Dancing and Horsebackriding at White Oak Plantation

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White Oak Residency
This Spring and Summer will be much different than past spring and summers in that I am not preparing for baseball and I am not playing this summer. Instead I will be doing other things, including taking part in a dance performance this Fall in New York City.

After being home for about three weeks over Christmas, I caught a flight to Jacksonville, Florida, where I was met by a Chevy Suburban and a jolly guy named Frank who drove me from the airport to White Oak Plantation. On the way there Frank told me the story of how he met Mr. Gilman, the owner of the Plantation and member of the most successful paper company empire in American history (or so they told me). It seems that every employee I met at this wonderful place shared the same admiration for this old man. Once we arrived at the front gate of White Oak Plantation, it was another ten minutes or so driving through the forest until we arrived at White Oak. As we entered the grounds, to our right was a pasture with Zebras in it, just hanging out, grazing in the pasture.

This was my first sign of what was to come.

I soon met the four people with whom I would spend the next ten days creating a dance piece.

My ten days at White Oak were truly magical. Most of the White Oak property is forests, some of which are still harvested to make paper. There is a large animal conservation area where approximately 50 different kinds of endangered or threatened species live in natural habitats created specifically for them. Our first day at White Oak we all hopped in a windowless, doorless van and took a tour of the ‘White Oak Zoo,’ and got to see all kinds of birds, different kinds of deer and elk, elephants, giraffes, cheetahs…..we got to hand-feed giraffes, touch a cheetah, and hear some of the craziest bird calls I have ever heard (the scariest from the black bird w/ blue head shown in the pictures below). It was really amazing.
The other part of White Oak is a retreat center, complete with fifteen guest houses, a golf course and pro shop, tennis courts, Jacuzzis everywhere, bike and horse trails, kayaks and canoes….like an adult Disneyland. Though we were rehearsing most of the time, we took full advantage of the place when we had the chance.

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Photos

Rhino
feeding time

Crazy bird
Before you heard this bird's call you felt it--like a car with huge speakers and heavy bass headed in your direction.

Touching a cheetah
The black spots on the cheetah were incredibly soft; the rest of the fur was more coarse. (not shown in the photo is the animal guide occupying the cheetah's attention to the right of the frame).

Cheetah
This cheetah is the only cat in the 'zoo' that was hand-raised, and thus is friendly with humans. Other cheetahs in the enclosure would never get this close to us, much let us touch them.

Christina & I
Christina never learned how to ride a bike so I was her chauffeur for our excursion to the jacuzzi by the river.

Dancin
as we wait for our turn to bowl.

A Polar bear
A stuffed polar bear in one of the rooms in the main building.

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Riding horses
my horses' name was noah. the first time we rode horses we went to the horse arena because it was raining. The surface was so amazing--it was softer than sand or clay, more like pillow stuffing. I asked the head horse lady and she told me it was shredded leather. (?!)

the barn cat
life is pretty tough at White Oak Plantation.