After making a drawing of Horseshoe Beach on the west coast of Florida I drove out to a parking area overlooking the Gulf of “America” to watch the setting sun. It was clear and bright and there was the vague possibility of seeing the green flash. As a sailor I’ve seen it before, but it doesn't get old. If you want to see the green flash I can tell you the best place to go is the middle of the Indian Ocean somewhere between the Persian Gulf and Australia. I know that’s a lot to ask.

Typically around here as the sun approaches the horizon you’ll find there is a very low layer of clouds that obscures the final moments of the setting sun. Another tip I can give you is to use binoculars. I’m not sure of the optics involved, but with the help of binoculars you can even catch that flash of chrome green swimming around the upper limb of the sun as it dips behind the last cloud.

When I arrived there were a couple of young fishermen dancing around on the rip rap casting into the water that was rushing around the point. There was also a pair fishing from a kayak. The young men were having a little luck, but I never saw the kayakers hook up. 

Then a mother drove up and unloaded three kids on bikes, one still with training wheels. They were clearly having fun racing their bikes around as Mom settled in to watch the sunset. Then another couple arrived with a German Shepherd and a couple of cold beers. Nobody seemed too disappointed when those all but invisible clouds on the horizon ended the show. It wasn’t a Key West ritual, but I’m guessing that people show up here on days like this often and I enjoyed it. The German Shepherd made Dolly a little nervous.

I had passed a picnic area on the road that ended at Horseshoe Beach and planned to read the historical marker placed there later. And spend the night. When we got there Dolly was attracted to a rank little pot of water and I had to keep pulling her back from exploring it. Who knew what might jump out and give her a little nip. She'd be tasty gator bait. I wandered over to check the historical marker which someone had broken off its stand. 

It read, “The Jackson Water Hole.” It turned out that this road was Andrew Jackson’s route to the sea during the Second Seminole War. He stopped here at this marginal spring hole. Fresh water was hard to come by in Florida — it still is. During the Monroe presidency, with a wink and a nod from the Commander in Chief Jackson had invaded Florida, then a Spanish possession, with a military force driving the Seminoles and groups of runaway slaves before him, killing as many as he could and burning their villages. A few years later the Spanish ceded Florida to the expanding U.S. Empire. Our destiny had manifested itself right here at my campsite.

Florida seems to be a place where enterprise, greed, and rebranding go hand in hand. An earlier stop I made had been in a town once known as Boggy, on the Boggy Bayou. Lumber operators came to Boggy and set up a sawmill, a shingle mill, and a turpentine distillery but found it difficult to attract sawyers, millwrights, and distillers to do the work so they changed the name Boggy to Niceville. And?  I’ve got to say that with modern chemicals to control pests, A.C., and the defeat of malaria, it's pretty Nice in Niceville.

So real estate hustlers armed with euphemisms have been selling off Florida’s swamp as “Sunshine Acres” to cold and gullible Mainers ever since. Give us a fruity drink with a paper umbrella and a lot  large enough to stretch out on our lawn chair and we’re sold.

Sales have gotten harder and the sales pitches are more sophisticated. Now they give us our first taste as kids with a nonstop flight from Bangor to visit the Mouse. Then, keep us coming with wrap-around golf courses and no state income taxes for our golden years. They keep spending millions to re-sand the beaches after every storm, but I guess it’s worth it. And of course you’re not allowed to say the words climate and change in the same sentence or property values might drop. Don’t slow down the economy by worrying folks that they may not be able to get insurance against the occasional hurricane or that there might be a teensy weensy shortage of fresh water to keep the fairways green — they can paint them if necessary. There’s always a work-around.

It was just a stone’s skip away from the Florida Panhandle, in Mobile Bay, that somebody said, “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead”. They heard it over in Florida. So let’s go, keep building. The more the merrier. Grab that fruity drink, stretch out on your lawn chair, and watch the sunset. The sun will set, even if there are a few clouds on the horizon.

I decided before I left the state that I ought to go see Alligator Alcatraz, but first I had to figure out what it was called in official lingo so I could put it into the GPS, my faithful guide. It’s the Dade Collier Training and Transition Airport -TNT for short. Just to show you how out of step and maybe out of my league I am in Florida, when I reached the western end of the Tamiami Trail I didn’t need any acronyms. Florida knew they had a winner with a name like Alligator Alcatraz. The DOT sign said “Alligator Alcatraz 41 miles” that-a-way. It’s a theme park waiting to happen.

This morning I heard that the Feds had fired 40% of FEMA workers, but Florida will get its $600,000,000 FEMA grant for Alligator Alcatraz.

I can only imagine how exciting the rides are going to be. In Florida. the home of Sunshine Vitamin D, give them a lemon and they know how to make lemonade. 

Clouds on the horizon? Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead.

PS Since I first wrote this I’ve read that the Feds are reneging on the promised FEMA money and Florida is going to have to foot the bill. Who to feel sorry for?