy Patoka Lake was more than welcoming. She offered me an amazing place to park on a tiny peninsula off the main road. Still to this day one of my favorite campsites. I don't even need to say much more about it as the picture says it all.

I woke up twice the next morning, once with the sun and quickly realized the previous day was far too long for that. The second time I woke up I made a cup of coffee and found a nearby horse trail to stretch my legs on. The trail circled a small lake and followed an old buffalo trace for a bit. Of the 10 miles I did that day, the first 4 were amazing. After that I came up behind a trio of horseback riders. I announced myself and they found a good spot for me to pass. One of the ladies even offered me a branch she was holding in front of her face to catch the spiderwebs. What a crazy lady I thought, a woman who definitely doesn't belong in the woods I thought. I mean, I hadn't ran into a single web the entire run.

I'm sure everyone reading has figured out already what I was very slow to learn. Adam, you haven't had any spiderwebs because the horses had already cleared them. Well I returned the favor to those poor horses over the course of the next 6 miles. I ran into more webs in those 6 miles than all other trail miles combined I think. It was unbelievable, I am talking like a thousand webs. As much as I tried to clean myself up, I spent the next 3 hours removing webs as I drove almost directly south towards my eclipse destination.

Hopkinsville