Bait, Beer and Breakfast Biscuits

State Road 24 in North Florida.

We bought bait, beer and breakfast biscuits, alligator meat was sold by the pound and they had homemade jams.

This is 'the south'.

I had flown into JAX the night before from Madrid. Jetlagged and groggy, the morning's fishing came early. Southeast out of Gainesville down southern highways in the cool North Florida morning with a too-small-for-the-gulf fishing boat in tow. Between plantations of quick-grow Georgia Pines, majestic oaks bearded with spanish moss reminded me I was no longer in Castilla. Out here, off the interstate grid, the sameness of what lies off the grid thankfully remains...different. Deep drainage ditches border the highway and culverts wait for the heavy rains and the odd alligator. Enormous pick up trucks and boat trailers parked in every other driveway with the odd satellite dish rusting like garden gnomes on the front lawns.

We had got an early start but a pitstop had to be made.

The town of Archer passes by, a traffic light, a lonely boarded up Mexican restaurant and a beat looking used car lot. These roads out here still wait for passing trains. Warehouse looking churches dot the landscape letting you know that they know Christ and are making him known more aggresively than their competitors. Outdoor marquee letters tweet their messages of salvation and gardening style wisdom amisdt a flutter of stars and stripes.

Next comes Bronson where an Ace Hardware, local restaurant, package liquor store and chain gas station signify a town at the crossroads. Off the interstate, small, family-run businesses still make a go of it. Too far off the grid to interest McDonalds but just busy enough for these peeling businesses to keep afloat. The town of Bronson lets you know you've left with a colorful carved sign nestled in the tall pines and the flat road rolls on till the next crossroads.

Otter Creek is a major crossroads across 4-lane highway 98 and there I see the marquee:

BREAKFAST LUNCH D NN R
CIGARETTES
BAIT BEER PERMITS
WORMS

Hand painted on the side of the building under the corrugated tin roof.

Smoked Mullet Live Shrimp Boiled Peanuts Deer Corn and Hunting Supplies

This is the stop.

Hershel's Quick Stop...what North America looked like before the franchise explosion.

Homemade, just greasy enough Breakfast Biscuits with sausage to chase away the side effects of chasing the sun across the Atlantic.

Live shrimp, worms and enough beer to keep hydrated.

Ready to fish.

Out through the mangroves and into the open gulf in a tiny tin boat designed for lakes.

The speckled trout started biting.

It was a good day.

Raising a Different Glass in Roads and Kingdoms: It's 5 O'Clock Somewhere

The scene of the crime

I had narrowly avoided massacring a dozen newly hatched chicks in a box, whose chirping had accompanied us up from Qax. Stumbling backwards as the rusted-out Soviet-era bus corkscrewed us deeper into the Caucasus, I instead tumbled into the lap of heavily mustached Georgian-speaking shepherd. He didn’t smile...

Writing in Roads and Kingdoms 5 O'Clock Somewhere series...drinks around the world.



The first time we went up in the summer, wild camping below the range that leads to Daghastan, Russia and beyond. Few tourists leave the folds of Baku in Azerbaijan and those that do escape, even fewer go beyond Shaki. Up here the stiff divisions drawn by the Soviets in Moscow blur and the frontiers that the locals carry in the hearts blend into each other.

We stopped in Qax on the way up and then up to Ilisu. Georgian churches mix with Azeri mosques up here. The world of Ali and Nino, a place where divisions are less defined. 

The valley was alive with the fruits of the waning summer and the honey we found, delicious. Lamb is king in these valleys and simple chick pea stews with lamb fill the few menus you can find. 

Vowing to return after the snows had cleared we returned. A welcome party was waiting until the rising sun killed off the morning chill. Tea is served...and once again. 

The winter snows were still high up but the valley was green. Parts of the river surged with snowmelt and some of the bridges bore the scars of the brunt.

The editor prefered a trimmed ending to the original version which read like this.

Our tea glasses were filled to the brim and a toast raised. “To Allah”, my host exclaimed as he motioned to me to drain my glass. By the fourth or fifth toast, I had lost both my balance and my inhibitions and cautiously asked my host about raising a cheers to Allah. The answer was easy he claimed. Mohammed only forbade drinks made of fermented grapes or grains and what we were drinking came from his own honey and potatoes so there was nothing taboo.

As the toasts continued, I was happy that the Iranian and Saudi battle for the Azeri soul remained in their elaborately financed mosques in the bigger centers and that the biggest concerns up along this lost frontier between Azerbaijan and Russia, between Europe and Asia, between East and West was how could I leave home without a photograph of my family and how was it possible that I couldn’t speak Russian. 

Post Academy Life: 5 ways to move beyond teaching at Language Academies in Spain

Open a job search for ESL job openings around the world at any time of the year and a sunny southern corner of Europe is bound to tally the most hits. A place where, if you subscribe to RP pronunciation patterns, the rain falls mainly on the plain. A place I have called home off and on for more than 15 years, Spain...

And thus starts my piece in EFL Magazine. Click over for a look.

The Rain...

Writing in the local paper. Local Issues with a global take. I never translate literally and the editor trims at will to make it fit. Here's my version, then theirs.

The rain here in Caceres always reminds me of the words of fellow Mercedes Calles Premio de Periodismo winner, Juan Manuel de Prada, when he wrote that San Mateo ‘parecía desmigajarse, empapada por el agua’ (the church, watersoaked, began to crumble). His story sang true, the city undergoes a transformative change the few days a year when the rain indeed sets in for a full-day wetting. The warm ochre colors that I fell in love with when I first arrived begin to dim and fade, slowing returning to their natural colour of earth. The arab roof tiles designed to bake in the sun repel the water as best as they can while dark humidity stains spread along the walls. The birds that normally sing and soar above are nowhere to be seen or heard. The distant mountains that can normally be seen from up in the barrio San Antonio blend into a flat grey curtain that falls upon the steppe. I always wonder what the tourists think as they gather their first impressions while scurrying around the old town beneath their umbrellas, jumping over the rivulets that can turn into full-fledged streams running over the rough stone streets when it rains particularly hard. Tracing one of those streams the other day down la Calle Amargura I came across two tourists who were puzzling over one of the new signs that have gone up around the old city. Discreetly stuck to the reconstructed part of the tapia wall, the sign read “Torre de Caleros” but as they peeked from underneath their umbrella there was no tower to be seen. I pointed towards a house on the right side of the street but they didn’t believe me that the ruin they saw was indeed a twelfth century tower that had been converted into a house over the centuries. Seen from street level, it just looked like an abandoned old house. What they couldn’t see was the mostly caved in roof and the half-meter cactus growing next to the leaning chimney. Crossing under the Arco del Cristo and with a view from Caleros, they would have seen Juan’s words sadly come true as the tower and the city’s patrimony slowly crumbles away.

A Fall that Makes Niagara Small

Remember when the National Parks weren't overflowing with motor homes dragging trailers and there wasn't a 6-inch-thick book of rules and regulations to read through before registering for a campsite? Tucked away smack in the middle of the province of British Columbia lies a provincial park that will take your nostalgia away. 540,000 acres of prime bear habitat in the Cariboo Mountains where paddlers can avoid the wakes in North America's largest motor-free body of water. Retreating glaciers surgically carved careening canyons and veering valleys out of coursing lava flows, all of which come complete with picture-postcard waterfalls that run out of see-to-the-bottom lakes. Coming to Canada for the first time? Niagara Falls nothing, the local Helmcken Falls almost triples it by dramatically falling 463 feet out of one of those glacial cuts.

#hiking #wildlife #canyons #outdoors #fishing #glaciers #mountains #nature #lakes #lake #camping #park #waterfalls #kayaking #parks #getaway #canoeing #statepark #waterfall #glacial #bears

Originally published on Trazzler