Big Thicket contains at least ten distinct ecosystems, each driven primarily by how much drainage and flooding is present. The area is a convergence of Western, Southeastern, and Eastern biomes:
I ran one of the trails that passes through a Cypress slough:
The park also preserves the nearby homestead of LBJ’s grandparents:
I drove over to Johnson City’s library to use their WiFi (my 2GB per month data plan is proving inadequate for this unplanned trip). At closing, I asked for permission to overnight in the parking lot. See the trip map for today’s drive.
The original plan was that Trish would fly back today from Tallahassee this morning and then I would drive back to New York over the next few days. I realized a couple days ago that the big Salton City and Glamis Fly-In is coming up next week and I’m already 600 miles closer to California than I would be in New York. If so, what’s another 2,400 miles, right? Trish green-lighted the trip and so this morning, saying goodbye to Trish at the airport, I headed west instead of north.
British forces lost thousands of troops as they repeatedly threw themselves from right to left against the US fortifications built atop the berm to the left of the ditch:
The other end of the US defensive position, looking back towards the visitor center. The British attacked from left to right here:
The forest is named after Cebe Tate. The legend is as follows:
In the spring of 1875, Cebe got married to a mail order bride from New York City. She was a fiery German Immigrant. But there was a problem, Cebe only had pigs, and she was of the Jewish Faith. She ate corn, potatoes, and pancakes with molasses, but she wanted beef. Cebe took off into the woods to find a cow, any cow, to quiet his bride.
Armed with a shotgun and accompanied by his hunting dogs, he journeyed into the swamp in search of a cow. His dogs took off chasing a panther, and he lost his gun in the mud. Tate was lost in the swamp for seven days and nights. He went into the Dwarf Cypress stand to escape the relentless bugs, and fell asleep against a tree. He awoke when bitten by a snake and ran blindly thru the swamp, delirious from the bite and from drinking the murky waters. Finally he came to a clearing near Carrabelle, living only long enough to murmur the words, “My name is Cebe Tate, and I just came through Hell!”
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