#seven seas daytona beach

[greatevent89]

Seven Seas Resort Daytona Beach

Welcome to Seven Seas Resort Daytona Beach: Your Ultimate Beachside Getaway

Discover the sun-soaked charm of Seven Seas Resort Daytona Beach, located in the vibrant Daytona Beach Shores. Our resort is your ideal choice for a relaxing and fun-filled stay in Florida.

[kammartinez]

By Bill McKibben

Of all the astonishing facts about our blithe remaking of the world’s climate system, the most astonishing might be this: if oceans didn’t cover seventy per cent of our planet, we would have increased the average temperature to about a hundred and twenty-two degrees Fahrenheit. That’s because those oceans have absorbed something like ninety-three per cent of the extra heat trapped by the greenhouse effect and our burning of fossil fuels. In the past hundred and fifty years, we’ve made the ocean soak up, on average, the heat equivalent of a Hiroshima-size nuclear bomb every second and a half; in recent years, that’s increased to five or six Hiroshimas a second.

But it’s not like that heat just gets locked away in saltwater storage. The energy in that heat manifests itself in many ways. It melts ice, for instance. It kills coral—experts have suggested that coral may be safer in tanks on land than in the Gulf of Mexico this summer. And it raises the sea level—at the moment, more than a third of sea-level rise is simply due to the fact that seawater expands when it warms. In midsummer, forty-four per cent of the world’s oceans were in a “marine heat wave.” That heat powered Hurricane Idalia until it crashed into Florida’s Apalachee Bay, a stretch of land that hasn’t been bashed by a major hurricane since recordkeeping began in 1851. Idalia was a tropical storm roughly twenty-four hours earlier, when it passed over Cuba. But the waters of the Gulf of Mexico are incredibly hot. In recent years, we’ve become used to these elevated readings and begun referring to the Gulf as a bathtub; earlier this summer, a buoy in murky, shallow seawater near the Keys registered a temperature above a hundred and one degrees Fahrenheit, a potential new world record. That’s hot-tub hot. Hotter than your blood. You can’t sit in it for too long.

Across the Gulf, water temperatures are averaging two degrees Fahrenheit above normal. And those high temperatures currently extend a hundred feet or more below the surface; this overheated water is the fuel that allows for what hurricane watchers call “rapid intensification,” the almost unbelievable acceleration of whirling winds. In a matter of twelve hours, Idalia passed through Categories 1, 2, and 3 on the Saffir-Simpson Scale, topping out as a Category 4 storm, before it made landfall as a Category 3. (Had it had more time over the open water of the Gulf, it likely would have kept strengthening; a natural cycling process, known as “eyewall replacement,” dropped its winds a notch just before landfall.) As its gales grew fiercer and spread out, it whipped up a ferocious storm surge along this magnificent coast.

And it is indeed magnificent. Cedar Key, an island community just off the coast, is where the most famous TV hurricane guy, Jim Cantore, of the Weather Channel, holed up to broadcast, wading through the storm surge with typical bravado. Normally, it’s a lovely, sleepy little town—the old Florida, far removed from, say, Daytona Beach or Disney’s Orlando. History knows it for two things. One: in 1855, a man named Eberhard Faber bought up many of its cedar forests, and if you recognize that name it’s because he used the wood to produce a great many of the planet’s pencils. Two: in 1867, a not-yet-famous John Muir arrived in Cedar Key toward the end of his “thousand-mile walk to the Gulf,” which had begun in Louisville seven weeks earlier.

Muir, as he walked, was mulling over a series of ideas that became the basis for an important strain of environmentalism, and his thinking reached a literal fever pitch in Cedar Key, where he came down with a bad case of malaria. Raised by a strict Presbyterian father who had forced him to memorize the Bible on pain of whipping, he was well versed in the idea that the world had been made for man. In his now classic text, “A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf,” Muir wrote about this “pleasant plan,” in which “whales are storehouses of oil for us,” hemp was to be used in ships’ rigging, and iron was “made for hammers and ploughs.”

But in the aftermath of his illness, he began to question whether the world had been made for man alone:

During my long sojourn here as a convalescent I used to lie on my back for whole days beneath the ample arms of these great trees, listening to the winds and the birds. There is an extensive shallow on the coast, close by, which the receding tide exposes daily. This is the feeding-ground of thousands of waders of all sizes, plumage, and language, and they make a lively picture and noise when they gather at the great family board to eat their daily bread, so bountifully provided for them.

As he reflected, too, on the voracious gators and spiny plants that he’d encountered as he traversed a very wild Florida, his thinking grew ever more radical, postulating what might be the first modern biocentrism:

Now, it never seems to occur to these far-seeing teachers that Nature’s object in making animals and plants might possibly be first of all the happiness of each one of them, not the creation of all for the happiness of one. Why should man value himself as more than a small part of the one great unit of creation? And what creature of all that the Lord has taken the pains to make is not essential to the completeness of that unit—the cosmos? The universe would be incomplete without man; but it would also be incomplete without the smallest transmicroscopic creature that dwells beyond our conceitful eyes and knowledge.

For Muir, that world view was tonic. He eventually shipped out of Cedar Key on a journey that would take him to Yosemite and to the founding of the Sierra Club, our first great environmental group. Muir was an imperfect man, and his own organization eventually criticized him for holding racist views. But in moments of environmental despair, we, too, might find solace in the idea that

Our own good earth made many a successful journey around the heavens ere man was made, and whole kingdoms of creatures enjoyed existence and returned to dust ere man appeared to claim them. After human beings have also played their part in Creation’s plan, they too may disappear without any general burning or extraordinary commotion whatever.

Of course, “general burning” turns out to be precisely what we’ve done. By digging up millions of years of biology and setting it on fire, in the course of a century or two, we’ve managed to overwhelm the world that Muir saw. We’ve poured heat into the air and especially into the oceans, and now that heat is beginning to dominate life on our planet. We can still back off some: every pipeline we shut down and every solar panel we install contributes to fewer Hiroshima bombs exploding in the seas. But as Florida found out again on Wednesday morning, and the world rediscovered this brutally hot summer, we’ve already shifted our earth in the most fundamental fashion.

[kamreadsandrecs]

By Bill McKibben

Of all the astonishing facts about our blithe remaking of the world’s climate system, the most astonishing might be this: if oceans didn’t cover seventy per cent of our planet, we would have increased the average temperature to about a hundred and twenty-two degrees Fahrenheit. That’s because those oceans have absorbed something like ninety-three per cent of the extra heat trapped by the greenhouse effect and our burning of fossil fuels. In the past hundred and fifty years, we’ve made the ocean soak up, on average, the heat equivalent of a Hiroshima-size nuclear bomb every second and a half; in recent years, that’s increased to five or six Hiroshimas a second.

But it’s not like that heat just gets locked away in saltwater storage. The energy in that heat manifests itself in many ways. It melts ice, for instance. It kills coral—experts have suggested that coral may be safer in tanks on land than in the Gulf of Mexico this summer. And it raises the sea level—at the moment, more than a third of sea-level rise is simply due to the fact that seawater expands when it warms. In midsummer, forty-four per cent of the world’s oceans were in a “marine heat wave.” That heat powered Hurricane Idalia until it crashed into Florida’s Apalachee Bay, a stretch of land that hasn’t been bashed by a major hurricane since recordkeeping began in 1851. Idalia was a tropical storm roughly twenty-four hours earlier, when it passed over Cuba. But the waters of the Gulf of Mexico are incredibly hot. In recent years, we’ve become used to these elevated readings and begun referring to the Gulf as a bathtub; earlier this summer, a buoy in murky, shallow seawater near the Keys registered a temperature above a hundred and one degrees Fahrenheit, a potential new world record. That’s hot-tub hot. Hotter than your blood. You can’t sit in it for too long.

Across the Gulf, water temperatures are averaging two degrees Fahrenheit above normal. And those high temperatures currently extend a hundred feet or more below the surface; this overheated water is the fuel that allows for what hurricane watchers call “rapid intensification,” the almost unbelievable acceleration of whirling winds. In a matter of twelve hours, Idalia passed through Categories 1, 2, and 3 on the Saffir-Simpson Scale, topping out as a Category 4 storm, before it made landfall as a Category 3. (Had it had more time over the open water of the Gulf, it likely would have kept strengthening; a natural cycling process, known as “eyewall replacement,” dropped its winds a notch just before landfall.) As its gales grew fiercer and spread out, it whipped up a ferocious storm surge along this magnificent coast.

And it is indeed magnificent. Cedar Key, an island community just off the coast, is where the most famous TV hurricane guy, Jim Cantore, of the Weather Channel, holed up to broadcast, wading through the storm surge with typical bravado. Normally, it’s a lovely, sleepy little town—the old Florida, far removed from, say, Daytona Beach or Disney’s Orlando. History knows it for two things. One: in 1855, a man named Eberhard Faber bought up many of its cedar forests, and if you recognize that name it’s because he used the wood to produce a great many of the planet’s pencils. Two: in 1867, a not-yet-famous John Muir arrived in Cedar Key toward the end of his “thousand-mile walk to the Gulf,” which had begun in Louisville seven weeks earlier.

Muir, as he walked, was mulling over a series of ideas that became the basis for an important strain of environmentalism, and his thinking reached a literal fever pitch in Cedar Key, where he came down with a bad case of malaria. Raised by a strict Presbyterian father who had forced him to memorize the Bible on pain of whipping, he was well versed in the idea that the world had been made for man. In his now classic text, “A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf,” Muir wrote about this “pleasant plan,” in which “whales are storehouses of oil for us,” hemp was to be used in ships’ rigging, and iron was “made for hammers and ploughs.”

But in the aftermath of his illness, he began to question whether the world had been made for man alone:

During my long sojourn here as a convalescent I used to lie on my back for whole days beneath the ample arms of these great trees, listening to the winds and the birds. There is an extensive shallow on the coast, close by, which the receding tide exposes daily. This is the feeding-ground of thousands of waders of all sizes, plumage, and language, and they make a lively picture and noise when they gather at the great family board to eat their daily bread, so bountifully provided for them.

As he reflected, too, on the voracious gators and spiny plants that he’d encountered as he traversed a very wild Florida, his thinking grew ever more radical, postulating what might be the first modern biocentrism:

Now, it never seems to occur to these far-seeing teachers that Nature’s object in making animals and plants might possibly be first of all the happiness of each one of them, not the creation of all for the happiness of one. Why should man value himself as more than a small part of the one great unit of creation? And what creature of all that the Lord has taken the pains to make is not essential to the completeness of that unit—the cosmos? The universe would be incomplete without man; but it would also be incomplete without the smallest transmicroscopic creature that dwells beyond our conceitful eyes and knowledge.

For Muir, that world view was tonic. He eventually shipped out of Cedar Key on a journey that would take him to Yosemite and to the founding of the Sierra Club, our first great environmental group. Muir was an imperfect man, and his own organization eventually criticized him for holding racist views. But in moments of environmental despair, we, too, might find solace in the idea that

Our own good earth made many a successful journey around the heavens ere man was made, and whole kingdoms of creatures enjoyed existence and returned to dust ere man appeared to claim them. After human beings have also played their part in Creation’s plan, they too may disappear without any general burning or extraordinary commotion whatever.

Of course, “general burning” turns out to be precisely what we’ve done. By digging up millions of years of biology and setting it on fire, in the course of a century or two, we’ve managed to overwhelm the world that Muir saw. We’ve poured heat into the air and especially into the oceans, and now that heat is beginning to dominate life on our planet. We can still back off some: every pipeline we shut down and every solar panel we install contributes to fewer Hiroshima bombs exploding in the seas. But as Florida found out again on Wednesday morning, and the world rediscovered this brutally hot summer, we’ve already shifted our earth in the most fundamental fashion.

[pikam10919]

Where Can I Take My Dog? To The Beach?

It is hard to imagine many places a dog is happier than at a beach. Whether running around on the sand, jumping in the water, digging a hole or just lying in the sun, every dog deserves a day at the beach. But all too often dog owners stopping at a sandy stretch of beach are met with signs designed to make hearts - human and canine alike - droop: NO DOGS ON BEACH. Below is a quick traveling tour of America's beaches with each state ranked from the most dog-friendly (****) to the worst (*). https://namingyourdog.weebly.com/blog/selecting-memorable-dog-names

DOGS ON ATLANTIC OCEAN BEACHES (traveling North to South)

The rocky coast of Maine (***) is mesmerizing to look at but doesn't leave much room for sandy beaches. Dogs are generally banned from the beaches at the many small state parks along the Maine coast, but dog owners will find more friendly sands on the town beaches. Around Portland, the state's biggest city, and the tourist towns of the Southern Coast dogs are often allowed on the beach anytime Labor Day to Memorial Day and in the mornings and evenings during the summer. The spectacular Acadia National Park is one of America's most dog-friendly national parks but does not allow dogs on its beaches.

It is lucky for dog lovers that New Hampshire (*) has only 18 miles of coastline. State beaches and parks don't allow dogs on the sand at all. If you must stop in New Hampshire, try the Grand Island Common in New Castle or Foss Beach in Rye during the off-season from October to late May.

Around Boston, the beaches of the North Shore are off-limits to dogs during the summer but other towns in Massachusetts (****) are more generous - dogs are usually allowed year-round with restrictive hours in the summer. Cape Cod, however, is the best destination for beach-loving dogs in New England. Cape Cod National Seashore, America's first national seashore, allows dogs on the beach anytime outside the swimming areas (and not on the trails). The curviture of the Cape limits sightlines down the beach and gives the park the impression of being comprised of a series of dune-backed private coves. The two tourist islands off southern Cape Cod, Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard, are both extremely dog- friendly - on Nantucket, dogs can even take the shuttle to the beach.

The beaches of Rhode Island (**) are kept dog-free during the summer but if you take the ferry to Block Island, dogs can enjoy the black sand beaches throughout the year. In Newport, you can take your dog on the fabled Cliff Walk (poop bags are provided at the trailhead) through the backyards of America's rich and famous. The hike begins at Bailey's Beach, which welcomes dogs from Labor Day to Memorial Day.

The sandy beaches of Connecticut (*) are not known for being dog-friendly. But many aren't that friendly to people either, with restricted access being common. If your dog is hankering to try the benign waves of the Long Island Sound, stop in Groton. Dogs are not allowed to experience America's most famous beach at Coney Island in Brooklyn.

The further east you go out on Long Island the more dog-friendly New York (**) becomes but whether on the north shore or south shore you can find a place to get your dog to the sea. Dog owners must pass on the prime destinations at Jones Beach and Fire Island National Seashore until reaching the Hamptons, where the tails of surf-loving dogs will start wagging. Many towns in the Hamptons offer dog- friendly sand and at Montauk, on the very tip of Long Island, several beaches allow dogs year-round, including Gin Beach on the Block Island Sound. The wide, white- sand beaches of the Jersey shore are some of America's most popular and there isn't much space for a dog to squeeze into in the summertime.

Most of the beaches in New Jersey (***), including the Sandy Hook Unit of the Gateway National Recreation Area, open to dogs in the off-season. Summertime visitors should take their dogs to Island Beach State Park, one of the last undeveloped stretches at the Jersey Shore. Pets are allowed on the non-recreational beaches in this ten-mile oasis. Dogs will never get to trot down the historic wooden planks of the Atlantic City boardwalk, however - no dogs are permitted on the beach or boardwalk of the Grande Dame of America's seaside resorts. Dogs are also not allowed anywhere in the Victorian village of Cape May but dog lovers can travel south of town to Sunset Beach, a sand strip at the southernmost point of the Jersey shore that is actually on the Delaware Bay. In the water offshore of "Dog Beach" are the remains of the Atlantis, a unique concrete ship built to transport soldiers in World War I.

Off-season, the sandy beaches in Delaware (****) are a paradise for dogs. Two state parks, Cape Henlopen and Delaware Seashore, both welcome dogs between October 1 and May 1. During the summer season dogs can also share the beach with their owners on select stretches of sand in Delaware state parks. In Cape Henlopen, the 80-foot high Great Dune is the highest sand pile on the Atlantic shore between Cape Cod and Cape Hatteras. The concrete observation towers standing as silent sentinels along Delaware beaches were built to bolster America's coastal defenses during World War II. Summer vacationers can take dogs on the Dewey Beach town beach in the mornings and evenings. Along the Delaware Bay just north of Cape Henlopen you can find several beaches that offer frisky wave action and wide swaths of sandy beach - and best of all there are no restrictions against dogs on the bay beaches.

The Assateague Island National Seashore is the prime destination for dog owners heading for the beach in Maryland (***). The undeveloped dunesland permits dogs year-round on the beach and in the campgrounds (but not on the short nature trails). Keep your dog alert for the wild ponies that live on the island. Its neighbor to the north, Assateague State Park, often celebrated as one of the best state parks in America, is off-limits to dogs. If you are not roughing it on your trip to the Maryland seashore, nearby Ocean City allows dogs on the beach and boardwalk between October 1 and May 1. Traveling along the Chesapeake Bay, dogs are banned from the thin beaches in Maryland state parks. Exceptions are the small beach in the former amusement park at North Point State Park and the beach north of the causeway at Point Lookout State Park.

There is plenty to like for beach-loving dogs in Virginia (***). Canine romps on the clean, wide sands of Virginia Beach's "Strip," the commercial oceanfront from 1st Street to 40th Street, can't begin until the day after Labor Day but during the summer dogs are allowed on residential beaches above 41st Street before 10 a.m and afer 6 p.m. Dogs can jump in the ocean anytime at Cape Henry on Fort Story, where the Atlantic Ocean meets the Chesapeake Bay. Fort Story is an active military base, the only installation devoted to coastal operations, but its uncrowded, pristine beaches are open to the public and dogs. Just to the west is First Landing State Park, where canine swimming is allowed on unguarded sandy beaches. Check for seasonal restrictions against dogs in these places. Just off-shore are views of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel, one of the seven modern engineering marvels of the world. Each span of the 17.6-mile crossing utilizes more than 2,500 concrete piles to support the trestles.

Except for designated wildlife areas, dogs are permitted on the beach year-round virtually everywhere on the Outer Banks in North Carolina (****). Cape Hatteras Natonal Seashore has only four swimming beaches (in season) on its entire 70 miles of protected coastline which leaves plenty of open sand for the dog to roam. Seafaring dogs can reach Ocracoke Island and Cape Lookout National Seashore by ferry or private boat for many miles of more undeveloped, dog-friendly beaches. The northern part of the barrier islands has been rapidly developing in the past decade but where you can still find access to the beach, unleashed dogs are sill allowed year-round in towns like Duck and Corolla. Mainland North Carolina beaches on Cape Fear are almost as dog-friendly; most swimming beaches restrict dogs only during the day in the summer.

South Carolina (****) ranks among the most dog-friendly beach states on the Atlantic seaboard. Get away from the people and commercial beaches and there is plenty of unrestricted sand for dogs in the Palmetto state. Most of the smaller towns allow dogs on the beach under voice control and only Myrtle Beach (from 21st Avenue North to 13th Avenue South) bans dogs completely. One of the best places to take dogs here is Hunting Island State Park. More than one million visitors (human) come here each year, 85 miles south of Charleston, to enjoy three miles of unspoiled beach.

Georgia (**) doesn't sport much coastline and many of the beaches on Georgia's barrier islands and the Golden Isles are under control of resorts and most welcome dogs except during the middle of the day in summer. Cumberland Island National Seashore permits dogs but is accessible only by private boat. Savannah's beach at Tybee Island is closed to dogs.

Florida (*) ranks among the most dog-unfriendly of states. Entire counties and regions ban dogs from the beach. There are so many prohibitions already against dogs on Florida beaches that when they change, it is typically in favor of dog owners. For the Atlantic beaches, the northeast part of the state around Jacksonville (Amelia Island) offers some of the best beaches for dogs in the state but heading south below Daytona, dogs are almost universally banned from the sand. Jupiter, on the Treasure Coast, is one place you can find a break from the ubiquitous NO DOGS ON BEACH signs. Fort Lauderdale has thrown dog owners a tiny bone - they have set up a 100-yard long Dog Beach (at Sunrise and A1A) on Saturdays and Sundays only from 3:00 to 6:00 p.m.

DOGS ON GULF OF MEXICO BEACHES (traveling East to West)

The Gulf Coast beaches in Florida (*) offer precious little for dog owners. Dogs were once associated as closely with the Florida Keys as conch shells but today you have to look hard for a beach to take your dog. Anne's Beach in Lower Matecumbe and Sombrero Beach in Marathon are two safe places. In Key West the "Dog Beach" is at Waddell and Vernon avenues but there is really just enough sand to accommodate one good beach blanket and the little amount of swimming available is treacherous over coral outcroppings. On the Suncoast, seek out Bonita Beach Dog Park north of Naples, the excellent Fort DeSoto Dog Beach and Park in St. Petersburg and the Dog Beach on Honeymoon Island in the Dunedin area. Head for Franklin County, though, where dogs are allowed on all the public beaches - and the only county in Florida to allow dogs to run free. On the Florida Panhandle the Gulf Islands National Seashore is the only national seashore that bans dogs completely. It is the same story in town after town on the Gulf of Mexico across Florida. Near Panama City, dogs can reach the water on Carrabelle Beach and Bruce Beach. At Saint Andrews State Beach, a past winner of "The Best Beach In America," dogs can hike the sandy nature trails and run on the beach of the Grand Lagoon. It isn't actually the Gulf of Mexico or the Best Beach In America, but you can them from here.

For dog owners, Alabama (*) may as well not even have the few beaches it does on the Gulf of Mexico.

In Mississippi (**) dog owners need to stay on the western coast in Hancock County; dogs aren't allowed around the populated Biloxi beaches.

People don't seek out Louisiana (*) for its sandy beaches; most of the coastline is made up of bayous. Grand Isle State Park is the only state park with access to the Gulf of Mexico and dogs are allowed in non-swimming areas here.

In Texas (***), Padre Island is America's longest barrier island and there is plenty of room for dogs on its 113 miles of sand. At Padre Island National Seashore dogs are allowed anywhere except on the deck at Malaquite Beach and in front of the Visitor Center at the Swimming Beach. Galveston Island serves up another 32 miles of mostly dog-friendly beach.

DOGS ON PACIFIC OCEAN BEACHES (traveling North to South)

Dogs on leash are allowed in all Washington (***) state parks, often on the beach, but not in many swimming areas around Puget Sound. No dogs are allowed on beaches in the city of Seattle. The uncrowded Pacific Coast beaches are some of the dog-friendliest in America - even Olympic National Park, which bans dogs from almost all of its 632,324 acres, opens some of its remote coastal beaches to dogs. Dogs are allowed on almost all beaches on the Washington coast as long as they remain out of the active swimming areas.

All of the beaches in Oregon (****) are public. You can step on every grain of Oregon sand for 400 miles and, in the rare exception of a ban due to nesting birds, your dog can be with you all the way. One beach dog owners won't want to miss is the Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area with its 40 miles of sandy shore. These are the biggest dunes in the United States - as tall as 500 feet and reaching two and one-half miles inland at their widest point.

Northern California (****) would get plenty of votes from beach-loving dogs for having the best beaches in America. Only a beach here and there restricts dogs from its sand on the North Coast. Even in the highly populated areas, concessions are made for dog owners. In Marin County a "Dog Beach" has been set aside on the north end of Stinson Beach and many towns allow dogs on the beach under voice control. San Francisco ranks among the dog-friendliest of beach cities. Take your dog to the Golden Gate National Recreation Area and have your pick of several designated dog-friendly beach areas. At Baker Beach, dogs are allowed to romp off- leash. Further down the coast, dog owners will want to visit the Monterey Peninsula. Dogs are welcome to run on the Carmel City Beach and can slip into the water near Monterey and Pacific Grove as well. At Big Sur dogs can enjoy one of the prettiest secluded beaches on the coast a Pfeiffer Beach. Skip Santa Cruz and there are plenty of opportunites to get your dog on the sand in California's Central Coast, especially on unnamed beaches.

Heading south on the California coast the water warms up and beach restrictions on dogs increase accordingly. There is still sand time for dogs in Oxnard and Ventura but things are getting bleak as dog owners reach Santa Barbara. In Los Angeles County the beaches are for people. In Southern California (**), San Diego is the place for sand-loving dogs. Several popular beaches have set aside "dog beaches" that attract hundreds of dogs. Every day is a beach day for dogs in San Diego.

DOGS ON GREAT LAKES BEACHES (traveling West to East)

Possessing the largest surface area of any freshwater lake in the world, there is enough water in Lake Superior (**) to easily fill the other four Great Lakes to overflowing. Lake Superior is known for its cold water and rugged shoreline but there are some sandy beaches scattered across its 300 or so miles of southern shores. Other beaches are more of the cobble variety. Most of the shoreline is sparsely populated which bodes well for finding a dog-friendly beach. In Michigan, the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore allows dogs on the beach from Twelvemile Beach Campground to Au Sable Lighthouse and at Munising, dogs can dig in the sand at Miners Beach. At Sand Point, dogs can play on the beach until the trail begins to climb the cliffs. In Wisconsin, dogs are allowed on the beach in Ashland and in Minnesota, dogs can swim in Lake Superior at Duluth's Park Point Beach.

Dogs will have to admire the spectacular dunes and sandy beaches of the eastern shore of Lake Michigan (**) mostly from the car as dogs are not allowed on Michigan state beaches and most county and town beaches. In-season, the metropolises of Indiana, Illinois and Wisconsin are even more restrictive. Chicago has recently gotten its first official dog beach at Montrose Avenue. Belmont Beach is not an official Chicago beach so dogs are allowed on this small patch of sand in a fenced area. In nearby Evanston licensed and vaccinated dogs are allowed on Dog Beach but a beach token is required for non-residents from May to October which costs $80 to $100. Your best bets to dip into Lake Michigan, the only Great Lake totally within the United States, are the national lakeshores and the state parks of Wisconsin's Door County. At the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore dogs are restricted to the easternmost beaches at Mt. Baldy and Central Avenue until October when all beaches open to our four-legged friends. In the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, dogs can swim in the waves of Lake Michigan backed by some of America's larges dunes on all beaches except Platte Point Beach, the D.H. Day Campground Beach and the Manitou Islands. Dogs also cannot make the Dune Climb up hundreds of feet of sand.

Lake Huron (*) features 3,827 miles of shoreline, characterized by shallow water and many sandy beaches. None of this will matter much to your dog, however, since the Lake Huron beaches in Michigan are mostly closed to him. Alpena is a rare exception. Dogs are allowed on the resort destination of Macinac Island, however.

Although its shores are the most densely populated of any of the Great Lakes, there is plenty of opportunity for a dog to explore Lake Erie (***). The smallest of the five lakes, Erie waters average only about 62 feet in depth and warm rapidly in the summer for happy dog paddling. Ohio, especially around Cleveland, is the most restrictive of the Lake Erie states. Try some of the smaller town beaches in Ohio and New York, most of which permit dogs outside of designated swimming areas. Some of the best Lake Erie beachfront is in Presque Isle State Park, the most-visited state park in Pennsylvania. Your dog can can hike the sandytrails past the swimming beaches and enjoy the waves on the long, unsupervised sretches on the northern end of the peninsula.

Not many people have settled most of the hundreds of miles of shoreline of the south side of Lake Ontario (*) in New York. There aren't many beaches and not many bans on dogs - as long as they don't try to swim with the humans.

[vapom66239]

Where Can I Take My Dog? To The Beach?

It is hard to imagine many places a dog is happier than at a beach. Whether running around on the sand, jumping in the water, digging a hole or just lying in the sun, every dog deserves a day at the beach. But all too often dog owners stopping at a sandy stretch of beach are met with signs designed to make hearts - human and canine alike - droop: NO DOGS ON BEACH. Below is a quick traveling tour of America's beaches with each state ranked from the most dog-friendly (****) to the worst (*). https://sites.google.com/view/girldognamess/unique-dog-names

DOGS ON ATLANTIC OCEAN BEACHES (traveling North to South)

The rocky coast of Maine (***) is mesmerizing to look at but doesn't leave much room for sandy beaches. Dogs are generally banned from the beaches at the many small state parks along the Maine coast, but dog owners will find more friendly sands on the town beaches. Around Portland, the state's biggest city, and the tourist towns of the Southern Coast dogs are often allowed on the beach anytime Labor Day to Memorial Day and in the mornings and evenings during the summer. The spectacular Acadia National Park is one of America's most dog-friendly national parks but does not allow dogs on its beaches.

It is lucky for dog lovers that New Hampshire (*) has only 18 miles of coastline. State beaches and parks don't allow dogs on the sand at all. If you must stop in New Hampshire, try the Grand Island Common in New Castle or Foss Beach in Rye during the off-season from October to late May.

Around Boston, the beaches of the North Shore are off-limits to dogs during the summer but other towns in Massachusetts (****) are more generous - dogs are usually allowed year-round with restrictive hours in the summer. Cape Cod, however, is the best destination for beach-loving dogs in New England. Cape Cod National Seashore, America's first national seashore, allows dogs on the beach anytime outside the swimming areas (and not on the trails). The curviture of the Cape limits sightlines down the beach and gives the park the impression of being comprised of a series of dune-backed private coves. The two tourist islands off southern Cape Cod, Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard, are both extremely dog- friendly - on Nantucket, dogs can even take the shuttle to the beach.

The beaches of Rhode Island (**) are kept dog-free during the summer but if you take the ferry to Block Island, dogs can enjoy the black sand beaches throughout the year. In Newport, you can take your dog on the fabled Cliff Walk (poop bags are provided at the trailhead) through the backyards of America's rich and famous. The hike begins at Bailey's Beach, which welcomes dogs from Labor Day to Memorial Day.

The sandy beaches of Connecticut (*) are not known for being dog-friendly. But many aren't that friendly to people either, with restricted access being common. If your dog is hankering to try the benign waves of the Long Island Sound, stop in Groton. Dogs are not allowed to experience America's most famous beach at Coney Island in Brooklyn.

The further east you go out on Long Island the more dog-friendly New York (**) becomes but whether on the north shore or south shore you can find a place to get your dog to the sea. Dog owners must pass on the prime destinations at Jones Beach and Fire Island National Seashore until reaching the Hamptons, where the tails of surf-loving dogs will start wagging. Many towns in the Hamptons offer dog- friendly sand and at Montauk, on the very tip of Long Island, several beaches allow dogs year-round, including Gin Beach on the Block Island Sound. The wide, white- sand beaches of the Jersey shore are some of America's most popular and there isn't much space for a dog to squeeze into in the summertime.

Most of the beaches in New Jersey (***), including the Sandy Hook Unit of the Gateway National Recreation Area, open to dogs in the off-season. Summertime visitors should take their dogs to Island Beach State Park, one of the last undeveloped stretches at the Jersey Shore. Pets are allowed on the non-recreational beaches in this ten-mile oasis. Dogs will never get to trot down the historic wooden planks of the Atlantic City boardwalk, however - no dogs are permitted on the beach or boardwalk of the Grande Dame of America's seaside resorts. Dogs are also not allowed anywhere in the Victorian village of Cape May but dog lovers can travel south of town to Sunset Beach, a sand strip at the southernmost point of the Jersey shore that is actually on the Delaware Bay. In the water offshore of "Dog Beach" are the remains of the Atlantis, a unique concrete ship built to transport soldiers in World War I.

Off-season, the sandy beaches in Delaware (****) are a paradise for dogs. Two state parks, Cape Henlopen and Delaware Seashore, both welcome dogs between October 1 and May 1. During the summer season dogs can also share the beach with their owners on select stretches of sand in Delaware state parks. In Cape Henlopen, the 80-foot high Great Dune is the highest sand pile on the Atlantic shore between Cape Cod and Cape Hatteras. The concrete observation towers standing as silent sentinels along Delaware beaches were built to bolster America's coastal defenses during World War II. Summer vacationers can take dogs on the Dewey Beach town beach in the mornings and evenings. Along the Delaware Bay just north of Cape Henlopen you can find several beaches that offer frisky wave action and wide swaths of sandy beach - and best of all there are no restrictions against dogs on the bay beaches.

The Assateague Island National Seashore is the prime destination for dog owners heading for the beach in Maryland (***). The undeveloped dunesland permits dogs year-round on the beach and in the campgrounds (but not on the short nature trails). Keep your dog alert for the wild ponies that live on the island. Its neighbor to the north, Assateague State Park, often celebrated as one of the best state parks in America, is off-limits to dogs. If you are not roughing it on your trip to the Maryland seashore, nearby Ocean City allows dogs on the beach and boardwalk between October 1 and May 1. Traveling along the Chesapeake Bay, dogs are banned from the thin beaches in Maryland state parks. Exceptions are the small beach in the former amusement park at North Point State Park and the beach north of the causeway at Point Lookout State Park.

There is plenty to like for beach-loving dogs in Virginia (***). Canine romps on the clean, wide sands of Virginia Beach's "Strip," the commercial oceanfront from 1st Street to 40th Street, can't begin until the day after Labor Day but during the summer dogs are allowed on residential beaches above 41st Street before 10 a.m and afer 6 p.m. Dogs can jump in the ocean anytime at Cape Henry on Fort Story, where the Atlantic Ocean meets the Chesapeake Bay. Fort Story is an active military base, the only installation devoted to coastal operations, but its uncrowded, pristine beaches are open to the public and dogs. Just to the west is First Landing State Park, where canine swimming is allowed on unguarded sandy beaches. Check for seasonal restrictions against dogs in these places. Just off-shore are views of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel, one of the seven modern engineering marvels of the world. Each span of the 17.6-mile crossing utilizes more than 2,500 concrete piles to support the trestles.

Except for designated wildlife areas, dogs are permitted on the beach year-round virtually everywhere on the Outer Banks in North Carolina (****). Cape Hatteras Natonal Seashore has only four swimming beaches (in season) on its entire 70 miles of protected coastline which leaves plenty of open sand for the dog to roam. Seafaring dogs can reach Ocracoke Island and Cape Lookout National Seashore by ferry or private boat for many miles of more undeveloped, dog-friendly beaches. The northern part of the barrier islands has been rapidly developing in the past decade but where you can still find access to the beach, unleashed dogs are sill allowed year-round in towns like Duck and Corolla. Mainland North Carolina beaches on Cape Fear are almost as dog-friendly; most swimming beaches restrict dogs only during the day in the summer.

South Carolina (****) ranks among the most dog-friendly beach states on the Atlantic seaboard. Get away from the people and commercial beaches and there is plenty of unrestricted sand for dogs in the Palmetto state. Most of the smaller towns allow dogs on the beach under voice control and only Myrtle Beach (from 21st Avenue North to 13th Avenue South) bans dogs completely. One of the best places to take dogs here is Hunting Island State Park. More than one million visitors (human) come here each year, 85 miles south of Charleston, to enjoy three miles of unspoiled beach.

Georgia (**) doesn't sport much coastline and many of the beaches on Georgia's barrier islands and the Golden Isles are under control of resorts and most welcome dogs except during the middle of the day in summer. Cumberland Island National Seashore permits dogs but is accessible only by private boat. Savannah's beach at Tybee Island is closed to dogs.

Florida (*) ranks among the most dog-unfriendly of states. Entire counties and regions ban dogs from the beach. There are so many prohibitions already against dogs on Florida beaches that when they change, it is typically in favor of dog owners. For the Atlantic beaches, the northeast part of the state around Jacksonville (Amelia Island) offers some of the best beaches for dogs in the state but heading south below Daytona, dogs are almost universally banned from the sand. Jupiter, on the Treasure Coast, is one place you can find a break from the ubiquitous NO DOGS ON BEACH signs. Fort Lauderdale has thrown dog owners a tiny bone - they have set up a 100-yard long Dog Beach (at Sunrise and A1A) on Saturdays and Sundays only from 3:00 to 6:00 p.m.

DOGS ON GULF OF MEXICO BEACHES (traveling East to West)

The Gulf Coast beaches in Florida (*) offer precious little for dog owners. Dogs were once associated as closely with the Florida Keys as conch shells but today you have to look hard for a beach to take your dog. Anne's Beach in Lower Matecumbe and Sombrero Beach in Marathon are two safe places. In Key West the "Dog Beach" is at Waddell and Vernon avenues but there is really just enough sand to accommodate one good beach blanket and the little amount of swimming available is treacherous over coral outcroppings. On the Suncoast, seek out Bonita Beach Dog Park north of Naples, the excellent Fort DeSoto Dog Beach and Park in St. Petersburg and the Dog Beach on Honeymoon Island in the Dunedin area. Head for Franklin County, though, where dogs are allowed on all the public beaches - and the only county in Florida to allow dogs to run free. On the Florida Panhandle the Gulf Islands National Seashore is the only national seashore that bans dogs completely. It is the same story in town after town on the Gulf of Mexico across Florida. Near Panama City, dogs can reach the water on Carrabelle Beach and Bruce Beach. At Saint Andrews State Beach, a past winner of "The Best Beach In America," dogs can hike the sandy nature trails and run on the beach of the Grand Lagoon. It isn't actually the Gulf of Mexico or the Best Beach In America, but you can them from here.

For dog owners, Alabama (*) may as well not even have the few beaches it does on the Gulf of Mexico.

In Mississippi (**) dog owners need to stay on the western coast in Hancock County; dogs aren't allowed around the populated Biloxi beaches.

People don't seek out Louisiana (*) for its sandy beaches; most of the coastline is made up of bayous. Grand Isle State Park is the only state park with access to the Gulf of Mexico and dogs are allowed in non-swimming areas here.

In Texas (***), Padre Island is America's longest barrier island and there is plenty of room for dogs on its 113 miles of sand. At Padre Island National Seashore dogs are allowed anywhere except on the deck at Malaquite Beach and in front of the Visitor Center at the Swimming Beach. Galveston Island serves up another 32 miles of mostly dog-friendly beach.

DOGS ON PACIFIC OCEAN BEACHES (traveling North to South)

Dogs on leash are allowed in all Washington (***) state parks, often on the beach, but not in many swimming areas around Puget Sound. No dogs are allowed on beaches in the city of Seattle. The uncrowded Pacific Coast beaches are some of the dog-friendliest in America - even Olympic National Park, which bans dogs from almost all of its 632,324 acres, opens some of its remote coastal beaches to dogs. Dogs are allowed on almost all beaches on the Washington coast as long as they remain out of the active swimming areas.

All of the beaches in Oregon (****) are public. You can step on every grain of Oregon sand for 400 miles and, in the rare exception of a ban due to nesting birds, your dog can be with you all the way. One beach dog owners won't want to miss is the Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area with its 40 miles of sandy shore. These are the biggest dunes in the United States - as tall as 500 feet and reaching two and one-half miles inland at their widest point.

Northern California (****) would get plenty of votes from beach-loving dogs for having the best beaches in America. Only a beach here and there restricts dogs from its sand on the North Coast. Even in the highly populated areas, concessions are made for dog owners. In Marin County a "Dog Beach" has been set aside on the north end of Stinson Beach and many towns allow dogs on the beach under voice control. San Francisco ranks among the dog-friendliest of beach cities. Take your dog to the Golden Gate National Recreation Area and have your pick of several designated dog-friendly beach areas. At Baker Beach, dogs are allowed to romp off- leash. Further down the coast, dog owners will want to visit the Monterey Peninsula. Dogs are welcome to run on the Carmel City Beach and can slip into the water near Monterey and Pacific Grove as well. At Big Sur dogs can enjoy one of the prettiest secluded beaches on the coast a Pfeiffer Beach. Skip Santa Cruz and there are plenty of opportunites to get your dog on the sand in California's Central Coast, especially on unnamed beaches.

Heading south on the California coast the water warms up and beach restrictions on dogs increase accordingly. There is still sand time for dogs in Oxnard and Ventura but things are getting bleak as dog owners reach Santa Barbara. In Los Angeles County the beaches are for people. In Southern California (**), San Diego is the place for sand-loving dogs. Several popular beaches have set aside "dog beaches" that attract hundreds of dogs. Every day is a beach day for dogs in San Diego.

DOGS ON GREAT LAKES BEACHES (traveling West to East)

Possessing the largest surface area of any freshwater lake in the world, there is enough water in Lake Superior (**) to easily fill the other four Great Lakes to overflowing. Lake Superior is known for its cold water and rugged shoreline but there are some sandy beaches scattered across its 300 or so miles of southern shores. Other beaches are more of the cobble variety. Most of the shoreline is sparsely populated which bodes well for finding a dog-friendly beach. In Michigan, the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore allows dogs on the beach from Twelvemile Beach Campground to Au Sable Lighthouse and at Munising, dogs can dig in the sand at Miners Beach. At Sand Point, dogs can play on the beach until the trail begins to climb the cliffs. In Wisconsin, dogs are allowed on the beach in Ashland and in Minnesota, dogs can swim in Lake Superior at Duluth's Park Point Beach.

Dogs will have to admire the spectacular dunes and sandy beaches of the eastern shore of Lake Michigan (**) mostly from the car as dogs are not allowed on Michigan state beaches and most county and town beaches. In-season, the metropolises of Indiana, Illinois and Wisconsin are even more restrictive. Chicago has recently gotten its first official dog beach at Montrose Avenue. Belmont Beach is not an official Chicago beach so dogs are allowed on this small patch of sand in a fenced area. In nearby Evanston licensed and vaccinated dogs are allowed on Dog Beach but a beach token is required for non-residents from May to October which costs $80 to $100. Your best bets to dip into Lake Michigan, the only Great Lake totally within the United States, are the national lakeshores and the state parks of Wisconsin's Door County. At the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore dogs are restricted to the easternmost beaches at Mt. Baldy and Central Avenue until October when all beaches open to our four-legged friends. In the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, dogs can swim in the waves of Lake Michigan backed by some of America's larges dunes on all beaches except Platte Point Beach, the D.H. Day Campground Beach and the Manitou Islands. Dogs also cannot make the Dune Climb up hundreds of feet of sand.

Lake Huron (*) features 3,827 miles of shoreline, characterized by shallow water and many sandy beaches. None of this will matter much to your dog, however, since the Lake Huron beaches in Michigan are mostly closed to him. Alpena is a rare exception. Dogs are allowed on the resort destination of Macinac Island, however.

Although its shores are the most densely populated of any of the Great Lakes, there is plenty of opportunity for a dog to explore Lake Erie (***). The smallest of the five lakes, Erie waters average only about 62 feet in depth and warm rapidly in the summer for happy dog paddling. Ohio, especially around Cleveland, is the most restrictive of the Lake Erie states. Try some of the smaller town beaches in Ohio and New York, most of which permit dogs outside of designated swimming areas. Some of the best Lake Erie beachfront is in Presque Isle State Park, the most-visited state park in Pennsylvania. Your dog can can hike the sandytrails past the swimming beaches and enjoy the waves on the long, unsupervised sretches on the northern end of the peninsula.

Not many people have settled most of the hundreds of miles of shoreline of the south side of Lake Ontario (*) in New York. There aren't many beaches and not many bans on dogs - as long as they don't try to swim with the humans.

[xtruss]

The horse conch, found along the southern Atlantic coast, is Florida's state shell. But many decades of unregulated harvesting, as well as habitat degradation, is putting the stunning mollusk at risk of extinction, experts say. Photograph By MichaelPatrick O'Neill, Blue Planet Archive

One of the World’s Biggest Sea Snails at Risk of Extinction

A century of unregulated harvesting for its gigantic shell has left the horse conch far more vulnerable than scientists realized.

— By Cynthia Barnett | April 6, 2022 | Environment

Horse conchs, the flashy marine snails that inhabit Florida’s colossal state seashell, live shorter lives and reproduce later than previously understood, according to new research that warns the Gulf of Mexico population could be nearing collapse.

Spindle-shaped shells that can grow to more than a foot and red-orange bodies bright as traffic cones make horse conchs some of the most eye-catching species on the beaches of the southeastern United States. They were once even bigger: Historic Florida photographs show tourists lugging horse conch shells half the length of a small child. Those sizes aren’t seen anymore, prompting researchers to ask why.

Scientists used sclerochronology—the shell version of dendrochronology, or tree-ring science—to investigate the lifespans of the animals whose off-white shells have been recorded as long as two feet from pointy top to funnel tip. The sizes had led some scientists to assume the predatory snails could live half a century or more, with females sending hundreds of thousands of tiny conchs into the sea over decades. The new research shows that’s not the case.

At seven to 10 years, “the actual lifespan is significantly shorter,” says Gregory S. Herbert, the University of South Florida marine ecologist who led the study, published on Wednesday in the journal PLOS ONE. The research further suggests that females spawn late in life. Since the largest horse conchs living today are both smaller and younger than the historic shells used in the study, “the largest females left in the wild could have few lifetime spawning events, if any,” the article warns, putting the Gulf population in crisis.

Earlier research showed the conchs’ sizes have declined over decades, “the universal sign that a tipping point is near,” says Herbert. Like other marine animals living near heavily populated coasts, horse conchs have lost considerable habitat to development and pollution, including favorite breeding grounds along mud flats and seagrass beds. Their Gulf habitat is also warming due to climate change, which scientists think further pressures the animals, based on the negative effects extra heat has on other big mollusks. But scientists say the more immediate threat shrinking their numbers and sizes is overharvesting, primarily for their highly sought-after shells.

The reported commercial harvest in Florida fell from a peak of 14,511 horse conchs in 1996 to 6,124 in 2000; to 1,461 in 2015; to just 67 in 2020, according to data from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. Recreational harvest numbers are not known.

Left: A child holds a horse conch shell on Florida’s Sanibel Island in 1948. Such sizes are rarely if ever seen these days, among either the empty shells or the living animals. Right: Betty Boone, at the beach pouring water from a giant horse conch shell - Daytona Beach, Florida, 1948. Photographs By State Archives of Florida

Drilling For Data

To estimate age and reproductive maturity, Herbert’s team analyzed chemical isotopes in large horse conch shells from museum collections. A marine mollusk uses calcium carbonate from the surrounding sea to build its shell, which becomes a chemical diary of its life and environment. In bivalves such as clams, scientists can saw the shell in half to read wispy gray bands in the cross-section that mark time, like tree rings. Snails build in a spiral, making it impossible to section the shell in a way that reveals all the bands.

Herbert’s team used tiny dental bits to drill into the shells, milling a fine powder to measure relative weights of oxygen and carbon isotopes. Starting at the pointy top of each shell—that’s where the conch embryo once fit and began to build—the researchers milled along the lifetime of spiral growth to the lip, collecting hundreds of samples.

Analyzing the oxygen isotopes, which record temperature changes over warm and cool seasons, allowed the scientists to age the shells. The carbon isotopes, which are strongly influenced by the animal’s own physiology—especially reproduction—led them to infer when the females first spawned. The carbon isotopes also revealed that mother horse conchs plow great amounts of energy into their egg masses, honeycomb-like structures with thousands of capsules, each nourishing an embryonic conch that grows a perfect, pea-sized shell before it hatches and crawls away.

The study included the largest-known horse conch shell, a 23.9-inch beauty displayed at the Bailey-Matthews National Shell Museum on Florida’s Sanibel Island. The scientists couldn’t drill into the record shell but estimated its age by plotting its whorls alongside the other shells’ growth curves and their isotope values. They concluded the animal that built it lived 16 years, a likely maximum age for the species.

The age of the record shell came as a big surprise, says coauthor Stephen P. Geiger, a mollusk researcher with Florida’s Fish and Wildlife Research Institute, which advises state regulators on species management. Conventional wisdom had it that the record horse conch was at least a half-century old. Geiger says that scientists, who are still learning the basic biology of horse conchs, also assumed that females had many chances to spawn over such long lives. Those assumptions helped keep horse conchs in the “unregulated” category—like the vast majority of fish and mollusks in Florida—with no limit for permitted commercial harvesters and a 100-pound-a-day limit for recreational fishers. That’s a lot of conchs.

A horse conch lays eggs on a coral reef near Palm Beach, Florida. Photograph By MichaelPatrick O'Neill, Blue Planet Archive

Left: A horse conch, the largest marine snail in the Northern Hemisphere, moves in on a lightning whelk at low tide near Kice Island in southwest Florida. Horse conchs use their large, orange foot to suffocate their prey prior to feeding. They are apex predators among marine mollusks, but human predators have over-harvested them for their prized shells. Photographs By Amy Tripp

An Uncommon Conch

While the study focused on Florida horse conchs, the species, Triplofusus giganteusis, lives from North Carolina down the Atlantic coast, around the Gulf, and south to Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula. Ancient coastal people ate horse conchs, according to environmental archaeologist Karen J. Walker, and used the shell’s tough inner column for fishing sinkers. As apex predators that feed on smaller, more common sea snails such as lightning whelks, horse conchs were always less abundant than other mollusks.

In the past, however, they had a much larger range, according to Herbert’s longer-term research comparing the locations of dead shells in the Gulf with the living animals in their habitats today. The shrinking range could mean either that they are becoming rarer, or that some populations are already extinct, Herbert says. Scientists don’t have a good baseline for population numbers; a shell-collecting craze in mid-20th century America was well under way by the time the earliest horse conch studies began. In 1966, the St. Petersburg Shell Show offered free admission to everyone with a horse conch over 20 inches. Newspaper articles from the era show collectors and souvenir hunters holding record shells with the operculum—the animal’s hard “trap door”—intact, often a sign that the snail was collected live and discarded, and its operculum reattached to the shell.

Growing environmental awareness in the decades since has helped shell-dwellers, as ethical beachgoers leave live shells on the shore. A few coastal local governments in Florida, led by Sanibel Island, also have banned or limited live shelling. But along most of the coast, horse conchs are still intensely harvested for the aquarium market or curio trade, where single shells can fetch $100 or more.

The findings suggest the conchs would benefit from harvesting limits, including minimum sizes to allow at least one spawning and maximum sizes to protect the most productive breeding females. Much larger than the males, mother conchs are especially vulnerable to being killed for their shells.

Loving Icons To Death

The new research is as convincing as it is urgent, says malacologist José H. Leal, science director and curator at the Bailey-Matthews Museum and editor of The Nautilus, one of the oldest scientific journals of mollusks. While it’s a challenge to get people excited about protecting squishy mollusks, the horse conch makes a worthy cause, says Leal, who was not involved in the study. “It’s visible. It’s majestic. It’s the state shell.”

The Florida Legislature designated the horse conch the state seashell in 1969. Members of the Palm Beach Shell Club placed a shell on the desk of each of Florida’s 160 lawmakers on the day of the vote. Today, it joins a number of Florida state symbols driven to the edge by the humans who revere them. The state animal, the Florida panther, is near extinction, pressured by hunting and habitat loss. The state marine mammal, the manatee, is suffering a mass die-off linked to the pollution-caused loss of its seagrass food source. The state tree, the sabal palm, is falling to a fatal disease spread by an invasive pest—and dying out in coastal forests due to soil salinity caused by sea level rise.

The study highlights how sclerochronology can help fill in mollusks’ life histories without collecting and killing increasingly rare animals, Herbert says. Despite limited population data, the results make clear horse conchs deserve protection, he says. “It’s like a wobbling vase that hasn’t fallen yet, but could if no one catches it.”

[memesupremo]

23, 36, 42

23: Dreamworks or Pixar?Dreamworks. Sinbad Legend of the Seven Seas wins it for them. 36: Favorite super-villain?🤔 probably poison ivy? 42: Where are you from?Daytona Beach, Fl! Aka: the 386, aka: the worlds greatest beach.

Thanks for these! :)

[fortheloveofpearlet]

Straightjacket Feeling - Pearlet [Chapter 4]

This is something I wrote AGES and AGES ago. First few chapters set in college but its NOT a college AU I swear! Kinda based on ‘Do I Wanna Know’ by the Artic Monkeys, lyrics throughout fic. Kinda angsty, also includes a small dose of Viadore. After the next chapter it will finally stop being in college! 

Chapter 4

Daytona Beach was already abuzz with Spring Breakers when they arrived some seven hours later. It was already dark when Matt pulled the SUV up in front of the hotel. When Jason opened the door he was bombarded by noise from every angle and he groaned a little. He'd half hoped he would get some studying done while he was here but that was looking unlikely. Their hotel had an outdoor pool with a bar next to it and there was loud music blaring from large speakers that people were dancing to. They all exited the car and grabbed their bags before checking in, thankfully Jason, Kurtis and Matt all had separate rooms this time. 

'So we gonna go party or what?' Matt asked as they headed to their rooms.

'No, need sleep.' Jake grumbled, clearly not over his hangover yet.

'He piqued too soon. In fact I think I'm going to call it a night too, how about you Bri?' Brian squeezed his boyfriend’s hand.

'Yeah I'm pretty beat.' Bri nodded.  

'Me too.' Kurtis agreed.

'Fucking light weights!' Matt groaned. 'You'll come party with me won't you Jay?' He beamed at the younger boy, the smile he had so much trouble saying no to.

'I'm really tired Matt.' Jason pulled a face. Matt widened his eyes and quivered his bottom lip; his fucking puppy dog face, the one he knew Jason couldn't resist.

'Just one drink?' He batted his eyes. Jason groaned.

'One drink.' He repeated. 'Let me get changed first though.' 

Suddenly Matt was engulfing him in a huge hug.

'You're the best.' Matt spoke into his ear and Jason practically melted. That made it worth it.

-----------------------------------------

No sooner had Jason changed into a more weather appropriate outfit, because despite being night time it was still hotter in Daytona than it was in New York in the day time, Matt was knocking on his door. He put on a pair of his tightest shorts, the ones that made his ass look incredible, a Pearl Liaison vest top (because he knew Matt loved her) and his old boots. He opened the door and Matt was smiling at him. He too had opted for shorts and a baggy vest top but his was a plain dark green one. He spotted Jason's shirt straight away.

'Oh god can you get me one of them for graduation?' He pointed to the queen on Jason's top, swooning a little. 'I don't even care that she's a dude, she is so fucking hot.' 

Jason laughed, rolling his eyes. 

'Maybe, if you're good.'

'I'm always good.' He winked at Jason and started leading him towards the bar by the pool. Matt whispered something in the bartender's ear whilst Jason was distracted taking in the chaos. It was loud, really loud, and he would bet he and Matt were the only sober ones here. He felt Matt nudge him in the arm and he tore his attention away from the other party goers to see Matt handing him a plastic cup.

'What's this?' Jason sniffed it, that familiar smell of battery acid.

'That's the Violet Kiss.' He smiled brightly. Jason hadn't had one of Matt's secret concoctions since that first night he took him to that party. He took a small sip, he couldn't deny it was really nice.

'Are you ever going to tell me what's in it?' Jason said as he followed Matt over to a free sun lounger where he sat down and Jason sat next to him.

'Maybe one day. But not tonight.' 

'What about where you came up with the name?'

'Again, maybe one day, but not tonight.' Matt had a twinkle in his eyes as he looked at Jason. 'You should take your hair down, you look so much prettier with your hair down.'

Jason's heart skipped a beat. Did Matt just call him pretty? 

'I uhm...'

'Oh don't start with the uhming again.' Matt laughed. 'Take your hair down.' 

Jason bit his lip and nodded using his free hand to pull his hair and from its bun and let it cascade down his back. He ruffled it a little, Matt was smiling at him.

'Much better.' He whispered. Jason didn't know what to make of this. Was Matt hitting on him? He wasn't even drunk either, which made it all the more confusing. 

'Yeah.' Just stuttered. 

'You know, I always meant to talk to you about that night I came to your dorm. You know when Bri came home and outside in the corridor...'

When you kissed me Jason said in his head when Matt trailed off.

'What about it?' He croaked, were they finally going to talk about it? Had Matt just called him pretty and now he wanted to talk about their kiss? 

'Well,' Matt placed his hand gently on Jason's leg and Jason felt like a thunderbolt had just shot through his body. 'I've never done anything like that before you know? But I just...I can't explain it. I just had this urge you know? And I knew I should have talked to you about it but it never seemed like the right time. You know sometimes...sometimes I think...' Matt trailed off and it felt to Jason as though he was leaning closer. Was he going to kiss him again? Had Jason brushed his teeth? His head was spinning but Matt was definitely moving closer. 'Sometimes I think that maybe I'd like to-'

'Oh my god you are like super fucking hot!' A female voice interrupted them and suddenly a girl was falling down to the sun lounger between Matt and Jason. No, no, no fuck off! Jason screamed internally. 

'Why thank you.' Matt smiled at her, seemingly ignoring Jason was there anymore. Jason wanted to scream at her, he and Matt were just getting somewhere, and finally, she couldn't have chosen a worse moment.

'I'm Chloe.' She was clearly drunk and she ran her hand through Matt's hair. 'And you are fucking gorgeous.' 

'I'm Matt and I'm flattered.' He chuckled a little. 'This is my friend Jason.' He pointed passed her to Jason but she didn't look.

'Are you coming to the club? Everyone's going to the club.' 

'Uhm I'm not sure. Are we going to the club Jay?' He looked at Jason over Chloe's shoulder. Jason pulled a face and shook his head frantically. Matt half-smiled. 'Sorry, we've been driving for two days, maybe tomorrow?' 

'Ohhhh come on, we'll have a really good time.' She kissed Matt's neck now, her other hand working its way up Matt's thigh. He gasped and closed his eyes. Jason clenched his jaw. Fuck this, he wasn't going to be the third wheel. He especially wasn't going to sit and watch while the boy he loved hooked up with some drunk bimbo. He got up and stormed away. He briefly looked over his shoulder to see if Matt had noticed but he hadn't. His eyes were still closed as Chloe continued to work her lips on his neck. He didn't blame Chloe, Matt was fucking gorgeous, and Jason was surprised there weren't women lining up down the block for him. But Jason didn't want to be part of it. He also didn't want to go back to his room because he would no doubt curl up in bed and cry pathetically. So he went for a walk, and tried to burn the image of Chloe kissing Matt's neck from his mind.

-----------------------------------------

The sand was soft under his bare feet. He loved the way he sank into it as he walked, he loved the way it felt between his toes. He loved the feel of the soft sea breeze on his skin. He loved New York but sometimes, Matt missed the beach, a lot.

 He could see him sitting down by the shore, his long hair blowing in the wind. He lifted a bottle to his lips and downed it and then made a disgusted noise that made Matt laugh. Jason turned, hearing the noise and he rolled his eyes as he saw Matt closing in on him.

'That was quick, even for you.' Jason sighed as Matt fell to the sand next to him.

'What was quick?' Matt took the bottle from Jason, it was whiskey.

'The sex.' 

'Where did you get this?' Matt chuckled taking a sip from it. He saw Jason shrug.

'The bartender was preoccupied with his own bimbo so I swiped it. Seems like a recurring thing down here.' 

Matt laughed again.

'So Chloe was a bimbo?'

'Wasn't she?' Jason turned to look at him with a raised eyebrow. 

'I don't know I wasn't with her long enough to find out. I left after I realised you did a disappearing act.' 

Jason's facial expression turned into more of a frown. 

'You didn't sleep with her?' He snatched he bottle back from Matt.

'No!' Matt scoffed. 'I'm not Jake.' 

'Oh come on Matt, you might not be Jake but you aren't exactly a virgin either.' Jason rolled his eyes and swigged from the bottle, making the disgusted noise again.

'What are you implying?' Matt frowned now, and if Jason wasn't mistaken he thought Matt looked a little annoyed.

'Well I mean...we both know you get around.'

'Fuck you!' Matt spat, taking Jason back. He'd never seen Matt get angry before. 'I don't know what you think you know about me, but you're wrong.' 

'Oh really?' Jason knew he should just drop it but he didn't drink a lot so the alcohol he had consumed had gone straight to his head. 

'You know what, I don't have to explain myself to you. I don't even know why I bothered to come and find you.' He stood back up picking up his shoes. 'Just try not to drown yeah?' He spun around and headed back up the beach. Jason bit his lip feeling bad. He jumped up as quick as he could, grabbing the whiskey and his boots before attempting to run after Matt.

'Matt stop! I didn't mean that the way it sounded.' 

'Yes you did.' Matt turned back to him. He looked hurt. 'You as good as called me a fucking man whore Jason! Get your facts straight before you go making accusations ok? I thought you were my friend, I thought you got me.' He turned to leave again but Jason grabbed his shoulder.

'I am your friend! I'm sorry Matt it's just that from what I've seen...you do seem to have a lot of...female company.'

'And that immediately makes me some kind of whore?' Matt stopped again and folded his arms over his chest. 'Don't jump to conclusions when you don't know what the fuck you're talking about it.' 

Jason thought he was going to march off again but stayed put, glaring at Jason. 

'Well you've got to admit it looks a certain kind of way.' 

'Yeah well looks can be deceiving.' Matt sighed unfolding his arms and running his fingers through his hair. 'You wanna know the truth? I've only ever slept with two women. I was a chubby kid remember? Girls never looked at me. The first girl I slept with was in freshman year of college and I couldn't believe my luck that a hot girl wanted me. And the only other girl there has ever been was a long term girlfriend. We met towards the end of freshman year and dated right up until just before I met you. I'm not some kind of whore that just jumps into bed with anyone Jason. In fact I still don't get why girls are always hanging off of me, because to me, I'm still that fat dorky kid from high school. I don't see myself the way they see me! So yeah I like the attention, I like when a hot girl throws herself at me because it makes me feel good but I do not sleep with them all. I thought you knew me well enough to know I wasn't like that but I guess I was wrong.' A small tear rolled down Matt's cheek as he turned away from Jason again and started walking away. Jason dropped his shoes and drink to the floor and took off after Matt. He grabbed him by the shoulders when he reached him and turned him to face him and then he didn't think anymore. He took hold of Matt's face and he kissed him. It was much more than the small kiss they'd had once before. Jason kissed him hard and bit Matt's bottom lip to let him know he wanted access and Matt allowed it. Soon after Jason's tongue was in Matt's mouth, massaging the older boys tongue, Jason holding his face firmly all the while. Matt was so taken aback by Jason's surge of confidence his arms just hung limply at his sides as he let Jason take the lead. The kiss lasted several minutes and when it broke they were both panting.

'You are beautiful Matthew. Inside and out. Never, ever let me hear you doubt that.' Jason told him. Then he picked his stuff up from the sand and walked passed Matt towards the hotel. Matt just stood there frozen to the spot. His heart was hammering in his chest. He'd always had his suspicions that Jason had a crush on him, but of course he never would have said anything because he didn't want to ruin their friendship. But more worryingly, Matt had always had a suspicion that he too had a crush on Jason. He'd tried to write it off as a phase, he couldn't be gay could he? But that kiss had actually sent chills down his spine. For the first time in his life Matt had felt truly alive. And he wouldn't be happy until he had more. 

-----------------------------------------

Jason was avoiding Matt. When he'd woken up the next morning his head had hurt from the whiskey and his one coherent memory of the previous night was grabbing Matt and kissing him. Matt was acting completely normal as if nothing had happened but Jason was a bundle of nerves. Had he ruined their friendship? Was Matt just acting cool because he had to? Maybe when they got back to college Matt was never going to speak to him again. 

 Jason hadn't been out drinking with them since that night. He'd spent his nights in his room studying and Matt didn't even care enough to check on him like he normally would have done. Jason didn't blame him, it was his own fault. He was starting to wish he'd stayed on campus, then maybe he and Matt would still be friends. On their last day before they started the long drive back tomorrow, Jason and Kurtis headed down to the beach. 

'I still can't believe you just ran off after without seeing what he would say! He probably thinks you regretted it the moment you did, that's probably why he's not talking to you.' Kurtis sighed.

'I don't want to talk about this anymore. I'm starting to wish I hadn't told you.' Jason groaned. They were looking for a spot on the beach that wasn't over run with obnoxious college students, somewhere away from the crowds so they could relax for a bit. But they were spotted. 

'Jason! Kurtis! Over here!' It was Bri waving them over. Jason rolled his eyes under his sun glasses. He knew he couldn't very well pretend he hadn't seen him. Kurtis shrugged.

'You have to see him at some point. We've got to get a ride back with them tomorrow.'

Jason rolled his eyes again and they headed over to the rest of their gang. 

'Where the hell have you been hiding?' Jake playfully punched Jason in the arm. It hurt but Jason hoped Jake didn't notice.

'Studying.'

'Urgh dork.' Jake groaned. Jason ignored him. He also tried to ignore Matt who was sat on a towel smoking a cigarette. He was shirtless and his skin was sun kissed and Jason felt a little weak at the sight of his toned abs and tattooed arms. He set his towel out in front of Matt so he didn't have to look at him and Kurtis set his down next to Jason. Kurtis immediately whipped his own shirt off and laid back on his towel folding his arms under his head and slipping on his headphones. Jake and Roxy were now making out, her straddling him in the middle of a public beach. It made Jason cringe. The Brian's were playing some kind of game with a ball closer to the water. That left Jason and Matt. Jason wasn't the kind of guy that revelled in taking his clothes off in public but it was sweltering hot and he'd made the stupid decision to wear a black t-shirt. All the other guys on the beach were shirtless so he tried to not put too much thought into when he stripped it off and folded it neatly before putting it in his bag. He could practically feel Matt's eyes on the back of his head as he tied his hair back into a bun. He knew he'd have to speak to him eventually, but every time Jason looked at him he went bright red. So he decided to keep looking straight ahead when he spoke.

'Sorry about the other night.' He spoke so quietly he wasn't even sure Matt would hear him. There was a long pause and he thought maybe he hadn't heard him but then Matt spoke.

'S'ok.' 

Jason bit his lip. Was that all? Was that really all he got?

'Are we...you know...are we ok?' He said now still not looking at Matt.

'Yeah why wouldn't we be? You're the one that's making a big deal out of it.' 

Jason turned to look at Matt now, pulling his sunglasses onto his head. 

'What's that supposed to mean?' He frowned. 

'I mean, you're the one that's been avoiding me. I forgot about it as soon as you walked away.' Matt still had his sunglasses on so Jason couldn't tell what he was thinking. But his comment hurt, and if he didn't know any better he would think that's why Matt had said it.

'Good, glad that's settled then.' Jason spat and turned back around so he didn't have to look at his asshole friend anymore. Matt bit his lip. He hadn't meant that, not at all. The truth was he'd thought of nothing but that kiss since. And that scared him but it also annoyed him that Jason was acting this way. 

'Whatever.' Matt scoffed lighting a new cigarette.

'You know what? I'm glad you're graduating soon. It'll make avoiding you so much easier.' Jason shook his head, trying to keep his eyes focused on the Brian's. 

'You don't mean that.' Matt's voice was suddenly so sad and it actually made Jason feel a little bad. For a second. But then he remembered what Matt had just said to him and he thought, good, I'm glad I've upset you.

'Oh don't I?' Jason turned back round to look at Matt. 'I don't even know why we're friends Matt. We have literally nothing in common, and to be quite honest you annoy the fuck out of me sometimes. Most of the time actually.' Jason wanted Matt to hurt like Matt had hurt him. He couldn't tell what Matt was thinking. 

'You're the one that kissed me.' Matt spoke quietly making sure no one else heard.

'Yeah because I felt sorry for you.' Jason told him. 'And it was the stupidest thing I've ever done. If I could take it back I would. Let's just get on with our last day here and then when we get back to campus we can go our separate ways.'

'Fine by me.'

'Fine.' Jason spat and turned back around. Matt felt tears stinging his eyes. That's not what he wanted, not at all. He was about to speak again, to tell Jason he was sorry for being an ass and that he wanted things to be ok, more than anything else in the world but there was suddenly a slim, messy haired man approaching them. 

'Hi there. I'm so sorry to just come over like this but I saw you across the beach and, I'm sorry to be so forward but I thought you were gorgeous so I just had to come over here.' He spoke to Jason. Matt wanted to tell this guy to fuck off but Jason spoke.

'Hi, well that's very nice of you.' Jason smiled at the stranger. 'I'm Jason.' 

'Danny.' The man held his hand out to shake Jason's. 'I don't supposed you'd like to go grab a drink?'

'Bit early isn't it?' Matt scoffed. Jason looked at him over his shoulder. He was going to say no to Danny's offer but Matt had made him have a change of heart. 

'Sure, a drink would be great.' Jason turned his attention back to Danny and heard Matt scoff. Jason stood up and brushed the sand off of him before grabbing his bag. 'Tell Kurtis I'll see him later.' He told Matt without looking at him.

'I'm not your fucking secretary.' Matt replied but Jason wasn't listening, he'd already started following Danny away. Matt groaned and laid back in the sand. This was his own fault. If he was just honest with Jason about how he felt then maybe that could be the two of them strolling down the beach together. Matt was an idiot. And now he'd probably lost his chance.

-----------------------------------------

'What was that guys deal?' Danny asked Jason now they were sat back up by the pool with a drink. Jason sighed, shaking his head.

'I wish I knew. He's supposed to be my best friend, or so he says.' 

'He sounded a little...jealous to me.' Danny sipped his drink with a small smile. He had a really nice smile Jason thought, just not as nice as Matt's. 

'I don't think so.' Jason laughed. 'He's an idiot, I don't want to talk about him.'

'Ok.' Danny smiled. 'Where are you from?'

'Atlanta originally but I'm at college in New York. How about you?' 

'I'm from California, Azusa, but I'm at college in Tampa, not too far from here actually.' 

Jason wanted to like Danny. He wanted to like Danny because Danny wasn't Matt. He needed a distraction from Matt, he really didn't care what it was at this point. So for the second time in as many days, Jason put on his confident hat and leaned in close to Danny and kissed him. It was nothing like kissing Matt. That was probably a good thing. It didn't feel like a good thing though.

[artificialqueens]

Straightjacket Feeling - Chp.4 (Pearlet) by Scarlet

Tw - mostly just angst in this chapter and a small dose of Viadore. After the next chapter it stops being set in college (finally!)

Chapter 4

Daytona Beach was already abuzz with Spring Breakers when they arrived some seven hours later. It was already dark when Matt pulled the SUV up in front of the hotel. When Jason opened the door he was bombarded by noise from every angle and he groaned a little. He’d half hoped he would get some studying done while he was here but that was looking unlikely. Their hotel had an outdoor pool with a bar next to it and there was loud music blaring from large speakers that people were dancing to. They all exited the car and grabbed their bags before checking in, thankfully Jason, Kurtis and Matt all had separate rooms this time.

‘So we gonna go party or what?’ Matt asked as they headed to their rooms.

‘No, need sleep.’ Jake grumbled, clearly not over his hangover yet.

'He piqued too soon. In fact I think I’m going to call it a night too, how about you Bri?’ Brian squeezed his boyfriend’s hand.

'Yeah I’m pretty beat.’ Bri nodded.

'Me too.’ Kurtis agreed.

'Fucking light weights!’ Matt groaned. 'You’ll come party with me won’t you Jay?’ He beamed at the younger boy, the smile he had so much trouble saying no to.

'I’m really tired Matt.’ Jason pulled a face. Matt widened his eyes and quivered his bottom lip; his fucking puppy dog face, the one he knew Jason couldn’t resist.

'Just one drink?’ He batted his eyes. Jason groaned.

'One drink.’ He repeated. 'Let me get changed first though.’

Suddenly Matt was engulfing him in a huge hug.

'You’re the best.’ Matt spoke into his ear and Jason practically melted. That made it worth it.

—————————————–

No sooner had Jason changed into a more weather appropriate outfit, because despite being night time it was still hotter in Daytona than it was in New York in the day time, Matt was knocking on his door. He put on a pair of his tightest shorts, the ones that made his ass look incredible, a Pearl Liaison vest top (because he knew Matt loved her) and his old boots. He opened the door and Matt was smiling at him. He too had opted for shorts and a baggy vest top but his was a plain dark green one. He spotted Jason’s shirt straight away.

'Oh god can you get me one of them for graduation?’ He pointed to the queen on Jason’s top, swooning a little. 'I don’t even care that she’s a dude, she is so fucking hot.’

Jason laughed, rolling his eyes.

'Maybe, if you’re good.’

'I’m always good.’ He winked at Jason and started leading him towards the bar by the pool. Matt whispered something in the bartender’s ear whilst Jason was distracted taking in the chaos. It was loud, really loud, and he would bet he and Matt were the only sober ones here. He felt Matt nudge him in the arm and he tore his attention away from the other party goers to see Matt handing him a plastic cup.

'What’s this?’ Jason sniffed it, that familiar smell of battery acid.

'That’s the Violet Kiss.’ He smiled brightly. Jason hadn’t had one of Matt’s secret concoctions since that first night he took him to that party. He took a small sip, he couldn’t deny it was really nice.

'Are you ever going to tell me what’s in it?’ Jason said as he followed Matt over to a free sun lounger where he sat down and Jason sat next to him.

'Maybe one day. But not tonight.’

'What about where you came up with the name?’

'Again, maybe one day, but not tonight.’ Matt had a twinkle in his eyes as he looked at Jason. 'You should take your hair down, you look so much prettier with your hair down.’

Jason’s heart skipped a beat. Did Matt just call him pretty?

'I uhm…’

'Oh don’t start with the uhming again.’ Matt laughed. 'Take your hair down.’

Jason bit his lip and nodded using his free hand to pull his hair and from its bun and let it cascade down his back. He ruffled it a little, Matt was smiling at him.

'Much better.’ He whispered. Jason didn’t know what to make of this. Was Matt hitting on him? He wasn’t even drunk either, which made it all the more confusing.

'Yeah.’ Just stuttered.

'You know, I always meant to talk to you about that night I came to your dorm. You know when Bri came home and outside in the corridor…’

When you kissed me Jason said in his head when Matt trailed off.

'What about it?’ He croaked, were they finally going to talk about it? Had Matt just called him pretty and now he wanted to talk about their kiss?

'Well,’ Matt placed his hand gently on Jason’s leg and Jason felt like a thunderbolt had just shot through his body. 'I’ve never done anything like that before you know? But I just…I can’t explain it. I just had this urge you know? And I knew I should have talked to you about it but it never seemed like the right time. You know sometimes…sometimes I think…’ Matt trailed off and it felt to Jason as though he was leaning closer. Was he going to kiss him again? Had Jason brushed his teeth? His head was spinning but Matt was definitely moving closer. 'Sometimes I think that maybe I’d like to-’

'Oh my god you are like super fucking hot!’ A female voice interrupted them and suddenly a girl was falling down to the sun lounger between Matt and Jason. No, no, no fuck off! Jason screamed internally.

'Why thank you.’ Matt smiled at her, seemingly ignoring Jason was there anymore. Jason wanted to scream at her, he and Matt were just getting somewhere, and finally, she couldn’t have chosen a worse moment.

'I’m Chloe.’ She was clearly drunk and she ran her hand through Matt’s hair. 'And you are fucking gorgeous.’

'I’m Matt and I’m flattered.’ He chuckled a little. 'This is my friend Jason.’ He pointed passed her to Jason but she didn’t look.

'Are you coming to the club? Everyone’s going to the club.’

'Uhm I’m not sure. Are we going to the club Jay?’ He looked at Jason over Chloe’s shoulder. Jason pulled a face and shook his head frantically. Matt half-smiled. 'Sorry, we’ve been driving for two days, maybe tomorrow?’

'Ohhhh come on, we’ll have a really good time.’ She kissed Matt’s neck now, her other hand working its way up Matt’s thigh. He gasped and closed his eyes. Jason clenched his jaw. Fuck this, he wasn’t going to be the third wheel. He especially wasn’t going to sit and watch while the boy he loved hooked up with some drunk bimbo. He got up and stormed away. He briefly looked over his shoulder to see if Matt had noticed but he hadn’t. His eyes were still closed as Chloe continued to work her lips on his neck. He didn’t blame Chloe, Matt was fucking gorgeous, and Jason was surprised there weren’t women lining up down the block for him. But Jason didn’t want to be part of it. He also didn’t want to go back to his room because he would no doubt curl up in bed and cry pathetically. So he went for a walk, and tried to burn the image of Chloe kissing Matt’s neck from his mind.

—————————————–

The sand was soft under his bare feet. He loved the way he sank into it as he walked, he loved the way it felt between his toes. He loved the feel of the soft sea breeze on his skin. He loved New York but sometimes, Matt missed the beach, a lot.

He could see him sitting down by the shore, his long hair blowing in the wind. He lifted a bottle to his lips and downed it and then made a disgusted noise that made Matt laugh. Jason turned, hearing the noise and he rolled his eyes as he saw Matt closing in on him.

'That was quick, even for you.’ Jason sighed as Matt fell to the sand next to him.

'What was quick?’ Matt took the bottle from Jason, it was whiskey.

'The sex.’

'Where did you get this?’ Matt chuckled taking a sip from it. He saw Jason shrug.

'The bartender was preoccupied with his own bimbo so I swiped it. Seems like a recurring thing down here.’

Matt laughed again.

'So Chloe was a bimbo?’

'Wasn’t she?’ Jason turned to look at him with a raised eyebrow.

'I don’t know I wasn’t with her long enough to find out. I left after I realised you did a disappearing act.’

Jason’s facial expression turned into more of a frown.

'You didn’t sleep with her?’ He snatched he bottle back from Matt.

'No!’ Matt scoffed. 'I’m not Jake.’

'Oh come on Matt, you might not be Jake but you aren’t exactly a virgin either.’ Jason rolled his eyes and swigged from the bottle, making the disgusted noise again.

'What are you implying?’ Matt frowned now, and if Jason wasn’t mistaken he thought Matt looked a little annoyed.

'Well I mean…we both know you get around.’

'Fuck you!’ Matt spat, taking Jason back. He’d never seen Matt get angry before. 'I don’t know what you think you know about me, but you’re wrong.’

'Oh really?’ Jason knew he should just drop it but he didn’t drink a lot so the alcohol he had consumed had gone straight to his head.

'You know what, I don’t have to explain myself to you. I don’t even know why I bothered to come and find you.’ He stood back up picking up his shoes. 'Just try not to drown yeah?’ He spun around and headed back up the beach. Jason bit his lip feeling bad. He jumped up as quick as he could, grabbing the whiskey and his boots before attempting to run after Matt.

'Matt stop! I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.’

'Yes you did.’ Matt turned back to him. He looked hurt. 'You as good as called me a fucking man whore Jason! Get your facts straight before you go making accusations ok? I thought you were my friend, I thought you got me.’ He turned to leave again but Jason grabbed his shoulder.

'I am your friend! I’m sorry Matt it’s just that from what I’ve seen…you do seem to have a lot of…female company.’

'And that immediately makes me some kind of whore?’ Matt stopped again and folded his arms over his chest. 'Don’t jump to conclusions when you don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about it.’

Jason thought he was going to march off again but stayed put, glaring at Jason.

'Well you’ve got to admit it looks a certain kind of way.’

'Yeah well looks can be deceiving.’ Matt sighed unfolding his arms and running his fingers through his hair. 'You wanna know the truth? I’ve only ever slept with two women. I was a chubby kid remember? Girls never looked at me. The first girl I slept with was in freshman year of college and I couldn’t believe my luck that a hot girl wanted me. And the only other girl there has ever been was a long term girlfriend. We met towards the end of freshman year and dated right up until just before I met you. I’m not some kind of whore that just jumps into bed with anyone Jason. In fact I still don’t get why girls are always hanging off of me, because to me, I’m still that fat dorky kid from high school. I don’t see myself the way they see me! So yeah I like the attention, I like when a hot girl throws herself at me because it makes me feel good but I do not sleep with them all. I thought you knew me well enough to know I wasn’t like that but I guess I was wrong.’ A small tear rolled down Matt’s cheek as he turned away from Jason again and started walking away. Jason dropped his shoes and drink to the floor and took off after Matt. He grabbed him by the shoulders when he reached him and turned him to face him and then he didn’t think anymore. He took hold of Matt’s face and he kissed him. It was much more than the small kiss they’d had once before. Jason kissed him hard and bit Matt’s bottom lip to let him know he wanted access and Matt allowed it. Soon after Jason’s tongue was in Matt’s mouth, massaging the older boys tongue, Jason holding his face firmly all the while. Matt was so taken aback by Jason’s surge of confidence his arms just hung limply at his sides as he let Jason take the lead. The kiss lasted several minutes and when it broke they were both panting.

'You are beautiful Matthew. Inside and out. Never, ever let me hear you doubt that.’ Jason told him. Then he picked his stuff up from the sand and walked passed Matt towards the hotel. Matt just stood there frozen to the spot. His heart was hammering in his chest. He’d always had his suspicions that Jason had a crush on him, but of course he never would have said anything because he didn’t want to ruin their friendship. But more worryingly, Matt had always had a suspicion that he too had a crush on Jason. He’d tried to write it off as a phase, he couldn’t be gay could he? But that kiss had actually sent chills down his spine. For the first time in his life Matt had felt truly alive. And he wouldn’t be happy until he had more.

—————————————–

Jason was avoiding Matt. When he’d woken up the next morning his head had hurt from the whiskey and his one coherent memory of the previous night was grabbing Matt and kissing him. Matt was acting completely normal as if nothing had happened but Jason was a bundle of nerves. Had he ruined their friendship? Was Matt just acting cool because he had to? Maybe when they got back to college Matt was never going to speak to him again.

Jason hadn’t been out drinking with them since that night. He’d spent his nights in his room studying and Matt didn’t even care enough to check on him like he normally would have done. Jason didn’t blame him, it was his own fault. He was starting to wish he’d stayed on campus, then maybe he and Matt would still be friends. On their last day before they started the long drive back tomorrow, Jason and Kurtis headed down to the beach.

'I still can’t believe you just ran off after without seeing what he would say! He probably thinks you regretted it the moment you did, that’s probably why he’s not talking to you.’ Kurtis sighed.

'I don’t want to talk about this anymore. I’m starting to wish I hadn’t told you.’ Jason groaned. They were looking for a spot on the beach that wasn’t over run with obnoxious college students, somewhere away from the crowds so they could relax for a bit. But they were spotted.

'Jason! Kurtis! Over here!’ It was Bri waving them over. Jason rolled his eyes under his sun glasses. He knew he couldn’t very well pretend he hadn’t seen him. Kurtis shrugged.

'You have to see him at some point. We’ve got to get a ride back with them tomorrow.’

Jason rolled his eyes again and they headed over to the rest of their gang.

'Where the hell have you been hiding?’ Jake playfully punched Jason in the arm. It hurt but Jason hoped Jake didn’t notice.

'Studying.’

'Urgh dork.’ Jake groaned. Jason ignored him. He also tried to ignore Matt who was sat on a towel smoking a cigarette. He was shirtless and his skin was sun kissed and Jason felt a little weak at the sight of his toned abs and tattooed arms. He set his towel out in front of Matt so he didn’t have to look at him and Kurtis set his down next to Jason. Kurtis immediately whipped his own shirt off and laid back on his towel folding his arms under his head and slipping on his headphones. Jake and Roxy were now making out, her straddling him in the middle of a public beach. It made Jason cringe. The Brian’s were playing some kind of game with a ball closer to the water. That left Jason and Matt. Jason wasn’t the kind of guy that revelled in taking his clothes off in public but it was sweltering hot and he’d made the stupid decision to wear a black t-shirt. All the other guys on the beach were shirtless so he tried to not put too much thought into when he stripped it off and folded it neatly before putting it in his bag. He could practically feel Matt’s eyes on the back of his head as he tied his hair back into a bun. He knew he’d have to speak to him eventually, but every time Jason looked at him he went bright red. So he decided to keep looking straight ahead when he spoke.

'Sorry about the other night.’ He spoke so quietly he wasn’t even sure Matt would hear him. There was a long pause and he thought maybe he hadn’t heard him but then Matt spoke.

’S'ok.’

Jason bit his lip. Was that all? Was that really all he got?

'Are we…you know…are we ok?’ He said now still not looking at Matt.

'Yeah why wouldn’t we be? You’re the one that’s making a big deal out of it.’

Jason turned to look at Matt now, pulling his sunglasses onto his head.

'What’s that supposed to mean?’ He frowned.

'I mean, you’re the one that’s been avoiding me. I forgot about it as soon as you walked away.’ Matt still had his sunglasses on so Jason couldn’t tell what he was thinking. But his comment hurt, and if he didn’t know any better he would think that’s why Matt had said it.

'Good, glad that’s settled then.’ Jason spat and turned back around so he didn’t have to look at his asshole friend anymore. Matt bit his lip. He hadn’t meant that, not at all. The truth was he’d thought of nothing but that kiss since. And that scared him but it also annoyed him that Jason was acting this way.

'Whatever.’ Matt scoffed lighting a new cigarette.

'You know what? I’m glad you’re graduating soon. It’ll make avoiding you so much easier.’ Jason shook his head, trying to keep his eyes focused on the Brian’s.

'You don’t mean that.’ Matt’s voice was suddenly so sad and it actually made Jason feel a little bad. For a second. But then he remembered what Matt had just said to him and he thought, good, I’m glad I’ve upset you.

'Oh don’t I?’ Jason turned back round to look at Matt. 'I don’t even know why we’re friends Matt. We have literally nothing in common, and to be quite honest you annoy the fuck out of me sometimes. Most of the time actually.’ Jason wanted Matt to hurt like Matt had hurt him. He couldn’t tell what Matt was thinking.

'You’re the one that kissed me.’ Matt spoke quietly making sure no one else heard.

'Yeah because I felt sorry for you.’ Jason told him. 'And it was the stupidest thing I’ve ever done. If I could take it back I would. Let’s just get on with our last day here and then when we get back to campus we can go our separate ways.’

'Fine by me.’

'Fine.’ Jason spat and turned back around. Matt felt tears stinging his eyes. That’s not what he wanted, not at all. He was about to speak again, to tell Jason he was sorry for being an ass and that he wanted things to be ok, more than anything else in the world but there was suddenly a slim, messy haired man approaching them.

'Hi there. I’m so sorry to just come over like this but I saw you across the beach and, I’m sorry to be so forward but I thought you were gorgeous so I just had to come over here.’ He spoke to Jason. Matt wanted to tell this guy to fuck off but Jason spoke.

'Hi, well that’s very nice of you.’ Jason smiled at the stranger. 'I’m Jason.’

'Danny.’ The man held his hand out to shake Jason’s. 'I don’t supposed you’d like to go grab a drink?’

'Bit early isn’t it?’ Matt scoffed. Jason looked at him over his shoulder. He was going to say no to Danny’s offer but Matt had made him have a change of heart.

'Sure, a drink would be great.’ Jason turned his attention back to Danny and heard Matt scoff. Jason stood up and brushed the sand off of him before grabbing his bag. 'Tell Kurtis I’ll see him later.’ He told Matt without looking at him.

'I’m not your fucking secretary.’ Matt replied but Jason wasn’t listening, he’d already started following Danny away. Matt groaned and laid back in the sand. This was his own fault. If he was just honest with Jason about how he felt then maybe that could be the two of them strolling down the beach together. Matt was an idiot. And now he’d probably lost his chance.

—————————————–

'What was that guys deal?’ Danny asked Jason now they were sat back up by the pool with a drink. Jason sighed, shaking his head.

'I wish I knew. He’s supposed to be my best friend, or so he says.’

'He sounded a little…jealous to me.’ Danny sipped his drink with a small smile. He had a really nice smile Jason thought, just not as nice as Matt’s.

'I don’t think so.’ Jason laughed. 'He’s an idiot, I don’t want to talk about him.’

'Ok.’ Danny smiled. 'Where are you from?’

'Atlanta originally but I’m at college in New York. How about you?’

'I’m from California, Azusa, but I’m at college in Tampa, not too far from here actually.’

Jason wanted to like Danny. He wanted to like Danny because Danny wasn’t Matt. He needed a distraction from Matt, he really didn’t care what it was at this point. So for the second time in as many days, Jason put on his confident hat and leaned in close to Danny and kissed him. It was nothing like kissing Matt. That was probably a good thing. It didn’t feel like a good thing though.

[blackkudos]

Zora Neale Hurston

Zora Neale Hurston (January 7, 1891 – January 28, 1960) was an American novelist, short story writer, folklorist, and anthropologist. Of Hurston's four novels and more than 50 published short stories, plays, and essays, she is best known for her 1937 novel Their Eyes Were Watching God.

In addition to new editions of her work being published after a revival of interest in her in 1975, her manuscript Every Tongue Got to Confess (2001), a collection of folktales gathered in the 1920s, was published posthumously after being discovered in the Smithsonian archives.

Biography

Early life

Hurston was the fifth of eight children of John Hurston and Lucy Ann Hurston (née Potts), two former slaves. Her father was a Baptist preacher, tenant farmer, and carpenter, and her mother was a school teacher. She was born in Notasulga, Alabama, on January 7, 1891, where her father grew up and her grandfather was the preacher of a Baptist church.

When she was three, her family moved to Eatonville, Florida; in 1887 it was one of the first all-black towns to be incorporated in the United States. Hurston said she always felt that Eatonville was "home" to her as she grew up there, and sometimes she claimed it as her birthplace. Her father later was elected as mayor of the town in 1897 and in 1902 became preacher of its largest church, Macedonia Missionary Baptist.

Hurston later used Eatonville as a backdrop in her stories. It was a place where African Americans could live as they desired, independent of white society. In 1901, some northern schoolteachers visited Eatonville and gave Hurston a number of books that opened her mind to literature; she described it as a kind of "birth". Hurston spent the remainder of her childhood in Eatonville, and describes the experience of growing up there in her 1928 essay, "How It Feels to Be Colored Me".

In 1904, Hurston's mother died. Her father remarried to Matte Moge; this was considered a minor scandal, as it was rumored that he had relations with Moge before his first wife's death. Hurston's father and stepmother sent her away to a Baptist boarding school in Jacksonville, Florida. They eventually stopped paying her tuition and the school expelled her. She later worked as a maid to the lead singer in a traveling Gilbert & Sullivan theatrical company.

In 1917, Hurston began attending Morgan College, the high school division of Morgan State University, a historically black college in Baltimore, Maryland. At this time, apparently to qualify for a free high-school education (as well, perhaps to reflect her literary birth), the 26-year-old Hurston began claiming 1901 as her year of birth. She graduated from the high school of Morgan State University in 1918.

College

In 1918, Hurston began studies at Howard University, where she became one of the earliest initiates of Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Inc. and co-founded The Hilltop, the university's student newspaper. While there, she took courses in Spanish, English, Greek and public speaking and earned an associate degree in 1920. In 1921, she wrote a short story, John Redding Goes to Sea, which qualified her to become a member of Alaine Locke's literary club, The Stylus. Hurston left Howard in 1924 and in 1925 was offered a scholarship by Barnard trustee Annie Nathan Meyer to Barnard College, Columbia University, where she was the college's sole black student. Hurston received her B.A. in anthropology in 1928, when she was 37. While she was at Barnard, she conducted ethnographic research with noted anthropologist Franz Boas of Columbia University. She also worked with Ruth Benedict as well as fellow anthropology student Margaret Mead. After graduating from Barnard, Hurston spent two years as a graduate student in anthropology at Columbia University.Living in Harlem in the 1920s, Hurston befriended the likes of Langston Hughes and Countee Cullen, among several others. Her apartment, according to some accounts, was a popular spot for social gatherings. Around this time, Hurston experienced a few early literary successes, including placing in short-story and playwriting contests in Opportunity magazine.

Adulthood

In 1927, Hurston married Herbert Sheen, a jazz musician and a former classmate at Howard who later became a physician. Their marriage ended in 1931. In 1939, while Hurston was working for the WPA, she married Albert Price. The marriage ended after seven months.

She lived in a cottage in Eau Gallie, Florida, twice: once in 1929 and again in 1951. During the 1930s, Hurston was a resident of Westfield, New Jersey, where Langston Hughes was among her neighbors. In 1934 she established a school of dramatic arts "based on pure Negro expression" at Bethune-Cookman University (at the time, Bethune-Cookman College), a historically black college in Daytona Beach, Florida.

In later life, in addition to continuing her literary career, Hurston served on the faculty of North Carolina College for Negroes (now North Carolina Central University) in Durham, North Carolina.

Legacy and honors

In 1956 Hurston received the Bethune-Cookman College Award for Education and Human Relations in recognition of her achievements. The English Department at Bethune-Cookman College remains dedicated to preserving her cultural legacy.

Anthropological and folkloric fieldwork

Hurston traveled extensively in the Caribbean and the American South and immersed herself in local cultural practices to conduct her anthropological research. Based on her work in the South, sponsored from 1928 to 1932 by Charlotte Osgood Mason, a wealthy philanthropist, Hurston wrote Mules and Men in 1935. She was doing research in lumber camps and commented on the practice of white men in power taking black women as sexual concubines, including having them bear children. This later was referred to as "paramour rights," based in the men's power under racial and related to practices during slavery times. The book also includes much folklore. She used this material as well in fictional treatment developed for her novels such as Jonah's Gourd Vine (1934).

In 1936 and 1937, Hurston traveled to Jamaica and Haiti for research, with support from the Guggenheim Foundation. She drew from this for her anthropological work, Tell My Horse (1938).

From October 1947 to February 1948, she lived in Honduras, at the north coastal town of Puerto Cortés. She had some hopes of locating either Mayan ruins or vestiges of an as yet undiscovered civilization. While in Puerto Cortés, she wrote much of Seraph on the Suwanee, set in Florida. Hurston expressed interest in the polyethnic nature of the population in the region (many, such as the Miskito Zambu and Garifuna, were of partial African ancestry and had developed creole cultures).

Later years

In 1948, Hurston was falsely accused of molesting a ten-year-old boy in New York City. Although the case was dismissed after Hurston presented evidence that she was in Honduras when the crime supposedly occurred in the U.S., her personal life was seriously disrupted by the scandal.

During her last decade, Hurston worked as a freelance writer for magazines and newspapers. In the fall of 1952 she was contacted by Sam Nunn, editor of the Pittsburgh Courier, to go to Florida to cover the murder trial of Ruby McCollum. McCollum was charged with murdering a white doctor and politician, who McCollum said had forced her to have sex and bear his child. Hurston recalled what she had seen of white male sexual dominance in the lumber camps in North Florida, and discussed it with Nunn. They both thought the case might be about such "paramour rights," and wanted to "expose it to a national audience."

Upon reaching Live Oak, Hurston was surprised not only by the gag order the judge in the trial placed on the defense, but by her inability to get residents in town to talk about the case; both blacks and whites were silent. She believed that might have been related to Dr. Adams' alleged involvement as well in Sam McCollum's gambling operation. Her articles were published by the newspaper during the trial. Ruby McCollum was convicted by an all-white, all-male jury, and sentenced to death. Hurston had a special assignment to write a serialized account, The Life Story of Ruby McCollum, over three months in 1953 in the newspaper. Her part was ended abruptly when she and Nunn disagreed about her pay, and she left.

Unable to pay independently to return for the appeal and second trial, she contacted journalist William Bradford Huie, with whom she had worked at The American Mercury, to try to interest him in the case. He covered the appeal and second trial, and also developed material from a background investigation. Hurston shared her material with him from the first trial, but he acknowledged her only briefly in his book, Ruby McCollum: Woman in the Suwannee Jail (1956), which became a bestseller. Hurston celebrated that "McCollum’s testimony in her own defense marked the first time that a woman of African-American descent was allowed to testify as to the paternity of her child by a white man. Hurston firmly believed that Ruby McCollum’s testimony sounded the death toll of 'paramour rights' in the Segregationist South."

Among other positions, Hurston later worked at the Pan American World Airways Technical Library at Patrick Air Force Base in 1957. She was fired for being "too well-educated" for her job.

She moved to Fort Pierce. Taking jobs where she could find them, she worked occasionally as a substitute teacher. At age 60, Hurston had to fight “to make ends meet” with the help of public assistance. At one point she worked as a maid on Miami Beach’s Rivo Alto Island

Death

During a period of financial and medical difficulties, Hurston was forced to enter St. Lucie County Welfare Home, where she suffered a stroke. She died of hypertensive heart disease on January 28, 1960, and was buried at the Garden of Heavenly Rest in Fort Pierce, Florida. Her remains were in an unmarked grave until 1973. Novelist Alice Walker and literary scholar Charlotte D. Hunt found an unmarked grave in the general area where Hurston had been buried, and decided to mark it as hers.

After Hurston died her papers were ordered to be burned. A law officer and friend, Patrick DuVal, passing by the house where she had lived, stopped and put out the fire, thus saving an invaluable collection of literary documents for posterity. The nucleus of this collection was given to the University of Florida libraries in 1961 by Mrs. Marjorie Silver, friend and neighbor of Hurston. Other materials were donated in 1970 and 1971 by Frances Grover, daughter of E. O. Grover, a Rollins College professor and long-time friend of Hurston's. In 1979 Stetson Kennedy of Jacksonville, who knew Hurston through his work with the Federal Writers Project, added additional papers. [(Zora Neale Hurston Papers, University of Florida Smathers Libraries, August 2008)]

Literary career

1920s

When Hurston arrived in New York City in 1925, the Harlem Renaissance was at its peak, and she soon became one of the writers at its center. Shortly before she entered Barnard, Hurston's short story “Spunk” was selected for The New Negro, a landmark anthology of fiction, poetry, and essays focusing on African and African-American art and literature. In 1926, a group of young black writers including Hurston, Langston Hughes, and Wallace Thurman, calling themselves the Niggerati, produced a literary magazine called Fire!! that featured many of the young artists and writers of the Harlem Renaissance. In 1929, Hurston moved to Eau Gallie in Florida where she wrote Mules and Men, which was later published in 1935.

1930s

By the mid-1930s, Hurston had published several short stories and the critically acclaimed Mules and Men (1935), a groundbreaking work of "literary anthropology" documenting African-American folklore from timber camps in North Florida. In 1930, she collaborated with Langston Hughes on Mule Bone: A Comedy of Negro Life in Three Acts, a play that they never staged. It was published posthumously in 1991.

Hurston translated her anthropological work into the performing arts, and her folk revue, The Great Day, which featured authentic African song and dance, premiered at the John Golden Theatre in New York in January 1932. There was only one performance of The Great Day, despite the positive reviews. The Broadway debut left Hurston in $600 worth of debt. No producers wanted to move forward with a full run of the show.

During the 1930s, Zora Neale Hurston produced two other musical revues, From Sun to Sun, which was a revised adaptation of The Great Day, and Singing Steel. Hurston had a strong belief that folk should be dramatized.

Hurston's first three novels were published in the 1930s: Jonah's Gourd Vine (1934); Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937), written during her fieldwork in Haiti and considered her masterwork; and Moses, Man of the Mountain (1939).

In 1937, Hurston was awarded a prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship to conduct ethnographic research in Jamaica and Haiti. Tell My Horse (1938) documents her account of her fieldwork studying spiritual and cultural rituals in Jamaica and vodoun in Haiti.

1940s and 1950s

In the 1940s, Hurston's work was published in such periodicals as The American Mercury and The Saturday Evening Post. Her last published novel, Seraph on the Suwanee, notable principally for its focus on white characters, was published in 1948. It explores images of "white trash" women. Jackson (2000) argues that Hurston's meditation on abjection, waste, and the construction of class and gender identities among poor whites reflects the eugenics discourses of the 1920s.

In 1952, Hurston was assigned by the Pittsburgh Courier to cover the small-town murder trial of Ruby McCollum, the prosperous black wife of the local bolita racketeer, who had killed a racist white doctor. She also contributed to Woman in the Suwannee County Jail, a book by journalist and civil rights advocate William Bradford Huie. In 2008, The Library of America selected excerpts from this work for inclusion in its two-century retrospective of American True Crime writing.

Public obscurity

Hurston's work slid into obscurity for decades, for a number of cultural and political reasons.

Many readers objected to the representation of African-American dialect in Hurston's novels, given the racially charged history of dialect fiction in American literature. Her stylistic choices in terms of dialogue were influenced by her academic experiences. Thinking like a folklorist, Hurston strove to represent speech patterns of the period which she documented through ethnographic research. For example, a character in Jonah's Gourd Vine expresses herself in this manner:

"Dat's a big ole resurrection lie, Ned. Uh slew-foot, drag-leg lie at dat, and Ah dare yuh tuh hit me too. You know Ahm uh fightin' dawg and mah hide is worth money. Hit me if you dare! Ah'll wash yo' tub uh 'gator guts and dat quick."

Several of Hurston's literary contemporaries criticized Hurston's use of dialect as a caricature of African-American culture rooted in a racist tradition. In particular, a number of writers associated with the Harlem Renaissance were critical of Hurston's later writings, on the basis that they did not agree with or further the position of the overall movement. One particular criticism came from Richard Wright in his review of Their Eyes Were Watching God:

... The sensory sweep of her novel carries no theme, no message, no thought. In the main, her novel is not addressed to the Negro, but to a white audience whose chauvinistic tastes she knows how to satisfy. She exploits that phase of Negro life which is "quaint," the phase which evokes a piteous smile on the lips of the "superior" race.

More recently, many critics have praised Hurston's skillful use of idiomatic speech.

During the 1930s and 1940s when her work was published, the pre-eminent African-American author was Richard Wright. Unlike Hurston, Wright wrote in explicitly political terms, as someone who had become disenchanted with communism, using the struggle of African Americans for respect and economic advancement as both the setting and the motivation for his work. Other popular African-American authors of the time, such as Ralph Ellison, dealt with the same concerns as Wright.

Hurston's work, which did not engage these political issues, did not fit in with this struggle. In 1951, for example, Hurston argued that New Deal economic support created a harmful dependency by African Americans on the government, and that this dependency ceded too much power to politicians.

The last 10 years of her life were shrouded in obscurity. Yet Hurston maintained her independence and a determined optimism. She wrote in a 1957 letter. “But … I have made phenomenal growth as a creative artist. … I am not materialistic… If I do happen to die without money, somebody will bury me, though I do not wish it to be that way.”

Posthumous recognition

Zora Neale Hurston's hometown of Eatonville, Florida, celebrates her life in an annual festival and is home to the Zora Neale Hurston Museum of Fine Arts, named in her honor. Her life and legacy are celebrated every year here at the Zora Neale Hurston Festival of the Arts and Humanities. A library named for her opened in January 2004.

Hurston's house in Fort Pierce has been designated a National Historic Landmark. The city celebrates Hurston annually through various events such as Hattitudes, birthday parties, and a several-day festival at the end of April known as Zora Fest.

Author Alice Walker sought Hurston's grave in 1973 and planted a grave marker calling her "A Genius of the South." Walker then published "In Search of Zora Neale Hurston" in the March 1975 issue of Ms. magazine, reviving interest in Hurston's work. The renewal of attention to Hurston was related also to the rise of new African-American authors such as Maya Angelou, Toni Morrison, and Walker, whose works are centered on African-American experiences and include, but do not necessarily focus upon, racial struggle.

In 2002, scholar Molefi Kete Asante listed Zora Neale Hurston on his list of 100 Greatest African Americans.

Barnard College dedicated its 2003 Virginia C. Gildersleeve Conference to Hurston. "Jumpin’ at the Sun: Reassessing the Life and Work of Zora Neale Hurston" focused on her work and influence. Alice Walker's Gildersleeve lecture detailed her work on discovering and publicizing Hurston's legacy.

The Zora Neale Hurston Award was established in 2008; it is awarded to an American Library Association member who has "demonstrated leadership in promoting African American literature".

She was inducted as a member of the inaugural class of the New York Writers Hall of Fame in 2010.

On January 7, 2014, the 123rd anniversary of Hurston's birthday was commemorated by a Google Doodle.

She was one of twelve inaugural inductees to the Alabama Writers Hall of Fame on June 8, 2015.

Politics and religion

John McWhorter has called Hurston "America's favorite black conservative" while David T. Beito and Linda Royster Beito have argued that she can better be characterized as a libertarian. She was a Republican who was generally sympathetic to the foreign policy non-interventionism of the Old Right and a fan of Booker T. Washington's self-help politics. She disagreed with the philosophies (including Communism and the New Deal) supported by many of her colleagues in the Harlem Renaissance, such as Langston Hughes, who was in the 1930s a supporter of the Soviet Union and praised it in several of his poems. Despite much common ground with the Old Right in domestic and foreign policy, Hurston was not a social conservative. Her writings show an affinity for feminist individualism. In this respect, her views were similar to two libertarian novelists who were her contemporaries: Rose Wilder Lane and Isabel Paterson. Although her personal quotes show a disbelief of religion, Hurston did not negate spiritual matters as evidenced from her 1942 autobiography Dust Tracks on a Road.

Prayer seems to me a cry of weakness, and an attempt to avoid, by trickery, the rules of the game as laid down. I do not choose to admit weakness. I accept the challenge of responsibility. Life, as it is, does not frighten me, since I have made my peace with the universe as I find it, and bow to its laws. The ever-sleepless sea in its bed, crying out “how long?” to Time; million-formed and never motionless flame; the contemplation of these two aspects alone, affords me sufficient food for ten spans of my expected lifetime. It seems to me that organized creeds are collections of words around a wish. I feel no need for such. However, I would not, by word or deed, attempt to deprive another of the consolation it affords. It is simply not for me. Somebody else may have my rapturous glance at the archangels. The springing of the yellow line of morning out of the misty deep of dawn, is glory enough for me. I know that nothing is destructible; things merely change forms. When the consciousness we know as life ceases, I know that I shall still be part and parcel of the world. I was a part before the sun rolled into shape and burst forth in the glory of change. I was, when the earth was hurled out from its fiery rim. I shall return with the earth to Father Sun, and still exist in substance when the sun has lost its fire, and disintegrated into infinity to perhaps become a part of the whirling rubble of space. Why fear? The stuff of my being is matter, ever changing, ever moving, but never lost; so what need of denominations and creeds to deny myself the comfort of all my fellow men? The wide belt of the universe has no need for finger-rings. I am one with the infinite and need no other assurance.

In 1952, Hurston supported the presidential campaign of Senator Robert A. Taft. Like Taft, Hurston was against Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal policies. She also shared his opposition to Roosevelt and Truman's interventionist foreign policy. In the original draft of her autobiography, Dust Tracks on a Road, Hurston compared the United States government to a "fence" in stolen goods and to a Mafia-like protection racket. Hurston thought it ironic that the same “people who claim that it is a noble thing to die for freedom and democracy ... wax frothy if anyone points out the inconsistency of their morals.... We, too, consider machine gun bullets good laxatives for heathens who get constipated with toxic ideas about a country of their own.” She was scathing about those who sought "freedoms" for those abroad but denied it to people in their home countries: Roosevelt "can call names across an ocean" for his Four Freedoms, but he did not have “the courage to speak even softly at home.” When Truman dropped the atomic bombs on Japan she called him “the Butcher of Asia.”

Hurston opposed the Supreme Court ruling in the Brown v. Board of Education case of 1954. She felt that if separate schools were truly equal (and she believed that they were rapidly becoming so), educating black students in physical proximity to white students would not result in better education. In addition, she worried about the demise of black schools and black teachers as a way to pass on cultural tradition to future generations of African Americans. She voiced this opposition in a letter, "Court Order Can't Make the Races Mix", that was published in the Orlando Sentinel in August 1955. Hurston had not reversed her long-time opposition to segregation. Rather, she feared that the Court's ruling could become a precedent for an all-powerful federal government to undermine individual liberty on a broad range of issues in the future. Hurston also opposed preferential treatment for African-Americans, saying:

If I say a whole system must be upset for me to win, I am saying that I cannot sit in the game, and that safer rules must be made to give me a chance. I repudiate that. If others are in there, deal me a hand and let me see what I can make of it, even though I know some in there are dealing from the bottom and cheating like hell in other ways.

Criticism and accusations of plagiarism

Darwin Turner, one of Hurston's biographers, faulted her for racism for opposing integration, and for opposing programs to guarantee blacks the right to work.

Other authors criticized Hurston for her sensationalist representation of voodoo. In The Crisis, Harold Preece criticized Hurston for her perpetuation of "Negro primitivism" in order to advance her own literary career. The Journal of Negro History complained that her work on voodoo was an indictment of African American ignorance and superstition.

Jeffrey Anderson states that Hurston's research methods were questionable, and that she fabricated material for her works on voodoo. He observed that she admitted inventing dialogue for her book Mules and Men in a letter to Ruth Benedict and described fabricating the Mules and Men story of rival voodoo doctors as a child in her later autobiography. Anderson believes that many of Hurston's other claims in her voodoo writings are dubious as well.

Several authors have contended that Hurston engaged in significant plagiarism in at least three works, claiming that article "Cudjo's own story of the last African slaver" was only 25% original, the rest being plagiarized, and that she also plagiarized much of her work on voodoo.

Selected bibliography

"Journey's End" (Negro World, 1922), poetry

"Night" (Negro World, 1922), poetry

"Passion" (Negro World, 1922), poetry

Color Struck (Opportunity: A Journal of Negro Life, 1925), play

"Sweat" (1926), short story

"How It Feels to Be Colored Me" (1928), essay

"Hoodoo in America" (1931) in The Journal of American Folklore

"The Gilded Six-Bits" (1933), short story

Jonah's Gourd Vine (1934), novel

Mules and Men (1935), non-fiction

Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937), novel

Tell My Horse (1938), non-fiction

Moses, Man of the Mountain (1939), novel

Dust Tracks on a Road (1942), autobiography

Seraph on the Suwanee (1948), novel

"What White Publishers Won't Print" (Negro Digest, 1950)

I Love Myself When I Am Laughing...and Then Again When I Am Looking Mean and Impressive: A Zora Neale Hurston Reader (Alice Walker, ed.) (1979)

The Sanctified Church (1981)

Spunk: Selected Stories (1985)

Mule Bone: A Comedy of Negro Life (play, with Langston Hughes; edited with introductions by George Houston Bass and Henry Louis Gates, Jr.) (1991)

The Complete Stories (introduction by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Sieglinde Lemke) (1995)

Novels & Stories: Jonah's Gourd Vine, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Moses, Man of the Mountain, Seraph on the Suwanee, Selected Stories (Cheryl A. Wall, ed.) (Library of America, 1995) ISBN 978-0-940450-83-7

Folklore, Memoirs, & Other Writings: Mules and Men, Tell My Horse, Dust Tracks on a Road, Selected Articles (Cheryl A. Wall, ed.) (Library of America, 1995) ISBN 978-0-940450-84-4

Barracoon (1999)

Every Tongue Got to Confess: Negro Folk-tales from the Gulf States (2001)

Zora Neale Hurston: A Life in Letters, collected and edited by Carla Kaplan (2003)

Collected Plays (2008)

Film and television

In 1989 PBS aired a drama based on Hurston's life entitled Zora is My Name!

The 2004 film Brother to Brother, set in part during the Harlem Renaissance, featured Hurston (portrayed by Aunjanue Ellis).

Their Eyes Were Watching God was adapted for a 2005 film of the same title by Oprah Winfrey's Harpo Productions, with a teleplay by Suzan-Lori Parks. The film starred Halle Berry as Janie Starks.

On April 9, 2008, PBS broadcast a 90-minute documentary, Zora Neale Hurston: Jump at the Sun, written and produced by filmmaker Kristy Andersen, as part of the American Masters series.

In 2009, Hurston was featured in a 90-minute documentary about the WPA Writers' Project titled Soul of a People: Writing America's Story, which premiered on the Smithsonian Channel. Her work in Florida during the 1930s is highlighted in the companion book, Soul of a People: The WPA Writers' Project Uncovers Depression America.

Wikipedia

[dbnewsjournal]

Movie review: The WWII thriller ‘Greyhound’ triumphantly takes to the seas

When the subject of novels by C.S. Forester pops up at cocktail parties, film adaptations of them that immediately come to mind are “The African Queen” (script by James Agee and John Huston) and “Sink the Bismark!” (script by Edmund H. North). I wasn’t familiar with Forester’s 1955 book “The Good Shepherd,” another one about both a world war and sailing vessels.Neither was Tom Hanks, who picked up a copy of it seven or eight years ago [...] from Entertainment - Daytona Beach News-Journal Online https://ift.tt/2Z5a40t via IFTTT

[fullspectrum-cbd-oil]

‘We’re Going to War, Bro’: Fort Bragg’s 82nd Airborne Deploys to the Middle East

For many of the soldiers, it would be their first mission. They packed up ammunition and rifles, placed last-minute calls to loved ones, then turned in their cell phones. Some gave blood.

The 600 mostly young soldiers at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, were headed for the Middle East, part of a group of some 3,500 U.S. paratroopers ordered to the region. Kuwait is the first stop for many. Their final destinations are classified.

“We’re going to war, bro,” one cheered, holding two thumbs up and sporting a grin under close-shorn red hair. He stood among dozens of soldiers loading trucks outside a cinder block building housing several auditoriums with long benches and tables.

Days after U.S. President Donald Trump ordered the drone killing of Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani, raising fears of fresh conflict in the Middle East, the men and women of the U.S. Army’s storied 82nd Airborne Division are moving out in the largest “fast deployment” since the 2010 Haiti earthquake.

U.S. Army Major General James Mingus waded through the sea of camouflage-uniformed men and women as they prepared to leave the base near Fayetteville on Sunday. He shook hands with the troops, wishing them luck.

One soldier from Ashboro, Virginia, said he wasn’t surprised when the order came.

“I was just watching the news, seeing how things were going over there,” said the 27-year-old, one of several soldiers Reuters was allowed to interview on condition they not be named. “Then I got a text message from my sergeant saying ‘don’t go anywhere.’ And that was it.”

Risks seemed to be pushed to the back of the minds of the younger soldiers, though many packed the base chapel after a breakfast of eggs, waffles, oatmeal, sausages and 1,000 doughnuts.

One private took a strap tethered to a transport truck and tried to hitch it to the belt of an unwitting friend, a last prank before shipping out.

‘THIS IS THE MISSION’

The older soldiers, in their 30s and 40s, were visibly more somber, having the experience of seeing comrades come home from past deployments learning to walk on one leg or in flag-draped coffins.

“This is the mission, man,” said Brian Knight, retired Army veteran who has been on five combat deployments to the Middle East. He is the current director of a chapter of the United Service Organizations military support charity.

“They’re answering America’s 911 call,” Knight said. “They’re stoked to go. The president called for the 82nd.”

There was lots of wrestling holds as the troops tossed their 75-pound (34 kg) backpacks onto transport trucks. The packs hold everything from armor-plated vests, extra socks and underwear, to 210 rounds of ammunition for their M-4 carbine rifles.

A sergeant pushed through the crowd shouting for anyone with type-O blood, which can be transfused into any patient.

“The medics need you now. Move,” he said, before a handful of troops walked off to give a little less than a pint each.

UNCERTAINTY PREVAILS

While members of the unit – considered the most mobile in the U.S. Army – are used to quick deployments, this was different, Lieutenant Colonel Mike Burns, an Army spokesman.

“The guys are excited to go but none of us know how long they’ll be gone,” Burns said. “That’s the toughest part.”

Soldiers were ordered not to bring cell phones, portable video games or any other devices that could be used to communicate with friends and family back home, out of concern that details of their movements could leak out.

“We’re an infantry brigade,” Burns said. “Our primary mission is ground fighting. This is as real as it gets.”

A sergeant started rattling off last names, checking them off from a list after “heres” and “yups” and “yos.”

For every fighter, there were seven support crew members shipping out – cooks, aviators, mechanics, medics, chaplains, and transportation and supply managers. All but the chaplains would carry guns to fight.

A senior master sergeant, 34, said: “The Army is an all-volunteer force. We want to do this. You pay your taxes and we get to do this.”

The reality of the deployment wouldn’t sink in until the troops “walk out that door,” he said, pointing to the exit to the tarmac where C-4 and C-7 transport planes and two contract commercial jets waited.

His call came when he was on leave in his hometown of Daytona Beach, Florida, taking his two young daughters to visit relatives and maybe go to Walt Disney World.

“We just got there and I got the call to turn right around and head back to base,” he said. “My wife knows the drill. I had to go. We drove right back.”

On a single order, hundreds of soldiers jumped to their feet. They lined up single file and marched out carrying their guns and kits and helmets, past a volunteer honor guard holding aloft flags that flapped east in the January wind.

(Reporting by Rich McKay; Editing by Scott Malone and Sonya Hepinstall)

from IJR https://ift.tt/39LkJAL via IFTTT

[hviral]

Hurricane Dorian Pounds Georgia As It Moves To Carolinas

Powerful Hurricane Dorian whipped the Georgia coast Thursday as it grew in size and strength, knocking out power to hundreds of thousands of people while flooding parts of downtown Charleston, South Carolina. Dorian on its way north, threatening to become the first Category 3 storm since Fran in 1996 to make landfall in North Carolina and watches were issued as far north as Delaware and Massachusetts.

Tornado watches and warnings were issued in many parts of Georgia and the Carolinas.

Tropical-storm-force winds were close to 70 mph Thursday morning in Georgia and South Carolina, with hurricane-force winds expected for coastal South Carolina later in the day. Tropical-storm and hurricane conditions are forecast for coastal North Carolina late Thursday.

Residents in Charleston and the entire South Carolina coast were warned to expect the worst to come, with water levels that could near 10 feet.

“Large areas of deep inundation with storm surge flooding accentuated by battering waves. Structural damage to buildings, with several washing away,” the center wrote in its 7 a.m. update. “Damage compounded by floating debris. Locations may be uninhabitable for an extended period.”

The torrential rains were expected along the winds further up the coast. North Carolina’s Outer Banks could get hit with up to 15 inches of rain and coastal Virginia communities such as Hampton Roads could see a storm surge of two to four feet, according to the National Hurricane Center.

Though weakened from the powerhouse category 5 storm that devastated the Bahamas and expected to move toward the northeast, hurricane paths are notoriously difficult to predict, and the Category 3 storm remains a threat to areas as far north as Cape Cod.

Storm surge warnings extended north to Poquoson, Virginia, and a tropical storm warning was put in effect from the North Carolina/Virginia border to Chincoteague, Virginia, and Chesapeake Bay from Smith Point southward.

Nearly two dozen Georgia counties are under emergency declarations, and the state is expected to see the brunt of Dorian’s wrath well into Thursday.

By noon Wednesday, emergency management officials were already receiving reports of downed trees and as Dorian bore down on Georgia.

“Downed trees may mean downed power lines, which are life-threatening,” Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp tweeted. “Be extremely careful.”

Related Coverage Hurricane Dorian Still Stalled, Many Florida Schools Closed Hurricane Dorian Puts More Georgia Counties Under State Emergency Hurricane Dorian: SC Flooding, Evacuations, Airport Closure North Carolina Ordering Mandatory Evacuations In Barrier Islands Better Business Bureau Warns Of Hurricane Dorian Scams

Destructive storm surges of between three and five feet are forecast, according to current models from the National Hurricane Center.

“This storm is a big one, with powerful winds and expected storm surges of 3 to 6 feet,” Kemp warned ahead of the storm, urging residents of his state to take Hurricane Dorian’s threat seriously. “This is a huge storm we’re facing.”

Dorian is moving northward, raising the threat in areas in its path. The storm could make landfall along the coastline of the Carolinas late Thursday and bring widespread devastation, the National Hurricane Center warned.

Eastern North Carolina could begin to see some of the impacts, such as increased rain and winds, as soon as Thursday afternoon.

“Now is the time to make final emergency preparations before the storm’s onset,” the agency said.

The threat of heavy rainfall over eastern South Carolina and southeastern North Carolina prompted a flash-flooding warning for the regions now in effect.

“A high risk exists across portions of the coastal Carolinas, with widespread and significant flooding expected tonight through Friday,” the National Weather Service’s Weather Prediction Center said.

Rainfall over Charleston could bring water levels high enough to rank among the top five ever in the coastal city, The Washington Post reported.

Streets were already beginning to flood Wednesday afternoon in Charleston, which is barely above sea level and has a long history of susceptibility to floods, as the city is flat.

Huge numbers of people were fleeing the city, heeding the advice of Gov. Henry McMaster, who has been warning residents of Charleston and other low-lying coastal areas of South Carolina to get out ahead of high winds and life-threatening storm surges.

Florida Returning To Normal

Before Dorian left Florida, residents along the coast dealt with high winds and angry seas, but hurricane warnings and watches and storm surge alerts remained in effect from Daytona Beach to Jacksonville.

“Remain cautious of strong wind gusts and brief bursts of heavy rain in passing squalls today,” the National Weather Service in Melbourne, Florida, tweeted Wednesday morning. “Conditions at beaches are hazardous from #Dorian. The surf remains high and rough, along with a threat of coastal flooding & beach erosion.”

Relieved Floridians were returning to normal Thursday, though many schools remained closed. Several airports reopened, with Orlando International Airport, Palm Beach International Airport, Fort Lauderdale/Hollywood and Melbourne International Airport all resuming normal flight operations. More than 800 flights flights had been canceled this week.

Walt Disney World also reopened Wednesday.

While Walt Disney World prides itself on being open 365 days a year, officials opted to close early Tuesday while Dorian’s path remained uncertain. It’s not the first time the park was forced to close. Two years ago, Hurricane Irma caused Walt Disney World to close for two full days and caused some damage around the resort. The year before that, Hurricane Matthew also caused the parks to close for a day.

To assist those forced to evacuate their homes, Airbnb activated its Open Homes Program to help displaced residents and relief workers deployed to the southeast region impacted by Hurricane Dorian.

The Open Homes program for Hurricane Dorian was first activated on Aug. 28 to assist those in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the new activation area on the U.S. mainland includes the majority of Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and parts of Alabama.

‘Apocalyptic’ Damage In The Bahamas

Dorian was packing category 5 winds when it hit the Bahamas, making it “perhaps the worst hurricane ever” to have struck the islands Michael Scott, the chairman of the government-owned Grand Lucayan Resort and Casino on Grand Bahama Island, told The New York Times. The resort was operating as a shelter because many designated shelters were damaged.

As the winds and rain subsided in the Bahamas, rescue crews fanned out to take a full measure of the devastation from the worst hurricane ever recorded in the country mauled Grand Bahama and Abaco islands.

The death toll stood at seven, but was almost certain to rise. Prime Minister Hubert Minnis said the country is “in the the midst of one of the greatest national crises” in its history.

“Right now there are just a lot of unknowns,” Parliament member Iram Lewis told The Associated Press. “We need help.”

“The devastation is unlike anything that we’ve ever seen before,”National Security Minister Marvin Dames said. “We’re beginning to get on the ground, get our people in the right places. We have a lot of work in the days and weeks and months ahead.”

Lia Head-Rigby, who helps run a Red Cross hurricane relief group, told The AP the scene from the air as she flew over was “apocalyptic.”

“It’s total devastation. It’s decimated,” she said. “It’s not rebuilding something that was there; we have to start again.”

-Charity Scam Warnings

Scams could spike along with the storm surge, the Better Business Bureau’s charity arm, Give.org, warned. In past weather disasters, the organization has seen crowdfunding posts from people claiming they’re raising money to deliver and distribute water, food and flashlights to the affected areas.

“Even if they are sincere, such efforts may risk lives, complicate access by professional efforts and potentially divert donations that could be directed in more helpful ways,” Art Taylor, Give.org’s president and CEO, said. “Donors should watch out for newly created organizations that emerge that are either inexperienced in addressing disasters or may be seeking to deceive donors at a vulnerable time.”

From the National Hurricane Center’s 8 a.m. update:

A Storm Surge Warning is in effect for:

-Savannah River to Poquoson VA -Pamlico and Albemarle Sounds -Neuse and Pamlico Rivers -Hampton Roads -A Hurricane Warning is in effect for:

-avannah River to the North Carolina/Virginia border Pamlico and Albemarle Sounds A Tropical Storm Warning is in effect for:

-North Carolina/Virginia border to Chincoteague VA -Chesapeake Bay from Smith Point southward A Tropical Storm Watch is in effect for:

-North of Chincoteague VA to Fenwick Island DE Chesapeake Bay from Smith Point to Drum Point

-Tidal Potomac south of Cobb Island -Woods Hole to Sagamore Beach MA -Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard MA -The Associated Press contributed reporting.

The post Hurricane Dorian Pounds Georgia As It Moves To Carolinas appeared first on HviRAL.

from WordPress https://ift.tt/2ZQOk5s

[bountyofbeads]

Hurricane Dorian poised to slam the Carolinas after scraping the coasts of Florida and Georgia

By Jason Samenow and Andrew Freeman | Published September 04, 2019 11:17 AM ET | Washington Post | Posted September 4, 2019 11:54 AM ET

Hurricane Dorian gradually leaves Florida behind Wednesday, setting its sights on the coasts of Georgia and then the Carolinas. These areas face a triple threat of “destructive winds, flooding rains, and life-threatening storm surges,” according to the National Hurricane Center.

While Dorian has stayed far enough off the coast to largely spare Florida from the worst of its wrath, it is forecast to make a much closer approach to the coastline of the Carolinas between late Wednesday and Thursday and could even make landfall. Impacts are thus expected to be more severe.

Around Charleston, S.C., for example, wind gusts could hit 80 mph, and water levels could rank among the top five levels ever recorded due to the combination of ocean surge and up to 15 inches of rain. Higher wind gusts could lash North Carolina’s Outer Banks, leading to power outages and damage.

Even the Virginia Tidewater and southern Delmarva Peninsula could endure tropical storm conditions by Friday, after which the storm is expected to finally zoom away to the northeast.

The Category 2 storm, while no longer the powerhouse that devastated the northwestern Bahamas, has expanded in size. That means its strong winds cover a larger area, capable of generating giant waves and pushing large amounts of water toward the shore. There were signs that Dorian is attempting to intensify over the waters northeast of Florida on Wednesday morning, with a ring of thunderstorms building up around its center. If this trend continues, it could mean even worse impacts for the Carolinas.

Coastal flooding is also a risk from northeastern Florida to the North Carolina Outer Banks, where water levels may rise up to seven feet above normally dry land, prompting storm-surge warnings.

THE LATEST

As of 11 a.m. on Wednesday, the storm was 90 miles east-northeast of Daytona Beach, Fla., and moving north-northwest at 9 mph. The storm’s peak sustained winds were 105 mph, making it a high-end Category 2 storm. Dorian is expected to maintain its current intensity through Thursday.

The storm has grown larger since the weekend; hurricane-force winds extend outward up to 70 miles from the center, and tropical-storm-force winds extend outward up to 175 miles.

Radar showed Dorian’s outer rain bands grazing the coast from Titusville, Fla. north to near Savannah, Ga. During the predawn hours Wednesday, peak wind gusts reached 50 to 70 mph in Volusia and Brevard counties in Florida and the Hurricane Center said tropical storm conditions were continuing to affect portions of the coast of northeast Florida Wednesday morning.

“Remain cautious of strong wind gusts and brief bursts of heavy rain in passing squalls today,” the National Weather Service in Melbourne, Fla., tweeted. “Conditions at beaches are hazardous from #Dorian. The surf remains high and rough, along with a threat of coastal flooding & beach erosion.”

The National Weather Service in Jacksonville also warned of dangerous conditions at the coast due to elevated water levels anticipated at the 1 p.m. high tide. Scenes from social media showed water running up to homes in Vilano Beach, just north of St. Augustine:

FORECAST FOR GEORGIA, THE CAROLINAS AND VIRGINIA

Conditions are expected to deteriorate by Wednesday morning in coastal Georgia and late Wednesday in South Carolina. In North Carolina, it may take until the second half of Thursday for tropical storm conditions to commence. Most of the storm effects in southeastern Virginia should hold off until Friday morning.

The severity of Dorian’s effects will be closely related to how closely Dorian tracks to the coast and whether it makes landfall. Most computer models now forecast the center of Dorian to come very close to the coast of South Carolina and to come ashore in North Carolina, with the highest chance over the Outer Banks.

Computer models generally project that the storm center should remain far enough off the coast of Georgia to limit winds to tropical-storm force (39 to 73 mph) and rainfall totals to 3 to 6 inches. Tropical storm warnings are in effect here.

In the Carolinas, under a hurricane warning, sustained winds could reach 60 to 80 mph with higher gusts, especially along the North Carolina Outer Banks. Rainfall amounts of 5 to 10 inches are predicted, and localized totals up to 15 inches, meaning a high risk of flash flooding.

The Georgia and South Carolina coastlines are particularly vulnerable to storm surge flooding, even from a storm that does not make landfall, due to the shape of the land on and just offshore, as well as the effects of sea-level rise and land subsidence over time. The surge could reach 3 to 5 feet in Georgia and 5 to 8 feet from the Isle of Palms to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. From Cape Lookout to Duck, North Carolina, including Pamlico and Albemarle Sounds and the Neuse and Pamlico Rivers. a surge of 4 to 6 ft is anticipated.

Farther north, the possibility of a 2-to-4-foot surge exists in Hampton Roads, Va.

The Weather Service forecast office in Charleston, S.C., is forecasting that storm-surge flooding may begin to occur there on Wednesday, well ahead of the storm’s center of circulation. Heavy rains of 6 to 10 inches or more could worsen the surge-related flooding by impeding drainage back out to sea.

“The combination of significant storm surge inundation and heavy rainfall will enhance the risk for flash flooding, especially along coast, including Downtown Charleston, portions of the Savannah Metro Area, and the nearby coastal communities,” the Weather Service office in Charleston wrote. “This is a dangerous situation and preparations should be rushed to completion today.”

Depending on the timing of the maximum storm surge, Charleston could see this storm bring one of its top five water levels on record.

Fort Pulaski, Georgia, near Savannah, is forecast to have coastal flooding at midday Wednesday that would be exceeded only by Hurricanes Matthew and Irma, while Charleston may see a 2nd-worst flood event, behind 1989′s Hurricane Hugo, on Wednesday night.

According to the Weather Service office in Charleston, based on the present forecast track, the result could be particularly severe. Among the possible effects, it listed: “Large areas of deep inundation with storm surge flooding accentuated by battering waves. Structural damage to buildings, with several washing away. Damage compounded by floating debris. Locations may be uninhabitable for an extended period.”

Locations farther north from Virginia Beach to the Delmarva could get clipped by the storm Friday and Saturday, with heavy rains, tropical storm force winds and coastal flooding.

A tropical storm watch is in effect from the North Carolina/Virginia border to Chincoteague, including the Virginia Beach area, as well as the Chesapeake Bay from Smith Point southward. Up to 3 to 6 inches of rain could fall.

“The risk of wind and rain impacts along portions of the Virginia coast and the southern Chesapeake Bay are increasing,” the Hurricane Center wrote. “Residents in these areas should continue to monitor the progress of Dorian.”

FORECAST FOR FLORIDA

The forecast track continues to keep Dorian’s most dangerous winds and highest levels of storm-surge flooding from coming ashore in the Sunshine State, but brings the storm close enough to produce heavy rain, damaging winds and 3 to 5 feet of surge from Volusia County north to the Georgia border on Wednesday.

Tropical-storm conditions, with sustained winds of greater than 39 mph, are likely through late Wednesday from the Space Coast northward.

Areas that are especially vulnerable to storm-surge flooding, such as Jacksonville, Fla., could see significant flooding depending on the exact track and timing of the storm.

Rainfall totals are predicted to range from 3 to 6 inches in northeast Florida near the coast, with decreasing amounts inland and to the south.

Northwest Bahamas took a nightmarish, 40 hour direct hit

Between late Sunday and Tuesday, Dorian slammed into the northwestern Bahamas with wind gusts up to 220 mph and a 23-foot storm surge. Video and images emerging from the Bahamas show a toll of absolute devastation on Great Abaco and Grand Bahama Islands, two locations where the eye of the storm made landfall.

Grand Bahama Island suffered an onslaught from this storm that few places on Earth have experienced, remaining in the eyewall of a major hurricane (between Category 3 and 5) for 40 hours. The eyewall is the most severe part of a hurricane that contains its strongest winds and generates the most destructive storm-surge flooding.

Dorian came to a virtual standstill as it encountered the northwest Bahamas. Between 3 a.m. on Labor Day and 5 a.m. on Tuesday, the storm moved just 30 miles in 28 hours. In addition to wind gusts up to 220 mph and a 23-foot storm surge, up to 40 inches of rain were estimated in some areas.

DORIAN’S PLACE IN HISTORY

Dorian is tied for the second-strongest storm (as judged by its maximum sustained winds) ever recorded in the Atlantic Ocean, behind Hurricane Allen of 1980, and, after striking the northern Bahamas, tied with the 1935 Labor Day Hurricane for the title of the strongest Atlantic hurricane at landfall.

It is only the second Category 5 hurricane to make landfall in the Bahamas since 1983, according to Phil Klotzbach of Colorado State University. The only other is Hurricane Andrew in 1992. The international hurricane database goes back continuously only to 1983.

The storm’s peak sustained winds rank as the strongest so far north in the Atlantic Ocean east of Florida on record. Its pressure, which bottomed out at 910 millibars, is significantly lower than Hurricane Andrew’s when it made landfall in South Florida in 1992 (the lower the pressure, the stronger the storm).

With Dorian attaining Category 5 strength, this is the first time since the start of the satellite era (in the 1960s) that Category 5 storms have developed in the tropical Atlantic for four straight years, according to Capital Weather Gang tropical weather expert Brian McNoldy.

The unusual strength of Dorian and the rate at which it developed is consistent with the expectation of more intense hurricanes in a warming world. Some studies have shown increases in hurricane rapid intensification, and modeling studies project an uptick in the frequency of Category 4 and 5 storms.

Dorian may have also set a record for the longest period of Category 4 and 5 conditions to strike one location in the North Atlantic Basin since the dawn of the satellite era, but historical data is relatively sparse.

[cameronwjones]

20 Orlando Event Venues Your Attendees Will Love

Orlando, known as “Theme Park Capital of the World,” is a venue haven for large events. And yes, in case you’re wondering, you’ll find your fair share of amusements parks in our collection of 20 Orlando event spaces—as well as a 1925 colonial estate, a Harley-Davidson Factory, and a sugar brimmed venue, among others.

But you’ll also find an array of outdoor venues, so you can take advantage of the warm weather of “The City Beautiful,” Orlando’s other nickname. And since any good event strategy starts with the perfect venue for you and your event, we’ve also included a fair share of non-traditional venues for those who want to make a big impression. Keep reading for the full list of 20 Orlando event venues your attendees will love. 

Orlando Event Venues:

ICON Orlando 360

The Hangar Orlando

The Rooftop

Citywalk at Universal Studios

The Cheyenne Saloon and Opera House

The Courtyard at Lake Lucerne

The Pointe

Orlando Harley-Davidson Historic Factory

Snap! Orlando

The Acre

Walt Disney World

Orange County Convention Center

Sugar Factory Orlando

One80 Skytop Lounge

Chapman Leonard Orlando Sound Stage

Fun Spot

Waldorf-Astoria Orlando

Ceviche

The Orlando Museum of Art

The Estate House at Cypress Grove 

1. ICON Orlando 360

Source: Icon Orlando

Location: I-Drive

Capacity: 12 - 2,500

Take your pick of event spaces within this 18-acre complex that includes Sea Life Orlando Aquarium, Madame Tussauds, Skeletons: Museum of Osteology, as well as the tallest observation wheel in the United States East Coast. While you’re there, throw a quarter into the Fountain of Hope to contribute to Give Kids The World Village, which provides cost-free vacations to Central Florida families who have children with life-threatening illnesses.

2. The Hangar Orlando

Source: The Hangar Orlando

Location: Colonialtown South

Capacity: 1,500

Think of this all-white airport hangar as your personal canvas, ready to take on any theme. One wall of the open industrial space is entirely retractable, so you can even turn your event into an al fresco affair. Both model and display planes are available as decor.

3. The Rooftop

Source: The Rooftop  

Location: Downtown

Capacity: 170

Pick a view from this 10,000-square-foot event space with its 360-degree vantage point of Orlando. While any spot from the four-sided, open-air balcony will be an impressive sight, head to the small west balcony for an impressive Orlando sunset view.

4. CityWalk at Universal Studios

Source: Universal Orlando Resort

Location: Universal Studios

Capacity: 600 - 6,000

You have a wide range of venues choices at CityWalk—from The Toothsome Chocolate Emporium & Savory Feast Kitchen, with chocolates galore in a 19th-century steampunk space, to the Hot Dog Hall of Fame, which features iconic hot dog creations and real stadium seats from major league ballparks. For a more diverse event, opt for the Universal CityWalk Block Party, which combines three or more venues for your event. Plus, attendees will love the added convenience of the many accessible hotels nearby.

Protip: For large events spanning many buildings, consider using an event management software to make life easier for both you and your attendees.

5. The Cheyenne Saloon and Opera House

Source: The Cheyenne Saloon and Opera House

Location: Downtown

Capacity: 1,200

The Cheyenne Saloon may have been built in the 1980s, but you’ll think you’re in the 1880s when you walk through the door of this gold-oak-lumber structure in the style of a century-old Ohio barn. The saloon was even built without bolts or plates in the old world tradition. For your event, you’ll have your pick of three floor levels, five bars, a horseshoe-shaped dance floor, a stage, and opera box seating.

6. The Courtyard at Lake Lucerne

Source: The Courtyard at Lake Lucerne

Location: Lake Cherokee Historic District

Capacity: 300

This little oasis of historic buildings flanked by a scenic courtyard and lake is situated, miraculously, within minutes of downtown. The historic touches run the gamut here too, from the Victorian elegance of the Dr. Phillips House to the 1920s wicker furniture decorated verandas.

7. The Pointe

Source: The Pointe

Location: Convention District

Capacity: 10,000

The Pointe is an eclectic event space that brings attendees together in manicured outdoor setting, surrounded by shopping, dining, and entertainment opportunities. Events can be small, with many of the restaurants offering semi-private and private spaces. Or, go big with a block party style event by combining multiple Pointe venues.

8. Orlando Harley-Davidson Historic Factory

Source: Orlando Harley-Davidson Historic Factory

Location: Millenia

Capacity: 2,000

You don’t have to be a motorcycle enthusiast to enjoy the Orlando Harley-Davidson History Factory’s industrial setting with motorcycles aplenty. The front of the structure is a reproduction of the original 1906 Harley Factory in Milwaukee. The 35,000-square-feet building sits on seven acres and can accommodate up to 2,000 guests with the outdoor terrace add-on.

9. SNAP! Orlando

Source: SNAP! Orlando

Location: Mills 50 District

Capacity: 300

Once known as the Cameo Theater, SNAP! has been transformed into a sleek indoor-outdoor warehouse-style gallery venue. Featuring photography and new media, this 5,000 square feet space includes an outdoor patio and high-profile art exhibitions. Big bonus: The 60-spot parking lot.

10. The Acre

Source: The Acre Orlando

Location: College Park

Capacity: 250

This off-the-road locale is a great venue for those wanting to offer an alternative Orlando experience, with the added convenience of being in close proximity to Universal Studios and Daytona Beaches. The property is characterized by its Barn, Chapel House, Mirror Patio, Camphor tree, and relaxing fire pit. The Acre is perfect for space for intimate and spacious events alike—they even offer catering, musicians, and officiants.

11. Walt Disney World

Source: Disney Meetings

Location: Lake Buena Vista

Capacity: 10 - 10,000

Who wouldn’t want to attend an event at “The Most Magical Place On Earth”? Event planners get their own dose of magic with Disney creative consultants who bring a sensory-based learning approach to events. Not to mention, their skills as award-winning show producers, writers, and set designers are sure to bring your event to the next level.

12. Orlando Orange County Convention Center

Source: Orange County Convention Center

Location: Convention District

Capacity: 18,000

This three-building structure, spanning 7 million square feet, is the second largest convention center in the United States. To give you a sense of scale, just one of the exhibition halls would fit 200 NBA-size basketball courts. Parking is an unlikely problem here with 6,227 parking spaces available.

13. Sugar Factory Orlando

Source: Sugar Factory Orlando

Location: I-Drive

Capacity: 500

Delight attendees at this brasserie, offering upscale dining classics and inventive sugary treats. Here, event-goers can order 60-ounce cocktails complete with lollipops and gummies that are served in smoking goblets. If you think that won’t entice attendees, there’s always the 16-scoop King Kong Sundae. Those with less of a sweet tooth can opt for celebrity-endorsed Couture Pops.

14. One80 Skytop Lounge

Source: One80 Skytop Lounge             

Location: Parramore in Downtown

Capacity: 361

At the top of the Amway Center, home to the NBA's Orlando Magic, sits this sleek rooftop lounge. With impressive views of the city, guests can relax in the snazzily lit lounge area or take a break on the terrace as the city lights up the night.

15. Chapman Leonard Orlando Sound Stage

Source: Chapman Leonard Studios

Location: South Orlando

Capacity: 400

Choose between three state-of-the-art sound stages—large, medium and small—for your event. Any of these provide a great clean slate for your event and come equipped with climate control, green rooms, and even dressing areas, should you need them.

16. Fun Spot

Source: Fun Spot

Location: I-Drive

Capacity: 3,000

No chance an event at Fun Spot could be mistaken for a staid corporate affair. Attendees can enjoy unlimited rides on all go-karts, roller coasters, and rides. For a real thrill, consider the Orlando Gatorland add-on to see thousands of alligators and crocodiles—among them four rare white alligators.

17. Waldorf-Astoria Orlando

Photo source: Waldorf-Astoria Orlando

Location: Walt Disney World Resort

Capacity: 2,000+

This swanky spot has built-in practicality with 42,000 square feet of meeting space, including a 7,945-square-foot ballroom and 14,000 square feet of gardens. The property has won a host of awards, including the Orlando Business Journal’s Best Meeting Spot for Small Gatherings and U.S. News & World Report’s Best Hotels in the United States.

18. Ceviche

Source: Ceviche

Location: Church Street District

Capacity: 500

If you want small plates with a side of traditional Spanish Flamenco dancing, then Ceviche is the place for you. The ambiance is eclectic, with cathedral ceilings, antique stained glass windows, and a New Orleans-style balcony facing the city. This venue prides itself in being a particularly lively setting for events.

19. The Orlando Museum of Art

Source: The Orlando Museum of Art

Location: Loch Haven Park

Capacity: 1,000

Beyond the gallery spaces that you would expect at a museum, this 1924 structure also offers an auditorium and meeting rooms. To set an especially impressive scene, opt for the light-filled Council of 101 Grand Gallery Hall. With its marble floors, art-adorned walls, and Dale Chihuly glass sculpture under a domed skylight, this venue is sure to make a lasting impression.

20. The Estate House at Cypress Grove

Source: The Estate House at Cypress Grove

Location: Edgewood / Lake Jessamine

Capacity: 200

The last venue on our Orlando list is a magical 1925 vintage estate. The Estate House at Cypress Grove is a colonial home amongst 80 acres of lands on the shore of Lake Jessamine, featuring cypress trees and the best of Florida’s Southern charm. From weddings and private parties to corporate events and social events, this venue is a great choice for organizers looking for a space with classic allure.

Event Venues in Major Cities

Looking for other event venues in Florida? Check out our Miami Event Venues. If Florida isn’t your state of choice, check out our comprehensive lists of event venues across the nation.

San Diego Event Venues

Houston Event Venues

Atlanta Event Venues

Washington Event Venues

Boston Event Venues

Seattle Event Venues

Chicago Event Venues

San Francisco Event Venues

  from Cameron Jones Updates https://blog.bizzabo.com/orlando-event-venues

[travelinglifeshighways]

Ronald Regan Presidential Library

Ronald Regan Presidential Library

Simi Valley, California

Monday, June 25, 2018

Clear, 72°

"And as we liftoff aboard Air Force One…the winds of freedom will be propelling my mission… As I fly westward over our majestic land, I go knowing that we´re witnessing an awakening to those self–evident truths to which our forefathers pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor." – Ronald Reagan, April 23, 1986

Presidential Library Sign

Perched on a mountaintop with sweeping views of the surrounding mountains, valleys and the Pacific Ocean, the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library is one of California's most beautiful and unique destinations.  The Library's 300 acre site, about 45 miles from Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), represents the "shining city on a hill" often referenced by President Reagan and appropriately serves as the final resting place of the nation's 40th President.

Climbing the hill and looking for a place to park the RV was not easy.  The lots are for regular vehicles and it appeared that buses and RV’s were to park on the long winding hill leading up to the main buildings.  Since it was still early in the morning, the parking lots were not very full so I looked for a place away from the cars already in the parking lot and found a place at the end of one lot and parked cross lane taking up three spots.  I could see a security officer heading toward the RV and knew he was not going to let me stay parked in those three spots.  He introduced himself as Tim, and talking with him, he suggested since we were in the far end of the lot that I could back into one spot, have the carrier on the back of the RV go over the sidewalk past the bushes and the wheels back up to the curb, I would be fine in the front and blocking the sidewalk would not matter since it was the last spot.

Tim walked with us from the parking lot to the main entrance talking about the exhibits, the things to see, and the final resting place for the Reagan's.  When Tim was a boy, his dad, who was a veteran, received a medal from President Reagan.  Tim was also a veteran and worked for many years with the border patrol.  Every one of the volunteers was knowledgeable and answered questions providing information about Reagan and his family from his early acting career to his time as California’s Governor and his Presidency.

About Ronald Reagan

This is a fitting tribute to one of our greatest presidents, the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum is in a class by itself.  

Ronald and Nancy Reagan statue

There are some great exhibits, including an exact replica of the Oval Office,

Oval Office Panorama

Oval Office Rug with Seal

artifacts from Reagan's boyhood, and some particularly superb sections covering highlights from his presidency.  

They know their president and are both enthusiastic and approachable, filled with anecdotes of the “Gipper” and of the museum itself.

The star of the show is Air Force One, but what sets the museum apart is its wonderful staff of volunteer docents.  

Air Force One Sign

This Flying White House, tail number 27000, served seven U.S Presidents from 1973 to 2001, including Presidents Nixon, Carter, Ford, Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Clinton and George W. Bush.

Air Force One and Motorcade vehicles

For Ronald Reagan, this was the plane in which he hand-wrote many of his speeches, signed important legislation and even officially started the Daytona Beach, Florida NASCAR race via phone.

Air Force One Cockpit Area

In the Air Force One Pavilion there is also a famous helicopter with Presidential ties.  

Marine One Welcome Aboard

Marine One is the call sign given to helicopters that transport the President and are operated by US Marine Corps Marine Helicopter Squadron One (HMX-1) “Nighthawks“.  

Marine One

This example is a 1962 Sikorsky VH-3A Sea King (tail number 150611) that was retired in 2002.  

Presidential Seal on Marine One

It sits below the much larger Air Force One in the museum. While on-site, although the cafeterias aren't going to be winning a Michelin star in the near future, they offer a good variety of options at a decent price.  Grab lunch in the Ronald Reagan Pub (an Irish pub from Ballyporeen where Ronald Reagan sank a pint of Smithwicks during one of his presidential visits to Ireland) or the Reagan’s Country Café.  After lunch, find a spot on the back terrace, overlooking a replica of the South Lawn with a great view of the hills beyond.  

In this area, there is also a piece of the “Berlin Wall” reminding us how instrumental Reagan was in ending the “Cold War” with Russia. 

Berlin Wall East Side

It is a very sobering site to think of what went on during those years.

Berlin Wall West Side

The last place we visited was the final resting place of Ronald and Nancy Reagan. 

Ronald and Nancy Reagan Final Resting Place

It is just off the “South Lawn,” facing the west and bearing a quote from the President stating his belief that "I know in my heart that man is good, that what is right will always eventually triumph, and there is purpose and worth to each and every life."  

Ronald and Nancy Reagan Burial Marker

The library showcases a great President, an inspiring story, and a museum that brings history to life.