Dear All,
 
Lest we forget two other great Florida names:  Mossy Head (in the panhandle
area affectionately known as LA for Lower Alabama) and Bland (a small
community just north of Gainesville which entirely lives up to it's name).
The nicest name in all of Florida is Wacissa (Wa - sis - sa) of the eastern
panhandle town and river.  I would have named my daughter that if it had
gone with our last name.  Choices are few with a name like Auffenberg.
 
By the way, great freshwater and terrestrial mollusks at the spring called
Mossy Head and the river and floodplain of the Wacissa.  Bland mollusks are
what you would expect.
 
I hope all list members have a wonderful new year.
 
Kurt
 
 
 
 
At 09:43 AM 12/31/98 -0500, you wrote:
>Dear Conchers:
>
>For those in the U.S., Delorme makes a great 4 CD set called Topo USA
>(about $70-80.00 in computer stores)or www.delorme.com/  This is a great
>program for looking up place names; plus there are sixteen screens of
>topography maps resolution down to the finest being a screen of about
>5,000', and a cursor that marks the longitude and latitude so you can
>get an approximation of the long's and lat's for those areas you shelled
>prior to getting your GPS.  The maps do have some obvious crude drawings
>in the finest resolution (the rivers and lakes sometimes are computer
>boxes and lines instead of natural looking map features) but this is a
>minor complaint. With certain machinations you can get 3D resolution on
>the maps and email maps, but I have not gotten that far with the program
>yet . . .
>
>Comments about geography and place names:
>My adopted state of Florida has a wide spot in the road called Two Egg.
>I wanted to stop to look for land shells there just to have that town as
>a data tag.  There are varying stories about the name, either a person
>dropped a dozen eggs and only two were left, or a child came in wanting
>to buy two eggs, etc.
>
>While shell collecting in Kentucky down south of Louisville, the closest
>geographic location was a town named Wax (a person's name? did they
>produce wax there?)  For those going to Louisville, south of town along
>Interstate 65 near Munfordsville, get off the road and explore the
>rolling hills of Hart County.  There is an active Amish community, where
>their mode of transportation is by horse and buggy.  You are driving
>along the state roads and when you pass, they will wave.  It is a quaint
>and beautiful area.
>
>Alan Gettleman
>Merritt Island, FL
>
>P.S. to Bob Dayle: The Blue River is a neat little stream which has
>naiad molluscs, which was great fun to pick up the dead shells twenty
>years ago when it was not against the laws of nature and man in Indiana
>to do so.  But for a ex-Texan such as yourself, you must admit that
>little Ohio River south of where you are now is an impressive site.  I
>was amazed (i.e. disappointed) the first time I saw the Rio Grande (Rio
>Bravo) in Brownsville.  You would not have even got your knees wet
>crossing into Mexico (what a disappointment for a river that makes an
>international border).
>