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“I was driving a brand new truck down to our crew in Tampa, when the darn thing broke down in Georgia. I ended up having to loan a car from a dealership, while I hung around Georgia until the malfunctioning part got replaced.

“Well I made sure to get myself a large car so I could fold the seats down and take my bike and some coolers out to explore a bit. I set out for Jekyll Island State Park, and just about the first thing I see is this dream catcher in the brush. I don’t really know how it started, but everybody who goes by it leaves a trinket of some sort. It looks like it’s been decorated for years, and I was feeling the need to add to the collection.

“There was plenty more to see too. Stumps like this one where the driftwood had landed on the beach and been bleached white from the winds and the sand and the water blowing in off the Atlantic. There was just no way I was going to sit around in a hotel room playing video games while they fixed our truck when there were places like this to see.”

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PTI crews spend a lot of time in the State of Kentucky. Some of the hardier crew members, like PTI’s Senior Supervisor Chuck McNamee, use their days off to hike the challenging trails in nearby Daniel Boone National Forest.

“I spend 180 or so days of our season out of town and out of state. There are some places I really look forward to seeing. There is so much free land out there to explore to hike, to mountain bike.

“The ledges and rock formations in Daniel Boone National Forest make a great side trip. When I was a kid, my family spent a lot of time up at Whipp’s Ledges in Hinkley, Ohio, climbing crevices, exploring a few caves. Getting out to the Kentucky ledges reminds me of all those hours we used to spend in the woods.

“This country of ours has such a beautiful park system. Some of us on the crew like to get out there to explore them every chance we get.”

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“Mushrooms stick out like a brilliant bright flower on a trail. You can seem them from like a mile away. The texture, the size – they’re like a beacon in the woods screaming out ‘Hey! Look at me!’

“The ones I found on the Hillsborough trails did not disappoint. This wooden pathway was part of the bike trail, and there was a lot to see along the way. There were these old trees with their elaborate root systems, mossy logs with holes in them making a home for some animal, stumps of trees with these bulbous growths.

“Even when you’re that close to a big city like Tampa, it’s just amazing the things you can find when you look.”

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“I’d read about this real old tree that’s not far from where we were working, so I asked my cousin and co-worker Norm to come on over to the island with me to see it. Wow! This thing is every bit as enormous as it looks in this picture! It’s over 65 feet high and almost three feet around.

“They tell me it’s only a baby, even though it’s half a century old. Apparently it’s not the oldest tree after all. There’s one over in North Carolina that’s something like 1500 years old, that’s got this one beat! But I wouldn’t have wanted to miss that trip. They call this one the Angel Oak Tree and it’s a real beauty!

“Besides, while we were over there on St. Johns, I heard someone calling out my name. Turns out it was one of my kids’ classmates down there on a mission trip helping out the locals.

“I’m not sure what the rest of the crew was doing that weekend, but for Norm and me it was a real good day!”

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“In that part of the country, the turtles are like squirrels are up here in the Northeast. I mean they are just all over the trail, foraging around.

“You can tell they’re sort of used to people. I put the camera right up near this guy’s face, and he never flinched, just kept on eating. Now usually, a turtle like this would pull back into his shell and protect himself. Not this guy.

“And this is all happening not out in some remote area, but right there in Miami-Dade County! What a world!”

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“One week we were doing work down near the Everglades. That’s beautiful country down there, so on my day off I set out for the Florida Panther National Wildlife Refuge. Didn’t see any panthers, but there was a lot going on worth seeing.

“I’m riding along and there’s this gator lying right across the path. He saw me coming and jumps right up on his back legs, leaping into the waterway alongside the path. Wish I had a photo of that one!

“One thing I hate to see is a gator that’s been poached for the meat of his tail, the carcass left off the beaten track for the vultures to get. Those gators down in Alligator Alley are pretty magnificent creatures, but I guess they’re just a meal to some people.

“Another time I was down in that same area just before the wildfires came. The drought had been so bad you could actually see the fish all congregated in the deepest part of the pool, just gulping for air, it was so hard for them to breathe. A short while after we’d finished our job down there, the wildfires engulfed that area where I’d been riding.”

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