Good Morning, fellow Hikers

With sincere apologies to Tom McEwen, I send you this morning dispatch over a zip-lock freezer bag of hot plain oatmeal and a steaming GI canteen cup of freshly French-pressed Starbucks French Roast coffee, all of which are being inhaled on a pine-dotted knoll in the middle of a sun-streaked morning forest.

Last night, as the twilight snuck behind the horizon to leave me in the company of a million stars in an infinitely clear heaven, I slipped into my sleeping bag after rather easy day on the trail.

I propped my head against my pack and looked into the sky, so happy to be enveloped in the magnificent isolation of the woods.  As is my habit, I slipped the earpieces of my small radio into my ears and pulled on my knit cap to keep them in place.  I switched on the power, delighted to find that I was tuning in the opening notes of the Prairie Home Companion on NPR. 

I lay there, laughing.  My yuks were probably the only human noise within miles.  Over the next moonless hour, I let my imagination be transported to the gloomy offices of Guy Noir, Private Eye and to the pastoral stoicism of Lake Woebegone.  It was heaven beneath the heavens.

So clear was the night and so deprived of ambient light was my camp, that I could easily see satellites rip across the sky at speeds that make the final lap of a NASCAR race look like a parking lot.  Garrison signed off, and so did I.

The noise that brought morning was one that I recognized but at first could not place in the fog of awakening.  It was a bird that discovered that the peak of Big Agnes made for a fine place to call to his brothers and sisters.  The first light of sun made little bird feet shadows that I could clearly see.  They made a scratchy noise as he balanced himself on the single aluminum pole just beneath the rain fly.  So close was he to me that I could almost hear him inhale between chirps. 

He flew away when he heard me stir beneath him.  He left with his mission accomplished, this avian alarm clock.  It was 0600 and time to get up. 

Another glorious day!  Every day a holiday, every meal, a banquet, All that was missing was my friend Gene McColgan’s Irish baritone belting out “Oh, what a beautiful morning.” Were he (and you) here with me, I guarantee you we’d have been treated to a verse or two of “Oklahoma”.  And Gino has some mean pipes.

Well, better pack up and hit the trail, there folks.  I’ll be passing a grotto which is said to feature Florida’s only true waterfall.  Visit floridatrail.org to see a picture of it.  I’ll post some more of them – and hopefully some video – when I can plug in.

Enjoy your Sunday, hikers- and have an extra piece of Cuban toast - liberally buttered and thoroughly guava’d - for me, will you, please?
Cheers from the Florida Trail, ya’ll.  Mike