Liquor and smoking
The trip starts with me driving in Osceola National Forest in a cheap rental car, with about $250 of beer, wine, and other
liquor in my trunk.
You see, I was in Florida to participate in a multi-day scientific meeting with many peers, and I was responsible for buying the
alcoholic beverages. I drove carefully, as I envisioned the complicated conversations that would result if I were stopped by Floridian
police and they looked in my trunk.
The white bands on the trees indicate nesting sites for
red-cockaded woodpeckers (Picoides borealis), a Federally Endangered bird that the US Fish and Wildlife
Service estimates has been reduced to about 1% of its original range.
I saw a few fire crew in Nomex (fire-retardant) clothing walking in the smoky woods.
One was a Forest Service biologist, and since the fire was nearly out and I was trained in prescribed burns, he let me
wander around the burn unit.
