Middleton's Fish Camp

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The gallery of shots from this day

What an incredible piece of our planet, manned by the best caretakers imaginable. Last March our friends Jakub & Yvonne Jasinski headed there when they left us at Ray's winter house in Kissimmee. Middleton's Fish Camp, established some 51 years ago, is the only game in town (pun intended and there is no town). The "town" would be a small community known as the Village, consisting of less than 100 residences jammed into 3 small streets that run toward the lake. Blue Cypress Lake is somewhere between 2-3 miles east to west and 7-10 miles north to south, depending on who you ask.

We didn't have to ask if Jakub and Yvonne liked the place; we just had to see the amazing photos they got from an early morning boat tour through the trees. Here is Jakub's online gallery, and here is Yvonne's. Surely most of the visitors to this beautiful lake are there for the fishing, but many, like the Jasinskis, are all about the beauty and capturing it in creative ways with their cameras. This year Ray Listanski & I wanted to be among such worshipers.

On January 31st Ray & I left 3-degree weather and on the day between two winter storms in Pennsylvania to trek his essentials to his winter home in Kissimmee, and we made it just in time for a Super Bowl Party in his neighborhood. I had over a week in the relative warmth of this southern state before flying back to the rest of real Winter in the north. So we grogged through a rainy Super Bowl Monday, eventually deciding on Wednesday for our day on the lake. Ray figured it would be best if we could find a place to stay near the lake Tuesday night, so we shouldn't have any trouble making it for first light on Wednesday. I noticed on Middleton's website that they offer limited accommodations. We couldn't get any closer than that, but figured there wouldn't be any room for us with this late notice, even though it was early in the season. We checked Google Maps and couldn't find an alternate within 20 miles. We crossed our fingers and dialed the number on the website. It was the first time I heard the sweet personality of Jeanne Middleton. She told us she had a cabin for the one night, but we had to be out of there the next day. We said that was perfect for us, and we also "booked" a photo tour for the following morning. Booking with Jeanne was as simple as giving her my name. During the conversation she also told me she recently dropped her cellphone into the toilet, and promised to punch me when we finally met for laughing about it. I looked forward to it.

Ray & I arrived a little after 10. Although Jeanne said she probably wouldn't be there until 11, she was smiling in the doorway when we pulled up. I didn't get punched, but I was definitely knocked out by her beaming personality. She is a no-nonsense gal who can certainly take care of herself in any situation. She wastes no time on the usual crap that clouds many social encounters or business transactions. "You have cabin 4. We don't lock anything around here, so you won't need a key. Be here ready by 7 in the morning, but, like I told you on the phone, we don't go out when the weather is bad. You can pay for everything when you leave so I only have to run the card once." I smiled and was happy for her and the life she has on this beautiful piece of the planet. God put the right people here to care for this place. We sat on the porch and talked a bit. Her husband Joe came to Blue Cypress Lake about 51 years ago, and she's been here since they were married. Joe passed away last November, but it's obvious that his influencing spirit will never fade. More on Joe later.

We knew we'd be here early and expected to spend the rest of our day shooting around the shoreline of Blue Cypress Lake. When doing our research back in Kissimmee we couldn't find any kind of path around any portion of the vast lake, but figured it could be covered by trees. Hopeful as we were, Google Earth was right. Our day of shooting was limited to the immediate area around the boat launch, and the only way to view the shoreline was from a boat. Ray suggested we drive over to Vero Beach to see what we could shoot.

Not being in the mood to jump from cypress seclusion to beachcomber chaos we merely peered at the windy beach and ducked into a bar to taste some local brew. Apparently the local brewers weren't into distribution so we settled for the "popular" drafts. Limiting our consumption to the legal limit of one with food, we left to explore for something to shoot along the coast. Ray found something in a brochure and we were off to locate it. Sebastian Inlet State Park was a left turn off US1 and just before stopped traffic waiting for its turn on a bridge under heavy construction. We only spent a little over a half hour inside the park, and the traffic hadn't moved at all, except to increase. Thankfully we were headed back south along its stalled chain of single-file parking, then west back to the marvels of Blue Cypress, hoping to find a place to catch the sunset.

The first 7 photos in Tuesday's gallery are from our early time at Middleton's Fish Camp. Photos 8, 9 and 10 are from Sebastian Inlet. The last 12 are from our attempts to capture the effects of the setting sun. We started out behind our cabin, but quickly decided to move back toward the main road where we earlier saw cows grazing on vast farmland that we hoped would give us a an interesting composition. I didn't record anything of merit on my memory card, although I do like the look of photo 21 (above), and the last shot from our back porch where we brought our take-out diner (below). Before we turned in for the night, my son Matt called to tell us Jupiter was visible next to the full moon. For us it was clouded over, so we charged our batteries and our bodies for the promise of tomorrow.

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Photos

Penny Gwynn
We called her Pen