While my camera cooked...
This area of Florida has had a mixed history. Its crisscrossing, confusing
network of roads suggests that perhaps at one time developers had hoped to
subdivide the landscape into a billion little lots. That plan having failed, the region was mostly
a collection of small-scale pine plantations innervated by decaying, sandy
roads.
It was impossible to know whether to trust GoogleEarth, MapQuest, the road
database in my GPS, or my Florida Gazetteer---they all gave conflicting recommendations.
We selected a promising access to our target lake, and drove until the road
degenerated into unstable sugar sand.
I parked the car with its back in the glaring sun and set my camera in the rear window so it could cook in the sun.
I wanted to drive out any moisture before it could sneak into my camera's circuitry and kill it completely.
Meanwhile, we had discovered that Beth's camera had fitfully sputtered back to minimal functionality--it could take
photographs in a manual mode, although it ate up batteries so rapidly that after a few minutes of use they'd become
painfully hot to the touch. Still, that was better than nothing!
After a mere 45 minute hike we reached the lake, and found Drosera filiformis almost
immediately (see above). It was a small site, with dense and wonderful
swaths of dazzling red plants.
