A Rock and Shoal Hall of Fame greetings, Hikers

Let’s get this said right away, the sights to be seen along the Suwannee River aren’t just spectacular, they’re backpackular!  Man, what a trail!

Once you hit the Suwannee, the southbound hiker is rewarded with a north-northeast trek through the Twin Rivers State Forest.  It’s a wooded, shade-strewn walk, and a nice change from the miles leading up to it.  As the trail winds north, it skirts two parks, including Suwannee River State Park, whose amenities become a growing source of interest as one nears it. 

Personally, I was jones’in for a hot shower.  But hey hikers, it wasn’t meant to be.  The Florida National Scenic Trail will put you right across the river from the shower house.  Close enough to wave, in fact.  I was gamey and it was cold.  Oh yeah, hikers, it was cold out there. 

Probably the coldest I’ve ever been was the winter when I spent a few days on the south side of Detroit.  But it wasn’t just the single digit temperature, it was the relentless 5-mph breeze slicing its way out of Lake Michigan.  So, I know from cold and hikers, it was friggin’ cold.  I thought i was going to have to get out my long britches..

The second step down Weird Lane came when my wife shared that the weather in Tampa was unseasonably hot.  Have any of you hikers had a chance to see “An Inconvenient Truth”?  I try to keep an open mind about science.  I try real hard to see both sides of the climate change issue. 

When I take the sum of these weird seasons, crazy weather patterns and the cracks in Greenland’s gazillion year-old glaciers; and if I divide that sum the temperature of my flash-frozen kiester, I arrive at a solution that pursuades me to assign serious credibility to Al Gore’s climate change argument.

Also. along this river walk, I’ve been perplexed by what seems to be a premature spring bloom.  The locals have noticed the same freakish phenomenon.  Add to that their observations with regard to the increasing periods of drought and the noticible decreases in the flow of their rivers and springs.  These folks up here have lived among these waters all of their lives.  Take from that what you will.

Even in ice-cold, climate crisis mode, the Suwannee River segmant of the Florida Trail delivers awsome sights and sounds.  The well-tended trail leads - whenever practical - along the crest of bluffs that soar as high as 100 feet above the river.  The unusually low river exposes many features that typically lie beneath its Bourbon-esque surface.  Bone-white ledges of limestone protrude from the banks like embedded Frisbees.  Scattered among these are the fabled canoe-eating shoals of the Suwannee.  These semi-submerged rocks are as jagged as cross-cut saws and have eaten more fiberglass that a carnival geek.  Gracefully-sculpted cypress roots weave braids of wood along the bank, anchoring their own reflections on the river’s mirrored surface. 

Hikers, you need not journey to the Louvre when you seek to behold a masterpiece. It’s right here, right now.  And these people still like Americans.

Well, this scenery-studded trail leads to a damned good story.. I like to call it ……