Make fun of me for my road trips all you want. Call it quaint, call it simple, but I can't see the stuff I want to see from 30,000 ft. Plus there's all that high-flying nausea, fear and claustrophobia that puts a damper on my idea of a vacation. It may be cliche, but I enjoy the journey.
After visiting all the grandparents, my daughter and I detoured to "The Forgotten Coast" of Florida. Highway 98 on the way to the old oyster town of Apalachicola takes you back in time to what people like to call the "real" Florida. The B&B we found had all the amenities we could want; a porch for porch sitting, proximity to beaches and good seafood plus a very old cemetery across the street.
Wild rosemary (Conradina canescens) in the foreground. The Garden Buzz
Winding through the piney woods, the forest is thick with squatty palms and brambles. Delicate rain lilies line the roadsides in the watery ditches. At the woods edge wild rosemary offers a lacy gray contrast to the tropical tones of green and gold.
Calling it Conradina canescens or false rosemary seems like such an insult. It looks like rosemary, grows like rosemary, blooms like rosemary, smells like rosemary. And my yet research can't tell me the real difference. I thought back to my herb lectures where I talked about rosemary and its Mediterranean roots, and wish I'd known about this endearing herb.
WIld rosemary on St. George Island, FL The Garden Buzz
Rosmarinus officialus along the streets of Apalachicola, Fl The Garden Buzz
Later on St. George Island, we were able to get up close and personal with this sweet rosemary. It grows in the sandy soil among the pines and oaks within the native areas of the state park. Like Rosmarinus officialus, it thrives on the salty and windswept margins of the seashore. Within a distance of twenty feet the scrubby little bushes bloomed a range of white to pale pink to milky blue.
In town cultivated rosemary grew like hedges along the streets and in the front yards of the rustic "cracker" shacks and hurricane-harried Victorians, blooming a brighter blue.
Later that evening in the restaurant, our bread came with rosemary butter. Using rosemary calls for subtlety; too much and it tastes soapy. The single sprig did the trick; with resinous notes of citrus and Christmas tree.
We skipped the usual souvenirs; opting for a few seashells, jars of tupelo honey and the faint fragrance of rosemary on our fingers. That must be why they say, "Rosemary is for remembrance".
