A Turn to Tennessee, A Fiery Gizzard in the Rain

Imagine being the first autumn leaf at the bottom of these falls.












ttttennesssseee parks I visited last weekend, for the second time - Red Clay Council Ground in April was the first, the last gathering place for the Cherokee before the Trail of Tears was begun - and it was raining but that didn't stop me. I was standing in North Chickamauga River in a gorge with fog covering the peaks above and the water was warm.











Faith is a flat-iron in the valley rain. Hope is a blow dryer. Loneliness is a soggy daisy in Soddy-Daisy. And contentment is this spider on its riverside rock.








After this I was led up Monteagle Mountain, the truckers' favorite hill to hate, and at the top a mountain man suggested this white-dressed witchy woman wander to Grundy Forest and the Fiery Gizzard. One of the South Cumberland Plateau State Parks between Chattanooga and Nashville, on Scenic Hwy 41, it was like a mist tent going down the trail to the creek but I wasn't the only one out here in the rain.











Some waterfalls.....
Dog Hole (or Blue Hole)
















School Run























Foster Falls




and thennn....

Georgia SaveMyStateParks Day is Sept 26

This Saturrrday, September 26, all Georgia State Parks are free admission! Visit them and support them amid funding cuts and keep them from having to be closed!
Visit www.savemystateparks.org for more info.

If you live in Atlanta, magnificent Sweetwater Creek park is to the west (assuming it's open considering this creek flooded last weekend). Red Top and Etowah Indian Mounds are to the northwest, by Lake Allatoona and Cartersville. Panola Mountain is to the southeast between Lithonia and Stockbridge.
(see below for photos and more about these)

I plan to be at Cloudland Canyon and its wild waterfall this weekend - it's on Lookout Mtn. near Chattanooga.

Find your home, in the limestone

I DREAMT I DWELT IN LIMESTONE HALLS

Beside the swimming area at Wakulla Springs, the limestone floor drops to over one hundred feet below the surface.
And, for those divers who have seen these depth and not drowned, there is a cave that connects to the gulf, below the Wakulla River and below the old fort San Marcos de Apalache, below the soft earth along each side that holds WalMart and several country homes, and the river's two spooky bridges.



Some of the fish that have lived here have followed the current from as far as South Florida and the Keys, it's been Sead.











And of course, manatees like the underwater caves too.
"come to the surface, I'm dreaming of you."















About a hundred miles Northwest is Florida's only aboveground cavern open to the public, Florida Caverns State Park along the Chipola River near one of its hiding places, where this river had risen years ago and created bluffs, recalling the days of yore when most of Florida was still underwater and these caverns were along the shore.






MY LUCK the cavern tour was closed when I was there, but I still got to witness this exciting combination, the paradox where palmettos cover walls of rocks...













just beyond here is where the sweet Chipola burrows underground for a few miles.











dream on,
Arianna

Florida Springs, Part 2: The (sur)Real Florida

There's a voice that says "just let yourself be..."
Is it a lady or is it a manatee?
You'll have to come down to the spring and see.







Mimimolotov the mullet seems to disagree:
"There's people up there and I have to jump up and see,
and never mind the fishermen down at Steinhatchee."
(but it does sound like an exciting industry)




There are places where the humans don't really get to go
and that's ok with us as long as they know
sometimes we do have to remind them, though
(and sometimes they have to build fences to make sure no boats try to slip through)







my country home,
my lovely, never lonely,
Black Lagoon











where algae and branches are walkways
over floors I don't even know how deep












All photos at Wakulla Springs State Park (Wakulla, FL)
except #2 of the mullet at Manatee Springs
and the above photo is at Sally Ward Spring inside Wakulla Park.

Florida Springs, part 1

Florida is a quagmire.

(in more than one sense)

A watery, swampy semitropical land with wild variations of plant and animal life, some undeveloped and seemingly undevelopable, yet somehow overdeveloped in the names of Tourism and the Conquest of Paradise.
Aside from beaches (and family), Florida seemed not so interesting to me when I was young, because what I got to see was mostly theme parks and tourist attractions. Entering adulthood, and leaving a horrible high-school Disney trip, I'd never been to the "Real Florida" - as the Florida State Park system slogan goes - and so in 2006, I decided to move there!
I lived for a spring and summer on the Gulf Coast, along the panhandle by Panama City in a pastoral one-stoplight town. Every day nature passed me an element of inspiration. Oyster shells clanking, cypress reflecting, sitting tranquil over waters unsafe for swimming humans.

In summer 2009, I return again...

FLORIDA'S SPRINGS
www.floridasprings.org

There are hundreds of natural springs in Florida, mostly along the Gulf side where groundwater meets limestone and sinkholes and underwater caves form.
I visited, and swam in, several: Fanning, Manatee, Wekiwa, Wakulla.
The smell of living creatures in the clear water, the yellows, blues, and greens - are a sensual Fountain of Youth that can not, and will not, allow itself to be paved over.


Photos 1-3 are from Manatee Springs near Chiefland, FL, and the photo on the right is from Wekiwa, on the edge of Orlando.

Sweet (water) Dreams in Sour Times - Georgia and Florida State Parks, Vol 2

there are places so close to the clank of the city and it feels like you're hours away, and the water flows fast and loud over a cusp of limestone you forgot was there, and it fills you with its peaceful and primal energy at a time when you're stuck in the muck of a slow sad summer.
Sweet(water) dreams are made of this.





(Lindsey sits on a rock below the mill ruin)








Sweetwater Creek State Park is a large park,
so it's easy to find a place for yourself, even along the river at its rapids. Several others have already written about this place from a historical perspective, and the story of the Mill and its destruction in the Civil War, and its skeletal ruin, is central to the park's notoriety. It is understood why the mill and its industry were here in the first place - the same wild energy that empowers ____ at so many waterfalls...

... and the in-between-ness of the Brevard Fault that it crosses. The same that crosses Nickajack Creek at Ruff's Mill near Concord Rd. in Cobb County and probably Buford Dam on the Chattahoochee at Lake Lanier and Tallulah Gorge ninety miles northeast!

...not to mention a large lake just above the mill and rapids, and a forest full of wildlife, a mix of North Georgia and the Piedmont. I found some deer to be helpful guides when nearly lost on my first trip this month, while cute frogs and toads found Eelnyl, Linds, and I picnicking on the rocks this past weekend.


Both trips, I arrived melancholy, and left wired and inspired.


(and splattering my friends with Jungian slips about Rising Fawns and such, like a Pollock painting)


for more info on Sweetwater Creek State Park, Lithia Springs, GA:
http://www.gastateparks.org/net/content/go.aspx?s=80.0.0.5




-Arianna, R. F.

Georgia and Florida State Parks - part 1

Georgia and Florida State Parks - part 1 I am now an unofficial spokesperson for the Georgia State Parks and Florida State Parks, and will show the splendor and beauty of these amazing places through photo and video I have taken over the past year. Enjoy the wonders that nature has provided us, and travel safely and with an open mind and heart! Arianna ETOWAH INDIAN MOUNDS HISTORIC SITE, CARTERSVILLE, GA. One of several communities in Georgia where the Mississipian moundbuilding culture once thrived, prior to European settlement. Panola Mountain State Park in nearby Stockbridge/Lithonia, GA. Suburban development has been happening all around this pretty little spot just southeast of Atlanta. There is a granite outcrop similar to Stone Mountain and Arabia Mountain, as well as a preserved woodland area with many Piedmont-native plants, including some once-burnt pine trees. (photo: Billy Gilbert) Cloudland Canyon State Park, Rising Fawn, GA. This is the first waterfall at the bottom of the canyon. I was here at Sunset and it was a spiritual experience. The park is on the Tennessee Valley side of Lookout Moutain, which is a long ridge going from Chattanooga, through Georgia, into Alabama. Rock outcroppings here are shades of reds and greys over two creeks that join to create a canyon 1000 feet deep. TALLULAH GORGE SP, Tallulah Falls, GA Another amazing canyon, this one is more well-known and right beside a major road to North Carolina in the NE corner of the state. It used to be several waterfalls until Georgia Power dammed the Tallulah River, but still totally beautiful! VOGEL State Park, between Blood Mountain and Blairsville, GA Lake TRAHLYTA, the main feature of this park, is named for the woman who lived and bathed on the other side of the mountain (actually in a spring on the next mountain), but who cares when you're now in the company of Sidney Lanier and Nancy Hart? AMICALOLA FALLS SP, between Dawsonville and Dahlonega, GA I visited Georgia's tallest waterfall the same day as Vogel, and I would describe this place as a total release of energies. water comes through rock in shapes that reflect emotion, this one a microcosm of the moment. FORT MOUNTAIN STATE PARK, near Chatsworth, GA a curious wall of stones meanders for almost 1000 feet near the top of this mountain, which you get to on a road that rises about 1000 feet in 8 miles from the valley. the wall of stones was built more than 1000 years ago... PROVIDENCE CANYON and FLORENCE MARINA, in the lower Chattahoochee Valley south of Columbus, GA "white chalk sat against time" -PJ Harvey All photos by Arianna Sykes unless otherwise noted!!! more coming soon...