After an overnight in Roissy and another (coupled with breakfast with a friend) in Washington DC, I was back in Florida, this time Orlando.
The trip back had gone relatively smoothly: the TGV to Paris was on time as was the flight to DC. At Dulles there had been a bit of a hiccup: while waiting for my checked luggage, residue of the boar sausage in my packed lunch attracted the attention of a cocker spaniel who just happened to be an officer with the Department of Agriculture; after a quick look through the rest of my backpack I was allowed to continue on my way.
The plan was to spend a few days with my friend Nebraska*, catching up with her and doing some housekeeping items. But I was in for a treat: my tales of orienteering (land navigation with a topo map and wet compass) had caught her son’s interest (ROTC cadet who will henceforth be referred to as ‘the Pup’), and as luck would have it, there was a permanent course near her home. So one morning we dug my compasses out of my bag, downloaded and printed the maps**, and drove to the local park where the permanent markers were hosted. Once there, I provided a quick tutorial (map symbols, what the markers might look like) in the shade of some mossy oak trees; and then we were off. The first control was a quick find on the other side of a wide field; the next one was a bit more tricky, tucked in a hollow behind a stand of palmettos. Her son took to the sport right away and we soon fell into the pattern of him leading the way and finding the controls (with an occasional assist from this old goat) with Nebraska and me lingering behind, catching up with what we’d been doing since my visit on the outbound leg. After stalling at the fifth control (we mistook one road for another) we quickly recovered, making near straight approaches to each of the final three markers***.
But our fun was not over.
Once back at my truck, Nebraska checked her messages and found one she needed to follow up on.
So while she returned her call from the shotgun seat and the Pup explored some nearby exhibits, I sat in the driver’s seat and sipped from my lukewarm bottle of water. The wildlife around us was active: an armadillo exploring the base of a nearby tree, some squirrels quarreling among the branches above, and a herd of heron-like birds strutting along the road. While I did find the birds interesting, my attention focused on the squirrels, and soon I was reminiscing on all the fun times I had watched my late dog Chewie ‘play’ with squirrels.
“Hey!” Nebraska was shooing something out of the car, one of the birds, a large, cheeky, scarlet capped fellow who had wandered up to the open door and poked his head into the cabin. Chastised, he came round to my side of the truck to see what I was up to. After giving me a long hopeful look and the door behind me a few exploratory pecks (there are beak dents to remember the day) he abandoned us to interact with a pair of females nearby.
“Is that a Sand Hill Crane?” Nebraska asked once she had finished her call. Glory of the smart phone, we quickly verified ‘yes’. “Oh my God!” It turns out that during her childhood in (you guessed it) Nebraska, and every winter her parents (both university professors) would bundle her and her siblings up for a drive to the Sandhills, a series of grass-stabilized sand dunes between I-80 and the Pine Ridge Reservation. Once there, they would huddle in the cold with binocs, scanning the hills for a glimpse of the Sandhill Cranes as they stopped over during their migration. She couldn’t wait to relay to her siblings that here in Florida they came right up to the car asking for a snack.
Alas, our time together quickly came to an end, and I was soon on the road again, beginning my final (at least for this trip) trek west.
* Names have been changed to protect the innocent.
** High-quality map available via the ‘Permeant Course link here: http://www.floridaorienteering.org
*** You can learn more about orienteering here: https://orienteeringusa.org and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orienteering