Tate’s Hell State Forest in Florida Has Quite the Background!

The story of Cebe Tate is something you might expect from rural north Florida in the 1800s. There’s a shotgun, a snake, hunting dogs, a medicine man, and that’s just the beginning. For the full tale, click here.

Tate’s Hell State Forest was designated as such in the mid-1990s but I hadn’t been to it until much later. In fact, I hadn’t even heard of it until sometime around 2020 when the state of Florida bought thousands of acres further east of Carrabelle, the town with the official address of Tate’s Hell State Forest. As I’ve been designing works centered around Florida’s Forgotten Coast, I knew I wanted to make something for Tate’s Hell because… with a name like Tate’s Hell, how could I not? Below is what I came up with… and this is available as a trucker cap in my Out of the Wilderness Etsy store.

I tried to incorporate pieces of the folklore story in the image: the snake coiled up as the “S” and, of course, the shotgun Cebe lost when he was in the forest.

Florida has my favorite state parks. It’s incredible that a state can offer so much diversity in nature, from areas like the Florida Keys, through the Ocala Forest springs, all the way up to the unique plot of land called Tate’s Hell. Do you have a favorite park or state forest in Florida? Leave a comment below.

-Out of the Wilderness

I Mute These Campbell’s Commercials Immediately

At first, the ads just bothered me. Now they’re reached a diabolical level because I can’t watch anything without those uncomfortable “Mm Mm Good” Campbell’s commercials coming on 59 times. I can’t find the mute button fast enough.

Never in the history of any home with children has a situation come up where kids (or adults, in the mac and cheese ad) gathered together and just grunted about food. Each of these two commercials is irritatingly quiet and just gross when the kids start moaning. Or the teen girl when she says “good” and I can see the mac and cheese in her mouth. The only only people who want to see the inside of anyone’s mouth are dentists! I’m glad we have good dentists in the US but I’m not one of them. I have a feeling other people are not loving these commercials, either… Campbell’s turned off comments on the YouTube videos. Never a good sign.

Move on the next campaign, Campbell’s…

-Out of the Wilderness

Does Anyone Still Go to the Beach for Spring Break?

This year I’ve been tapping into a side of my creativity that’s been dormant for a long time. Decades. I used to love drawing (every kid does probably?) but that skill plateaued way back in middle school. Now that I’m writing this out, I actually remember drawing in college, too. I’m sure I still have those mediocre works stuffed in a bin somewhere but as I grew up, it became less about the actual drawing and more about design and advertising. Thankfully now, however many years later, I can create pictures and designs on a computer with programs like Affinity, Adobe, etc which allows a lot of room for fixing things (better than a pencil eraser, that’s for sure). I’ll try to find an old drawing and post it in this post. Gotta go down to the shed and hopefully find my notebook without disturbing the spiders. 🕷️ (UPDATE: I found them… see my amazing skills at the bottom of this post)…

Since the inception of the joint effort of my sister and I– Wild Hat Designs— I branched off with my own designs, too. Right about now you might be thinking, “What in the world does any of this have to do with Spring Break?” Good question. Welp, my latest designs have a theme: The Forgotten Coast. It’s an area of north Florida where there aren’t so many hotels, restaurants, people (Apalachicola, St. George Island, St. Marks, and a few other places). Think of Panama City Beach then subtract 87.5% of the people and you’re getting closer to the charm of Florida’s Forgotten Coast. Mostly undisturbed beauty without the hustle and bustle of souvenir cities. I’ve enjoyed coming up with beachy wildlife designs and I’d be as happy as a flipping dolphin if you check them out. My store on Etsy is called Out of the Wilderness and this link will take you right to the “Forgotten Coast” section.

If you aren’t the type of person who enjoys the beach, where do you go on vacations? Mountains, big cities, theme parks? What makes you happy? And now, here’s my grade-school level skills even though I was in college…

-Out of the Wilderness

Have you ever seen an eagle run?

I don’t mean that as a metaphor (like: These colors don’t run!). Literally, have you ever seen an eagle run? As majestic as they are when they’re flying or sitting atop a tree waiting to attack, they look pretty goofy when they run. There was a bald eagle by a pond the other day and I guess it wanted to scare off a few crows that were also by the same pond. When I say it galloped, I mean it in the most clunky, uncoordinated way. Here’s a picture of terrible quality and I’ll wrap this up with a video from YouTube of those inspiring birds looking like they must’ve always finished last on their high school track team.

-Out of the Wilderness