February Weekend
Short Story

Its February, three months since our last trip to camp. Time to check on the place and see what else is going on out in the Swamp.
Let me update you on the progress of the BICY's new cabin at Camp Calusa. It turns out that I was wrong. BICY is not rebuilding Calvin's old kitchen, they are building a complete new one. A dandy its going to be, It looks like it is about 16 ft wide and about 50 ft long. Big enough to hold square dances on Saturday night. Click here for another view of it. They are using plastic decking on the pavilion part of it and pressure treated wood on what looks like will become the closed in part with appliances in it. This is shaping up to more then just a out back camp, its beginning to look like they are expecting to have large groups of visitors. It looks like I will be updating you on the progress, longer then I expected.

  New Cabin, BICY starting to build kitchen
New Cabin finished, starting to build kitchen
Hardened Trail Update

Hardened Road Before Use
Bottom End of Hardened Trail - New Road before one Season of use
Upper End of Hardened Trail - New

 

 


 
 

 

 

Hardened Road after one Wet Season
Bottom End of Hardened Trail - After One Season
Upper End after one Wet Season
Upper End of Hardened Trail - After One Season

As you can see in the before and after pictures the Hardened
Trails are not holding up very well. The before and after
pictures are taken in about the same location. The bottom
end trail is full of holes and the rock is just about gone.
The Upper end of the trail is holding up better, but you can
see the geotek material is exposed and will not last to long.


The saving grace in this is the hardened trail will have to be repaired before BICY can haul more rock on it to extend the trail. Once they are done improving the existing trails though, one would have to wonder how much maintenance money will be available and spent on maintaining them. Here are a few more pictures showing damage, 1, 2.

Well, before I close the weekend story, I have a gator picture for you all. Its starting to dry up and the gators are moving to find water and just around the corner in Spring, they will starting wandering around feeling in an amorous mood. This gator and another smaller buddy of his is sharing a small pond near our camp. I don't think that's going to last very long, the little guy had better be moving on.

  Pond Gator
Gator trying to look bigger then he is!
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Story by Steve - February, 2003