March 18 – 20, 2011 We dry-camp at Phipps Park…

Phipps Park is a pleasant county campground near Stuart with no water or electric hook-ups. This is called dry camping, as we have to rely on our onboard battery power, water and waste tanks.

A couple of Sand Cranes visit us at Phipps Park.

But it is a bit ironic to call it dry. There is water everywhere in Florida, especially in this park; and the park itself is next door to the St. Lucie Locks on the Intracostal Waterway. (The Intracoastal Waterway runs from Brownsville TX through the lower-middle of Florida and up the east coast to about New Jersey, 3000 miles. Much of the route is protected by barrier islands, making for safer boat travel.)

Florida has so much water at one time they felt they had to drain it to cut down on flooding, improve commerce and recreation, and develop land. This caused areas to dry up with great damage to the environment. The Corp of Engineers is in the process of reestablishing many of these old wetlands. (For an entertaining take on land development in South Florida, read any one of the novels of Carl Hiaasen.)

Ah-hah moment: Realizing that southern Florida, from approximately Fort Myers in the west to just north of Palm Beach in the east, is a manmade island. This is because the Intracoastal Waterway follows the natural path of the Caloosahatchee River from Fort Meyers on the Gulf to Lake Okeechobee, and then follows a manmade canal and lock system to Stuart on the Atlantic. This whole system today provides water for large communities like Miami, reduces flooding, and provides a shortcut for barges and small boats traveling between the Gulf and the Atlantic.

Florida is flat, but there are exceptions besides Mount Dora’s 184 foot peak. On our drive south to Phipps we approach the edges of greater Miami, encountering the heavier traffic that is the curse of all population centers. We also pass two manmade mountains, rising before our eyes.

We would call these landfills back home, where we find some canyon to fill with our trash. But here these aren’t really landfills; they are more like piles. Huge piles of graded and compacted trash with hundreds of scavenger birds flying overhead. One we see is right next to a lake and I have to believe these is seepage to the lake.