Jan Annino - Scenic Driving Florida

Jan Godown Anninos most recent book for GPP is for young readers, Floridas Famous Animals. Her nature writing is also anthologized in The Book of the Everglades and in Stories from Where We Live: The South Atlantic Coast and Piedmont (Milkweed).

Jan arrived at GPP via the Falcon imprint, finding quotations for Falcons photography volume, Florida on My Mind. She debuted Scenic Driving Florida and is happy to be traveling through her 3rd edition. If a scenic drive here becomes your family favorite, let her know why via her Web site (www.bookseedstudio.wordpress.com), where she also posts her nature, history, literary, and road sign images.

Jans affection for heritage topics is reflected in her 2010 National Geographic collaboration, She Sang Promise, a biography for young readers about Seminole Indian leader Betty Mae Tiger Jumper, with an afterword by Moses Jumper Jr. and illustrations by Lisa Desimini.

Having grown up next door to a field of cows and with a clowder of cats in New Jersey woods, Jan enjoyed migrating to the clear waters of the Florida gulf shore at age 13. She graduated from the University of Florida, earning the Elmer J. Emig Award, then worked at Florida community newspapers, winning honors. Her features have appeared in the Seminole tribal newspaper and in newspapers outside of Florida, including the Atlanta Constitution, the Chicago Tribune, the Philadelphia Inquirer, and also Costa Ricas Tico Times.

Tallahassee, with its suburban red clay hills at the roof of the state, is where she lives with her family, under a scenic live oak tree. Jans favorite Tallahassee scenic drive is a brief unpaved lane in a small woods off High Road, to visit the Laura Jepsen Cottage and Lichgate Oak (www.lichgate.com).

H eres a tip of the sun visor to those who labor, unair-conditioned, out in the field, accompanied by mosquitoes and no-see-ums, at Florida estuarine research reserves, seashores, rivers, lakes, parks, preserves, museums, and historic sites. To them and to the public agency staffers, business owners, strangers, and friends along each drive route who help in the adventure of producing this guide, I am grateful.

I renew my salute to all applauded in earlier editions, plus for this volume send a basket of live oak seedlings to Anna Annino, Paolo Annino, Jody Taylor, H. J. Cummins, Capt. Mike Fuery, Susan Hill, Victoria Terre, and many others. At GPP I salute: Amy Lyons, Lynn Zelem, Joanna Beyer, Melissa Baker, Daniel Lloyd, and Brooke Martin. GPP is steadfastly interested in scenic areas and I applaud that.

The state Library of Florida is always a writers haven and repository of key informationthank you for still being there.

A scenic driver is incomplete without her wheels, so for the spot rechecking of drives in the 3rd edition, I must kick the tires in affection for my reliable old Ford van, purchased from the appropriately named Sunrise Ford in Fort Pierce. Mine is one in a long line of Fords derived from the genius of the Florida winter resident (see Punta Rassa in Drive 29) who sent my father on scenic drives in Fords beginning with Dads first Tin Lizzie; Henry Ford should rest well knowing this version of his tire-treader found its way safely down every remote path I steered it.

I would be without many good books that helped inform my Florida understanding if my mother hadnt years ago given me her eclectic library of books, articles, and materials, along with sharing her zestful Florida knowledge. Joanna Godown kept me company on several drives, including 3rd-edition rechecked routes near Cedar Key, and I especially remember when we were delighted to see three otters cross the road (safely!), when we spotted quail feeding in the Lower Suwannee National Wildlife Refuge and deer browsing at Manatee Springs State Park, and when we enjoyed scenic views in and around Gainesville. As she says, Go! Gators!

I thank Rosemont Ventures of Sunapee, N.H., for making it possible for me to be outdoors in parks and preserves in the Big Cypress and Everglades regions in summer, via skin protection with Herbal Armor, and I am grateful for New Leaf Market, Tallahassee, where I bought this modern version of what Florida Indians must have applied to their bodies.

I am always a fan of the prolific historian Michael Gannon, editor of The New History of Florida and author of acclaimed Florida books. The Short History of Florida, his new one from the University Press of Florida, which this former broadcaster also reads in his golden voice on CD, is an ideal choice to play while you meander. It was my fine fortune to study years back with Dr. Gannon at the University of Florida.

One Florida short-story collection I appreciated along the road during work on the 3rd edition also became a spiritual guide: A River in Flood, by Marjory Stoneman Douglas, collected and engagingly introduced by Kevin M. McCarthy. I enjoyed extending my daily research into the night on some trips by reading a clever story set in the same territory as Drive 28: Nature Girl, by the incomparable novelist Carl Hiaasen, a Miami Herald columnist who doesnt let the bad guys in Florida get off easy.

Finally, I applaud advocatesyou know who you arewho stick their necks out and sometimes risk livelihoods to keep our coastal and inland waters clean. Without these brave hearts, this book wouldnt exist, because the wild heart of Florida, as writer Susan Cerulean calls it, would be without scenic drives.

Ake, Anne. Everglades. Sarasota, Fla.: Pineapple Press, 2008.

Alderson, Doug. The Ghost Orchid and Other Stories from the Swamp. Sarasota, Fla.: Pineapple Press, 2007.

Austin, Elizabeth S., ed. Frank M. Chapman in Florida. Gainesville, Fla.: University Press of Florida, 1967.

Bartram, William. Travels Through North and South Carolina, Georgia, East and West Florida. New York: Dover, 1928 (originally published 1791).

Bell, C. Ritchie, and Bryan J. Taylor. Florida Wild Flowers and Roadside Plants. Chapel Hill, N.C.: Laurel Hill Press, 1982.

Bickel, Karl A. The Mangrove Coast. New York: Coward-McCann, 1942

Burgess, Robert F. The Cave Divers. New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1976.

Cerulean, Susan, ed. The Book of the Everglades. Minneapolis: Milkweed Editio 2002.

. Tracking Desire. Minneapolis, Minn.: Milkweed Editions, 2005

, and Ann Morrow. Florida Wildlife Viewing Guide. Helena, Mont.: Falcon Publishing, 1998.

, and Janisse Ray and Laura Newton, eds. Between Two Rivers. Tallahassee, Fla.: Heart of the Earth, 2004.

Colburn, David R., and Jane L. Landers. The African American Heritage of Florida. Gainesville, Fla.: University Press of Florida, 1995.

Dickinson, Jonathan. Gods Protecting Providence. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1945 (originally published 1699).

Douglas, Marjory Stoneman. The Everglades: River of Grass. New York: Rinehart, 1947.

. Florida: The Long Frontier. New York: Harper & Row, 1967.

.A River in Flood and Other Florida Stories. Collected by Kevin McCarthy. Gainesville, Fla.: University Press of Florida, reissued, 1998.

Downs, Dorothy. Art of the Florida Seminole and Miccosukee Indians. Gainesville, Fla.: University Press of Florida, 1995.

Fernald, Ed, and Elizabeth D. Purdum, eds. Atlas of Florida. Gainesville, Fla.: University Press of Florida, 1997.

Fuery, Mike. Capt. Mike Fuerys New Florida Shelling Guide. Sanibel Island, Fla.: Privately published, 1992.

Gannon, Michael. The Cross in the Sand. Gainesville, Fla.: University Press of Florida, 1965