Ryan, Debi, and Toren Cragun's Blog

Toren and I went for another hike last Sunday.  This time it was to Boyd Hill Nature Preserve in St. Petersburg.  I couldn’t really get a good sense of what to expect from the website.  Basically, there is a learning center and a nature preserve on Lake Maggiore.  Once you’re in the preserve, you’d never guess that you’re actually in the middle of the St. Petersburg peninsula, but you are:

a map of the Boyd Hill Nature Preserve and surrounding St. Petersburg

The preserve has several very wide trails that basically just form a loop, skirting the lake on one side, then wrap around another small pond.  What’s cool about the preserve, however, is that you pass through multiple ecosystems – from willow marshes and swamp woodlands to pine flatwoods and sand scrub trail.  You get to see all of these ecosystems within a couple of miles.

In a trial of my new phone, I downloaded an application that tracks your movements using the GPS device in the phone (called My Tracks – free).  Not only does the app show where we travel, but it tracks your overall distance as well, all within about 20 feet of your actual path.  It also allows you to upload your route to Google Maps.  Here’s the route Toren and I took (2.42 miles):

hike route

The app also provides very cool statistics:

Total Distance: 4.36 km (2.7 mi)
Total Time: 1:06:17
Moving Time: 50:58
Average Speed: 3.95 km/h (2.5 mi/h)
Average Moving Speed: 5.13 km/h (3.2 mi/h)
Max Speed: 12.24 km/h (7.6 mi/h)
Min Elevation: -42 m (-139 ft)
Max Elevation: -9 m (-31 ft)
Elevation Gain: 188 m (616 ft)
Max Grade: 0 %
Min Grade: 0 %
Recorded: Sun May 16 14:58:44 EDT 2010
Activity type: hiking

The only thing that seems to be a bit off is the elevation, as I’m pretty sure we were not below sea level where we were.  Otherwise, it looks pretty accurate.

Here are a few pictures from the hike:

Toren by one of the sculpted armadillos

Toren and I cruising along the trail at our 3mph pace!

the trail

We didn’t see much wildlife – mostly squirrels and a single alligator in the lake (not even on shore).  But towards the very end we did see this turtle march out of the woods and start munching on grasses right next to the trail:

big turtle

Near the learning center they also have an aviary for injured birds.  There were vultures and a variety of hawks and owls.  I think Toren liked seeing the birds.

Anyway, the hike was fun and the app test was successful.  I now have a very cool to document my hikes!

So, my regular readers may have forgotten, but I posted about the pain management clinic behind my house, along with the pharmacy, a few months ago.  Yesterday they were raided by the DEA and Tampa Police.  This has been all over the news the last day or so and is front page news everywhere here in Tampa.  Here are some sample links, in case you’re interested:

• Tampa police, DEA searching 3 Tampa businesses
• 24 hours of Tampa Bay’s prescription drug epidemic
• Tampa enacts emergency pain clinic ordinance
• No new pain clinics in Hillsborough County
• Families push for pain clinic crackdown
• Who runs these pain clinics?
• Crackdown on pain clinics
• Clinic’s problems painfully obvious, neighbors say

I’ve been contacted by reporters from multiple outlets and was on TV again last night being interviewed about this.  I haven’t been able to find that video online, but I Tivo’d it and will post it when I get a chance.

Anyway, I just wanted to say “boo-yah” to the scumbags running this thing.  I knew they were running a pill mill all along; now everyone else does too.  I wonder how much help my little blog was in all of this… ;)

Oh, and I’ve been doing a little more digging on this…  Look for a follow-up post later today (even though I have real work I should be doing).