“Cathedral of the Palms Pews,” St Marks National Wildlife Refuge, 2011

In the St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge is the old Wakulla Beach Road. The road dead ends at Wakulla Beach, but about halfway down the road there is a trail head on the right. Stop there and park your car. From there hike the trail west about two and a half miles, and follow the signs lovingly left by the Florida Trail Association. That’s where it all begins. If you have to ask anybody how to get there, tell them you want to go to Shepherd Spring. The spring is ok. It makes you worry about Wakulla Springs because the green algae are already there, but the spring is not your real destination anyway. It’s the path to the spring you want. It leads you through what’s known as “The Cathedral of the Palms,” and I don’t really know how to describe it except to relay it’s an ancient, old-growth palm forest. I’d never been in a palm forest, and my first visit there was like a light going off in my head. Solid and paling, palm trunks after palm trunks clutter the trail there. The confusing canopy is splendiferous—if not “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.” Seriously. “Even though the sound of it is something quite precocious.”

Small: 8” x 10” – $100.00 | Medium: 30” x 40”- $335.00 | Large: 42” x 56”- $590.00