Long-time-no-see, Hikers!

Last time we saw each other, I was heading in to the Apalachicola National Forest.  I had much to think about.  The Blountstown experience was cathartic in many ways.  I entered the forest as a man more connected to the land and its history. 

The Apalachicola National Forest covers every bit 565,000 acres of northwest Florida and the Florida Trail cuts right through the center of it. If time to think is what the doctor ordered, then Apalach is the place to fill the prescription.  It is miles upon miles upon miles of forested solitude.

My first day in the forest was the weirdest day of all.  For the preceding week I’d had the pleasure of a constant stream of visitors, many of which would stay and talk awhile.  I actually find myself with quite the social calendar.  As warm and pleasurable as my stay with the settlement had become, I missed the wide-open freedom and wild nature that only the Florida Trail could supply. 

And then, suddenly, I was as alone as a human being can be.  No one - and I mean NO ONE -around for miles.  I entered the forest on the day before hunting season, and after considering my timing, decided it wouldn’t be the least bit premature to don my seasonal orange ensemble.  I was right about that.

Shots rang out with regularity, each reverberating across and endless expanse of pines and wiregrass.  I wondered if it’s true that you don’t hear the sound of the one that gets you.  Such was the conventional wisdom passed along by the combat vets I’d known in the Marines.  Then I wondered how they knew.  I wondered why I didn’t ask them that question.

Take all the time you need to think about things in the Apalach, hikers.  For these are thinking woods. 

When is the last time you had all the time you needed to think about the things that comprise the meaning of your life on this earth?  Hikers, I mean time to think about everything?  About your life, your love, your family, your work. About your beginnings and your endings. About God. About your honor and your civic duty and your legacy?  Just think about that for a minute.  A minute isn’t enough, is it? And yet most of the time, a few fleeting minutes is all that you get. There’s stuff to do, people to see. 

Not out here.

Cheers from the Florida Trail, Mike