The Watchtower

I love the fire watchtower. You see them a lot in old national forest- and state park-land, especially down south, and out west.

If you've never read it, do yourself a favor and read Ed Abbey's "Desert Solitaire". Great read. Brilliant. And awesome.

Anyway, the fire watchtower is an iconic symbol, and also a touchstone for the Mistah and me. There's something just so cool and retro about it. And when we were down in the 'Glades, staying with our friend Renee, well, this is the tower right outside of her house; we could see it right from our guestroom bed.

Cool, right?

We stared at it for days, and Mistah did his photography thing upon it, then one sunset we decided we needed to climb it. Why not? It was there. And Renee? She opened the gate for us. She's the boss, afterall.

Mom would have hated it.

Sure, it was a little rickety. But up there? It was an awesome view . . .

. . . of Mistah Schleckah and the Fakahatchee behind him.

And of course we brought beers. Duh.

We could see for miles, in one direction . . .

. . . and in another.

And look! We could even see our Westy!

See?

Aw.....

And then the sun began to set, as the sun always does . . .

A dogged, determined orb, that sun is . . .

. . . and when you're way up on high? In the fire watchtower? . . .

. . . oh yeah.