It’s a Good Day, Hikers!

My pack is packed and my food and water supplies are replenished.  The Trail has been forced to wait too long and I am glad to be on it. . 

But before I vanish into the signal-poor woods, I am compelled to share with you something about the community of Blountstown and the indelible impression it has left upon me. 

Blountstown lies against the west bank of the Apalachicola River about an hour’s drive west of Tallahassee.  It is the seat of government of Calhoun County.  Like many small panhandle towns, it is a community that has come to a fork in the road.  If my words ring familiar, it may be because you once heard words like these twenty or thirty years ago from a Hillsborough or Pasco County native who knew well the land before the bulldozers came to call.

The residents in Calhoun County number less than half that of my home town of Temple Terrace, Florida, a small city on the outskirts of Tampa.  Calhoun County is unapologetically rural.  But for Blountstown and few smaller hamlets, it is largely undeveloped. This is a curse in the sense that well-paying jobs are scarce, and a blessing in that its rivers and landscapes are almost as pristine as they were on the first week of creation. 

But more and more Americans are moving south to stay, and it is a certainty that Calhoun County will not escape the notice of developers who are all too happy to accommodate them.  It is no longer a question of if, but of when - and more importantly, of how.

During my week-long stay in Blountstown, I was privileged to meet with many of the county’s civic and government leaders.  All of them expressed a vision of a county with a thriving eco-tourism trade that will bring good jobs and well-heeled visitors to a picturesque Main Street with rustic, red brick warmth emblematic of Blountstown’s river town past.

Already in place is the Blountstown Greenway, recently blazed as a spur of the Florida Trail.  Its smooth asphalt surface connects the Panhandle Pioneer Settlement to Main Street and the Apalachicola River.  It is the centerpiece of Blountstown’s blueprint for the sort of town that everyone wants to live in.  And that brings Calhoun County to the fork in the road.

Our Sunshine State is littered with counties that failed to anticipate the impact that a “come one, come all” approach to development would have on their infrastructure, their landscape and their quality of life. 

If I have learned anything from walking this trail, it is that Florida in its most natural and historic state is its most enchanting attraction.  The panhandle counties are one of the few areas left in Florida where such beauty is virtually everywhere one looks.  It is an increasingly rare coin, a diamond in the form that Mother Nature herself sculpted. 

As the leaders of Calhoun County stand at that fork in the road, I hope they choose carefully their path.  The easy road leads to paved fields, bulldozed woods, overcrowded schools and roads forever clogged with carloads of people wishing they were someplace else.  I know this because my home is on that road. 

For all of our sake, I pray they choose the road less traveled.

100% All-Natural Cheers form the Florida Trail, Mike