Photos: Thrilla in Aucilla

Happy Sunday, Hikers,

I write this to you from the banks of the Aucilla River, a place I am at once happy and sad to be.

My position on the planet, N 30 11.211 W 83 55.950, pretty much means I’m out of the Florida Panhandle.  It will take some time to sort out everything and everyone that has influenced me and this project.  By extension, it might even have influenced you in some meaningful way.  I hope so.

I’ve met and befriended a lot of fine people in the Panhandle, people that opened their homes, their hearts and often both to me.  A few have been people intimately involved with the Florida Trail, others heard about it from me for the first time – there were a lot of those.

I have eaten as well as I’ve ever eaten and I’ve laughed as hard as I’ve ever laughed with the folks of the Panhandle.  I love them all.  I’d name them, but I’d leave somebody out and I’d hate that.

To them all I say, Thank You, be safe out there and we’ll see each other again. 

And then there’s the beautiful slice of outdoors heaven that they live on. Let me just say this (with apologies to Gunny Murphy),

I’ve been to Maine, Spain and Fort Wayne.
I’ve drove big trucks and seen goats fornicate in the marketplace
But I have never,
ever,
seen a place as pretty as this.

I have seven days and 110 miles of solo backpacking in some pretty woods and crazy geology to settle further into my panhandle experience while soaking up the north Florida experience.  We’ll talk.  Man, I need to consider getting another journal.. I’m running out of paper.

Overcast Aucilla Cheers from the Florida Trail!  Mike

And oh, by the way.. hey Rhonda!  Good to hear from you, gal.  You need to email me and tell your old man to also!