Photos: Along The Trail | Map: Track Mike

Godfather of Soul Greetings, Hikers!

Do you want to know what feels really good when you’re thru-hiking the Florida Trail? 

Reaching the Suwannee River.  I’m talkin’ pure, unvarnished JOY. 

Wanna know the weirdest name you’ll never forget?  Winquepin. 

No, I can’t pronounce it, but I can darn sure walk it.  And so will you if you’re a southbound thru-hiker in search of what is likely the most famous river in Florida.  No southbound sojourn on the trail comes to Suwannee serenity without enduring a dusty Winquipin Street saunter. 

One nice thing about it though, four miles of walking gives you plenty of time to chew over all of the possible pronunciations of a road named either for a Native-American or an RV manufacturer in Wisconsin.  As you can see, hikers, I’ve narrowed it down for you.

I reached the river at the sun-soaked hour of noon, an ideal time to unlace and unwind for a minute or two.  The bar was open so I ordered 100 ounces of hand-purified Suwannee River water to chase the Winquipin Street dustburger I had for brunch.

Last night was clear and icebox cold.  I (with an urgent nudge from my bladder) forced myself from the toasty embrace of Big Agnes and was none too happy about it.  The sun doesn’t actually get over the tops of the pines until 9-ish.  On days where water is plentiful, you might just wait for warming rays to dry your tent and pack up.  But I wasn’t exactly flush with water.  I burned through a bunch of it last night as I rabidly concocted emergency hot chocolate beverages as much to warm my hands as my innards.  Ergo*, the inevitable early morning exit from Agnes. 

* Note:  My use of the word “ergo” may be entirely inappropriate as I am Latinly-challenged.  Feel free to come on up here and correct me in person.  Just know that if you’re not carrying a large combination pizza with pineapple and extra cheese when you get here, they’ll never find your body. 

It’s a weird feeling to cross a paved road in the middle of nowhere and so it was on SR 53, or as I like to call it “the road Florida built just for the hell of it.” All of the sudden it’s there.  No cars, no sign of occupancy at all, just a dadgum road.  Kinda cool, huh? 

Have you ever seen “The Omega Man”?  It’s a movie about the last guy on earth. It’s a freaky Charlton Heston flick that I dug heavily back in my youth.  Well, standing in the middle of a road upon which there is virtually no sign of human presence is a bit like that, with the exception that there isn’t a cult of toxic mutants trying to kill you.. and as Martha Stewart likes to say “ That’s a good thing.”

I’m in Twin Rivers State Forest just north of Dowling Park, Florida (Motto:  It’s on MY map!) The forest is beautiful, acres and acres of oak trees, big ole’ pines and a mossy river that’ll be my constant companion for days to come.  Today I begin a part of this trail to which I’ve looked forward for four long days… and .. in the words of the Hardest Working Man in Show Business – the immortal Mr. James (Heh!!) Brown.. “ I Feel Good!”

Easy Living Cheers from the Florida Trail!  Mike

PS.. Now you tell me, hikers.  Where else are you gonna find a Winquipin, the Suwannee River, Martha Stewart, a life-saving pizza pie and the Godfather of Soul all on one page???  Right here, babies, right here with me on the Florida Trail! 

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Que paso, Hikers?

If you’ve been with me since I first set foot on the trail (OK wiseguys, I know what you’re thinking!) then you will recall Econfina Creek and the proper pronunciation of same - EE – con- FINE – uh.  Remember? 

Well, just when you think you’re fully steeped in the language nuances of north Florida, they’ll turn around and change the pronunciation of a river whose name carries the identical spelling.  Econfina – as it relates to the river originating in the wild, wooly wetlands and pine forests of San Pedro Bay is pronounced ECK-con-FEENA.  Go figure.

The trail through San Pedro Bay Wildlife Management Area follows a series of rambling forest roads carved through countless acres of planted pine and boogery wetlands.  For the most part, it’s a beautiful walk.  The roads are in great shape, good enough – I think - for a wheelchair-bound hiker to roll up more than a few orange blazes. 

There has been some settlement of these woods. I spotted several agriculture and logging operations from the road and a few “Keep Out” homesteads tucked into the occasional clearing (check the gallery for the unusual sign announcing one such hideaway).  I just minded my own business and cranked out the footsteps… all the while looking for something that resembled a “Bay.” I mean, after all, the place IS called San Pedro Bay, isn’t it?

Well, two days worth of dirt roads later, my map indicated I was but a couple of miles from leaving the San Pedro section – and me still with no solid indication of anything remotely resembling an alleged “bay.”

That is until I picked up a glinty reflection out of the corner of my eye.  Water…shining skinnyly just beyond a stand of pines cleverly planted via black helicopters flown by the by the New World Order for the sole purpose of obscuring a stand of cypress trees from Florida Trail thru-hikers.  (That one was for all of you conspiracy theorists out there.  You’re welcome.)

Anyhow, I shed my pack and weaseled my way past the “pines” and in to the cypress.  A minute later I was standing at the edge of what could only be the source of the Econfina River - San Pedro Bay.  But my smiling face was met with a reaction that rocked me back on my heels - a mass flight of sandhill cranes which before my I-Come-In- Peace arrival had been doing whatever these beautiful, long-legged birds do when we’re not around.  They were vocal in their marked displeasure at the interruption, I can tell you that for sure.

After emergency takeoff, they gathered into a formation of what must have been one hundred six foot tall, irate birds.  It was as if a phalanx of pissed-off B-52’s were circling over this becalmed expanse of whiskey-hued, cypress-studded water.  had they been loaded with bombs, this blog would not be. They scolded me with avian profanities that would make a pirate’s parrot blush, conveying their revulsion at my company, my ancestry and my choice of photographic subjects.  I mean, they were some grumpy dudes.

You know, I’ve always gotten on well with sandhill cranes.  I have some righteous history with this great and beautiful creature and I’ve the photos to prove it.  So what’s the deal with these surly sandhills of San Pedro?  Scientifically speaking, I can only theorize that these birds belong to some sort of ill-tempered sub-species not found in the literature. 

And I’ll bet you anything you want that the pronunciation of their name is completely different.

Audubon Cheers from the Florida Trail, Mike

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Geological salutations, hikers!

I headed in to the Aucilla River section with no idea what to expect – that’s because this section of the Florida Trail defies the imagination.  Straight away, permit me to salute the FTA volunteers who blazed the trail through this magical place and those who keep it so nicely maintained.  I am in your debt more than I can ever repay.

There are many beautiful places along the Florida Trail.. many, many, many.  But hikers, this may be not only the coolest five miles on the Florida Trail, but just possibly the coolest five miles on the planet.  I’m referring to the Aucilla Sinks.  Huge primordial sinkholes dot this beautifully forested landscape.  Winding through it all is the tar-black water of the Aucilla River, which appears and disappears several times as it flows from sinkhole to sinkhole.

As you hike here, you almost expect to see the beasts that roamed our state during the last Ice Age, and in a sense, you can.  Bones of camels, tapir, bison and mammoth have been discovered here.  Imagine such a thing..

Every step in the Aucilla Sink trail is a step into history so deep and mysterious that it overwhelms the senses.  To stand at the edge of a cliff beneath which a fully-grown river is noiselessly vanishing haunts the mind.  Images of these immeasurable caverns effortlessly swallowing a bazillion of gallons of water as easily as you and I sip from a cup of coffee brings one as close to a galactic black hole as this lifetime will allow.  Mind-bending stuff, hikers, and all of it right here. 

And “the sinks” have its share of hikers, the first of which are thought to have made camp here about 13,000 years ago.  They were Paleo-Indians, stone-age Floridians who recognized prime hiking and camping real estate when they saw it.  And yeah, they did it before Gore-Tex, Big Agnes, and, by the way, just about everything else.  These were some tough hombres, no doubt.

I dearly love places such as this.  Show me some rock and I’m a two-year-old in a candy store.  This is a land of deep, dark caves, gnarly-shaped rock formations and giant cracks in the earth that will suck the light right out of your headlamp.  Caves and disappearing rivers and crazy jungle trees crawling with sinewy serpentine vines thick enough to pull of a decent Tarzan act; all smack dab in the ethereal gloom of a “Land that Time Forgot” meets “Jurassic Park” terrain that just turns me all the way on.  I was shucking my pack every five minutes, crawling over, around or in every cave, cranny or cavern I could squeeze in to.  Cold, dark tunnels to the netherworld…who could resist that?

OK, yeah, sometimes it amounted to some creepy stuff… but I figured, hey, what if that whole thing about China being on the other side is true?  Coupla more steps ans shimmys and I could be ordering the No.3 with an extra egg roll. 

Yeah, the food thing again.. it’s unavoidable. 

Ancient caveman chopsticks Cheers from the Florida Trail, Mike

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Top o’ the bone-chilling morning, hikers!

I apologize for not posting this sooner, but I’ve been where cellular signal dare not go. In those places where it did manage to sneak in, it just wasn’t strong enough to keep its grip on my aircard.  But my, oh my, the places we’ve been!

I’ve been taking notes, I have.  Those among you lucky enough hear the satisfying thump of a Tampa Tribune hitting your driveway may know that I write a weekly story from the trail.  I’m grateful to Alltel for supplying me adequate signal to file my story.

The bloggery works somewhat differently.  To post a blog, one must log on to a special program.  Well, my aircard and tbo.com were having words (or more accurately, weren’t having them).  Certainly the weather has been a factor, the cloud cover up here has been as impenetrable to cell signal as it has been to sunlight. 

So there was little I could do but keep moving, and that’s always a pleasure when you’re on the Florida Trail.

I arrived in White Springs a week ago after an incredible trip through San Pedro Bay, the Twin Rivers State Forest and the incomparable bluffs of the Suwannee River.  Even on those days when the sun was shining, the temperature refused to exceed 50 degrees F.  Now, this is excellent backpacking weather…as long as you don’t stop.  Stopping encourages every molecule of perspiration on your body to go cryogenic on you.  N-n-no g-g-g-good can come from that. 

The savior?  Oatmeal.  Yep, you are looking at the oatmeal poster boy.  I’m going to buy me one of those Quaker hats just as soon as I find a Quaker re-enactor specialty store!  Quick to fix, scar-leaving hot and a failsafe rib-sticker, a zip-lock freezer bag of oatmeal warms the hands, the belly and the attitude.

My long-time favorite elixir for warding off chill is the Shackleton, an oatmeal beverage I named for Sir Ernest in honor of the drink that sustained his crew during their epic voyage – made in a couple boats not much bigger than a Jon boat - from the Antarctic ice shelf to St. George’s Island.  My Florida Trail version of that drink is concocted by adding water and wee dram of powdered milk.  Restorative doesn’t begin to describe its effect.  I raise my WWII vintage canteen cup to the Endurance and to her intrepid crew!  OooRAH!

But I digress… food’ll do that to you out here.

Here, on a chilly, sun-bathed edge of the Osceola National Forest, the weather has cleared and my connection to the World Wide Web is 21st Century good.  I am smiling as wide as Texas and anxious to share a few trail tales.

Read on, hikers, they follow this entry. 

Beautiful sunlit Cheers from the Florida Trail!  Yahooooo!  Mike

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Econfina RIVER greetings, Hikers!

That’s right, RIVER.  You’ll recall a while back that I wrote to you of Econfina Creek.  Well, if you walk far enough in an easterly direction, you’ll find the Econfina River.  Confusing?  At first, yes.  But then when you consider the Swiss cheese nature of the geology in this region, it all begins to make sense. 

I’m writing to you from the municipal meeting hall of the town of Shady Grove, Florida.  How, you must wonder, did I get access to such an important and influential venue from which to write to you? 

Well, I did it by showing up to the Shady Grove Grocery (established 1936) yesterday evening around six.  The grocery is, in fact, the town hall, and it’s in session at 0600 daily.  The elders gather here every weekday morning without fail, coffee cups in weather-beaten hands, their Stetsons set as square as their jaws.  Theirs is a routine pleasure, a pleasure woven from generations shared triumphs and sorrows.  There is a feeling of warmth and familiarity among them that kindles a pathetic envy in uprooted and transplanted humans such as I.  Before I die I want to know just one person as well as these men know each other. 

I came to be at the grocery after a long day on the trail.  It was one of those days when daylight and temperature compete to see how low they can go.  Trust me, hikers, the smart money was on Frigid Fahrenheit by a chilly nose.  FTA Map 12 depicts a store at Shady Grove, just a few asphalted miles north of the trail.  I was headed there for reprovisioning, refitting and, by the looks of things, a satisfying thawing.

And that’s when I encountered Mr. Albert O’Quinn.  Mr. O’Quinn is what they call a level-jawed man, that is, a man whose chewing tobacco juice creeps from both corners of his mouth in equal measure.  He’s one of those ageless people with whom encounters are always interesting and educational.  Yeah, he’s old, but he’s strong and hard-working and possessed of a good sense of humor.  That sort of comportment has the effect of slowing down the aging process, or so I’ve lately come to notice.

I heard Mr. O’Quinn coming before I actually saw him.  You see, he was at the helm of a motor grader, a substantial piece of Peoria Cat iron that can render smooth the most impassable roads with single pass of the massive steel blade slung beneath its skeletal frame.

The initial exchange between he and I went some thing like this, when, as he pulled up next to me, he brought the grader to a halt. 

“What in the wor-ald are you doin’?  There was a squint to his ball cap-shaded eyes and the hint of an amused smile on his face.

“I’m hiking on the Florida Trail.” I said this casually, matter-of-factly.  But it was all I could do to keep from laughing at the look of genuine puzzlement on his face.  My amusement at his query and his equal amusement at my reply caused him to shut off the idling diesel and climb down to my pedestrian level.

Weelll, one thing led to another and by the time we were done exchanging secret decoder rings he offered to give me a ride to the store at Shady Grove – if he could find me down the trail – once his day’s work was done.  I walked east and he kept grading west.

It all worked out, yes it did.. except that he gave me a ride to a different store, one in Erdu, Florida.  Kinda behind where I was headed, but still very appreciated.  But not to worry, ‘cause I hadn’t been in Erdu long enough to learn how to spell it before a fellow named Tony Russell offered to cart me back east again. 

Tony’s a Son of the Confederacy, a kind and generous family man whose roots run deep in the sandy soil of Taylor County.  We spoke of heritage and history and the confounding perceptions of both as they apply to the south.  He has one of those faces – it’s in the eyes, I think - that convey a look of sadness without respect to his mood.  He has a ranch where he breeds Belgians, a Clydesdale-type draft horse.  He’d whup me for making the Clydesdale comparison and I’m making it now only because virtually everyone knows what a Clydesdale looks like.  Well, imagine a Clydesdale after graduation from Marine Corps recruit training at Parris Island and you’ll get some idea of what a Belgian looks like.

Soooo, there I am, trailworn, shamefully gamey, feelin’ the hawk, and jonesing for a cup of joe.  You know, thru-hiking.  Well, it’s just about that time when the sparkling lights of the Shady Grove Grocery come in to view.

You know, hikers, how some places just have a friendly look about ‘em?  Such a place is the Shady Grove Grocery.  It’s a slice of heaven built of white clapboard and roofed in tin.  White icicle Christmas lights hang from the eaves, a Neon “Open” sign dangles in the window, a porch swing invites one to sit a spell and the always-on coffee pot makes it easy to cast that spell into second cup.

Unbelievably, those amenities don’t even hold a candle to the prettiest thing about Shady Grove Grocery (and Oasis). That would have to be Carrie Albritton.  She was holding the place down when I showed up and it was she who won my undying devotion by putting on a fresh pot of coffee when I, Swamp Thing, slimed through the door. 

Carrie is the drop-dead beautiful fiancée of the owner, Jason Heartsfield.  They are to be married in May, and they might just be the handsomest couple Florida ever produced; I know for certain that they’re the friendliest.  Carrie offered me all the land behind the store for my camping convenience and a last cup of coffee to heat my walk to the loving arms of Big Agnes. 

For a guy whose trail magic meter has stayed pegged since he stepped on to the trail, this is the sort of thing that bends the dadgum needle.  I’m gonna need to buy a new meter if I’m to survive this trip.  One that goes all the way up to “That’s Unbelievable!” or, “You’ve got to be kidding,” or “No Way!”

The urgent need for such a meter showed itself the this morning when Jason handed me a bag with a clean, springtime fresh towel and wash cloth.  Yup, they have a shower at the Grocery, and they really, really, really wanted me to use it.  OK, it had been a couple of days… yeah, yeah.. maybe a week or two…

Jason’s Mom and Dad invited me to wash my clothes at their incredible 100 year-old house across the street from the store.  His Mom slipped in one of those little papers that make your clothes smell really good into the dryer.  And she wouldn’t hear of me leaving the house until I agreed to take a smoked sausage sandwich with me.  Are you feeling the love?  Good stuff, ain’t it?

And now, it’s 1600 and here I sit.  Clean, pleasingly aromatic and delightfully caffeinated. Now that you know where I am, go get yourself a cup of coffee and come back.  I want to tell you of where I’ve been, because the last 40-ish or so miles have led me through some of the coolest terrain in the world.  Yeah, it’s that cool, hikers.  With apologies to Mohammed Ali and Joe Frazier, I can only describe it as the “Thrilla in Aucilla.”

You know, I should get a cup, too.  What’s that?  Jason’s mom is cookin’ up pork chops with greens and corn bread and is inviting me to eat with them? 

Yes Way!  And a country-fried, right out of the oven cheers from the Florida Trail.  Let’s finish this conversation after dinner, shall we?  Mike

….Man, I have got to get another magic meter.  This thing is toasted. 

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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!

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A Milwaukee Iron Hello, Hikers

Well, I write to you again from the signal-rich turf belonging to what must be most of the hard-core Harley-Davidson riders in north Florida.  I have seen some pretty dadgum iron here.  The St. Marks experience should be on the list of every hiker, backpacker and biker in the nation.

No doubt, this is the time of year to do it.  Hunting season is over, the weather is mild and the winter condition of the woods and waters here is as close to paradise as a trekker can get.

It was quite an experience.  This place has history.

A pivotal civil war engagement was fought right across a section of the St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge section of the Florida Trail.  OK now, admit it, that’s cool.  Researching the particulars of the fight and the outcome was fascinating stuff.  Look for it a week from this Sunday in the Tampa Tribune.

The eastern third of the St. Marks section is where most of the salt works were.  Salt was of great value to the Armies of the Confederacy.  Salt was used to cure the meat that kept the soldiers on the move….or so it has been believed for many years. 

The salt works myth has been officially busted by my lovely wife, Claudia, otherwise known as the “Angel of Sulfur Springs.” Claudia’s far out, yet strangely plausible theory is that the Confederacy was highly dependant on Marguaritas, and that the destruction of the salt works doomed any hope for a well-made cocktail.  Don’t laugh until you’ve walked a mile in my boots, hikers.  There’s things you can’t write in a blog, hooah?  Save that stuff for the book, right?

I head in to the Aucilla section today.  From there I have a 128 mile walk to the next settlement, White Springs.  I’ve been there before, maybe you remember…. The bed and breakfast, the sweet potato pancakes…yessss, hikers, Adams House. Sandra Friend, the Comm. Director of the FTA and I stayed there when we attended the FTA’s Staff Christmas party.  You can read more about that experience about a dozen blogs behind this one. The staff treated me like family for two straight days.  I hiked with that orange-blazed bunch along the Suwannee section of the Florida Trail.  Good times.  Deborah, I keep that medicine bag close.  It hasn’t failed me.  Neither has that enduring symbol of high-speed, low-drag eating… the titanium spork. 

Adams House, through its proprietor, Mr. Watkins Saunders, has invited me back.  Thank you, sir.  I’ll be a week or so on the trail when I get there.  (The beds in this place are what Thermarested backs dream about at night.) They’re no less than perfect. 

And speaking of the trail, I am jazzed about this section.  I will hike northeast up the Aucilla River, take a right and walk over to the Suwannee River.  I’ll hike east along its scenic shoreline and right in to Mr. Saunders back yard.  128 miles from here to there.  OO-Hiker-RAH! 

When I leave here, I will pretty much be leaving the Panhandle of Florida.  I’m going to write a different blog about that.  This place and its people have influenced me greatly. 

Right now, as I write this, there’s another party at The Corner. Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson are warning “Mama’s not to let their babies grow up to be Cowboys.” by way of couple of outdoor speakers pointed at a dozen or two cowboys of the iron horse riding species.  This day brings the first sunshine in over a week.  Mirror-like chrome blinds all who enter the parking lot, sunglasses are mandatory for safe navigation.

I met a lot of good people here.  TK, Apryl, the owners of the Corner put up with me pre and post hike and they introduced me to “Governor.” The Gov is about as cool as guy as you will ever meet.

I accepted his offer to take me on a tour of the area, to show me some history and tell me some other history you won’t find in the book.  He’s the Governor, he knows stuff.

We visited forgotten springs belching healing sulfur waters.  Towns crumbled into the dustbin of history, places where only a sign and a cemetery mark the lifelong toil of its citizens. We saw stuff, a couple of forts, battle sites, old mills and disappearing rivers and streams. I’m talking back roads and mud hole stuff.  The Governor’s Jag didn’t miss a lick.  “Three-fifty Chevrolet under the hood,” confided the Governor with a grin and flash of his Zippo. 

The Governor has “done a bit of mechanic’n."Seems Jaguar used to buy their transmissions from GM.  So a 350 Chevy bolts right up into a Jag.  That’s 300 ponies, ladies and gentlemen, not the sort of thing one will find motoring about London, eh what?  You won’t findem’ in England, hikers.. only on the Florida Trail can you meet the Governor, maybe even have a cold one.

This would one cool place to be a kid - trust me on that, too.  I’m putting some pictures up of the places we visited.  There might even be one of “The Governor.”

Now, I wanted to bring you more pictures of my friends at The Corner, but they’re a shy bunch.  There was one or two that agreed to pose, and you’ll meet them in the gallery.  Most were just camera shy, what can you say?

A feeling of melancholy overtakes when you leave friends and move on.  Even after the experience of being a kid raised in the military, where friendships lasted only as long as your old man’s tour, saying goodbye still brings sadness.  On this trek across my home state, good people and beautiful trail have been easy to find and hell to part with. 

Enjoy your weekend hikers.  It might be a few days before you hear from me again, the map is nothing but green with a curly orange stripe running right through the scenic middle of it.

What else is there to say but Cheers from the Florida Trail!  Mike

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A St. Marks Welcome, hikers!

Today I head back to the refuge, having filed my story and photos in an almost timely manner.  And while we’re on the subject of newspaper deadlines, I’d like to share with you something I didn’t know about newspaper reporters until just a couple of years ago.  Now, I’m not a reporter any more than having a drivers license qualifies one to race in the Daytona 500.  A reporter - real life hard news reporter - is critter that leaves a completely different set of tracks.

I’m sure all of you have a reporter or columnist in the Trib that you enjoy reading.  I do, too.  What’s amazing about these men and women is that they cover the story, figure out the facts, and then write it accurately and succinctly. OK, so what’s the big deal?  The big deal is that they are often called upon to execute this routine (and somehow they do) in less time than it takes me to find my laptop.  There is no loud, hollow ticking down of the deadline clock to be heard in the newsroom, but there might as well be.  Day after day after day.  That, hikers, is reporting. 

Then backing up those guys and every bit as much in the pressure cooker are the photographers and copy editors and page designers and computer dudes and press(persons?) and drivers and deliverers and I know I’m leaving some important people out.. because it’s a big team. 

What prompted this impromptu (two prompts in the same sentence?) was an essay I read this morning in Wakulla News, the local newspaper. The essay was penned by humorist Garrision Keillor.  Newspapers are just plain cooler, he opined, because it’s hard to appear suave and debonair when hunched over a laptop.  Right now, I can see my reflection in the screen of this laptop and do you know what?  He’s right. 

Where’s the sports section?  I need to see a man about a dog.

Suave and debonair seeya’s from the Florida Trail, Mike

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Good Morning, refuge – ees,

I write this from the Biergarten on the corner of US 98.  TK, the proprietor of the “Corner on 98” was kind enough to offer the “Garten” to me as a camp site. “It has a burn barrel and everything,” he said, pointing out one of its amenities.

My stay in the ”Garten” was great.  There’s a plug back there for my laptop and phone, big shady umbrellas (bearing the name of America’s oldest brewery) and giant, wooden wire spools for tables.  There’s even a speker that comes from the jukebox inside.  It pipes up randomly, belting out a Patsy Cline or Lynyrd Skynyrd number.  “Crazy” and “Freebird” are popular. 

As are Harley-Davidsons.  The ‘Corner on 98” is a watering hole for iron horses.  Their riders come out to garden to pay me a visit from time to time.  TK has told them of my work and of the trail.  They sit down across the table from me, their leathers creaking in the cool way that leathers do.  They have pony tails, some pretty long. And beards.  And tattoos.  No sissy tribal drivel for these guys, either.  Their ink is of daggers and scooters and spider webs and of women freed from the bounds of conventional modesty. 

The skin of their faces and hands are fashioned from a leather/Kevlar polymer that can withstand the impact of bugs and fists with equal ease.  Many are veterans of the Vietnam War.  Many of them have a taste for a cold beer.  Of such things is brotherhood made.

In every case, they’d take a seat across from me and size me up.  Some would light up a smoke with a Zippo that has its own holster. Then they’d mutter some thing about it being “a nice day for a motorcycle ride and a cold beer.” I’d agree and then reply that “there are a lot of days like that.”

At that point they’d look me square in the eye and say “I know a lot people think you’re stupid for walking like you are, but I want you to know that I admire the hell out of what you’re doing.”

I’d thank them.  They’d nod, extend to me a hand the size of a baseball glove and then amble back inside.  You can’t beat biker hospitality for its bare bones honesty and its unwavering focus on hydration. 

What’s the connection, I thought to myself, between backpacker and biker.  I concluded that the connection stems from the feeling of freedom we both enjoy when nothing but trail or road is stretched out before us.  It is then that the possibilities for adventure seem as infinite as the friends we’ve yet to meet are waiting for us just around the next bend. 

And so it goes.  Bi-pedal shovel-headed cheers from the Florida Trail, Mike

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Coastal greetings, Hikers!

Oh man, wasn’t the St. Marks trail just indescribable??  You know, just when I think (and write) that I surely must have seen the best this trail has to offer, I vanish into another section that just obliterates any standard of natural wonder I’ve fixed in my mind and replaces it with pure enchantment.

Yup, the Florida Trail can do that to you.  You’ve been warned. 

I’ll write more about the refuge section tomorrow.  Tonight, let me tell you what kind of good vibes that were waiting for me when I left the first half of it.  I write this to you from the Corner Tt 98, a small pub that meets you with a welcoming “Hey!” before you execute the right turn on the trail toward the town of St. Marks. 

It’s a two mile road walk from the trailhead to here.  The trail cuts south a block sooner, along the St’Mark’s multi-use trail, and I’m not sure why.  A stand-up trial should pass one by an establishment designed to whet one’s parched whistle and frankly, this is no place to miss.  That is, if one is occasionally subject to the powerful thirst of the adult variety. I am, on occasion, given to such a thirst.  I am always thankful for the heaven-sent “Corners.”

It’s a small place, and like Harry Crews would describe it – a clean, well-lighted place.  The boast is the coldest beer in town, and this is in no way an idle claim.  Trust me.  It’s owned by a guy named “TK”.  You’re feeling the vibe already, aintcha, hikers.

All TK ever wante4d to do is own a bar like this, and he drove the rubber off of a hundred dump trucks over years and years ()with a break as a fender and body man and few other entrepreneurial forays) to save up the bucks to buy this place.  The American Dream, that’s what it is.

He keeps a friendly place, and the guests slip in and out like the change form their pockets.  It’s a check-in station.  Locals reconnect, reassure and recharge here.  And then they are gone. 

They stare at me when they first come in. Laptops are uncommon, and hikers even less than laptops.  I sit here, happy to rest swamp-soaked legs and pack-weary back on the stool while TK keeps the refreshments coming.  The looks are suspicious at first and then interested later, once they’re comfortable that I’m not a government agent.  I’m not kidding.

Well, enough for now.  I’ve got a print piece to write for Sunday and it’s due tomorrow.  I’m actually around to meet my deadline, so you can guess how amazed my editor will be to find the St.Mark’s story in his in-basket tomorrow.  One more miracle in a whole dadgum world of miracles.

We’ll talk again tomorrow, you guys have hiked your butts off weather you know it or not.  You will tomorrow.

Swampwater cheers from the Florida Trail, Mike

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Good morning, Hikers!

As I write to you this morning, the rains are back and are thumping mightily against Agnes’s rain fly. I’ve Gene Krupa drumming on one side of the tent and Buddy Rich on the other and each are playing the drum solo of their lives. Very shagadelic, man.  .

I’m the lucky beneficiary of what has proved to be extraordinary weather forecasting talent.  Jack Parrish is a meteorologist for the NOAA, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Agency.  Fraser Hale, a good friend, fellow backpacker and photographer (except that Fraser is a REAL photographer, you know, film and f-stops and all of that cool photo-speak) put Jack and I together early on in this trek. Jack has called the weather and the time I’d see it with an almost spooky accuracy.

Jack isn’t just a meteorologist, he’s a weather shaman.  We’ve never met and I have never seen his workplace.  This opens a pretty big door for my imagination, especially as as I “hunker.” Hunker is the weather word Jack uses when he advises me to find shelter inside of Agnes until things ease up a bit).

I picture him there in an eerie, blue lighted government weather center, computers spitting out atmospheric models with little arrows and circles and 8x10 color glossies.  He is, of course, wearing sensible shoes and a lab coat, the pocket of which is bristling with pens, pencils and an old key, which he likes to attach to a kite with string and fly on days with exciting lightning activity.. 

The surface of his desk is flawlessly organized.  There is a drawer on one side of his desk, one that looks sturdier than the others.  He dials in the combination and removes its carefully stored contents.  It is a jar of made of clay and its surface is covered in ancient symbols depicting nature’s primary elements. It is clearly an antiquity of great rarity and age.

He reaches over to a Volvo-sized printer and takes from its try the latest weather printout. It is poster-sized and in full color.  He spreads it out on his desk, anchoring its corners with massive ceramic coffee cups bearing that cool NOAA logo. He rubs his chin thoughtfully as he eyes the satellite images of swirling clouds and those tiny arrows that point out the intentions of invisible winds aloft.

Suddenly, his eyes betray a trance-like state. He reaches for the jar and closes his eyes.  Cupping the opening of the jar in one hand and its smooth clay bottom in the other, he begins to shake up the contents. He does so while reciting an incantation in a tongue long dead and know to no one but him.  The shakes fall into the rhythm of the incantation, and soon his voice and the sound of the jar’s mixing contents become the only sound in the room.  His co-workers gather to watch this scene in rapt fascination, the ghostly blue light illuminating their faces. They know this ritual all too well; it is the same one he employs to unerringly roll the coveted five sixes when they gather on unchallenging weather days to play Yahtzee. 

His concentration is unbreakable, even as a voice in the background announces that the Krispy Kremes have arrived. Suddenly, he snaps out of the trance, opens his eyes and and with a final, pent-up exclamation he spills the contents of the jar across the chart on his desk.  The tea leaves and chicken bones spread themselves randomly across the multi-million dollar map bearing swirling cloud masses, high-pressure zones and steering currents

Randomly, that is, to you and me.  But not to Jack Parrish. 

Imagination… it’s all you have when you’re hunkered in the rain on the Florida Trail.

Barometric Cheers from St. Mark’s National Wildlife Refuge, Mike

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Blue sky greetings, hikers!

It’s been raining for the last four days.  The heaviest of the showers barreled through here the day and night before yesterday and again last night.  Bucketfulls, hikers. 

Who among you has stretched out in your warm, dry sleeping bag while the elements pelted your shelter with an infinitely sustainable supply of raindrops? 

Who among you has congratulated himself for taking the trouble to seek out the highest ground upon which to erect his shelter?

And who among you has been the humbled beneficiary of Mother Nature’s comeuppance when she decides that that the high ground you so carefully selected, that you were so immensely proud of finding, just ain’t gonna be high enough?

Yeah, me too.  Agnes did the best she could, more than I dared ask of her.  But hey, there’s a reason they call these places “swamp.”

But today, every thing is greener, more vital, more alive.  This soggy morning, a thousand red-winged blackbirds have lighted in the canopy of live oaks, and their squawks and chirps and like forms of ceaseless avian commentary are broadcasting the weather report.  “All clear for the week ahead, a good time for foraging, flying and for you, earthbound human, a good week for hiking on the Florida Trail.”

A good week to be swallowed whole and alone by a steamy, wet forest.  A good week, indeed.

A Wringing Wet Cheers from the Florida Trail, Mike

“God, I love it so.” – Patton

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Guten Abend, hikers!

Imagine an old car, an old Jeep, if you feel.  Now imagine rolling easily down a backwoods Jeep trail in that trusty old Jeep. There’s a gentle breeze, the birds are singing in the trees and the forest is as beautiful as you’ve ever seen it.

Now, imagine hitting a bump too hard, and somehow, in all that jostling around, your knee bumps the shift lever into the REVERSE position. In one earsplitting, metallic yelp, your transmission almost tears itself apart. But, thanks to a faithful schedule of preventive maintenance, you manage to it back into first before any serious harm is done.

Can you picture that, hikers? 

Well, that I’m that transmission, and it feels really good to be back in a forward gear.

Some quick background - As you know, I decided to take several days off over Christmas.  I was anxious to see my loved ones and to celebrate the holidays with them.  It seemed so simple then.  But it wasn’t. 

Before I took the decision to get some Christmas R&R, one of the many voices in my head urged me to stay on the trail.  The transmission was as perfectly engaged and running as the day it left the factory.  Its bipedal transfer case ran is if on rails and the engine was purring like a kitten.  You don’t interrupt your mojo when it’s workin,’ said the voice.  I tuned it out.

What I didn’t see coming was that once I was home for a day or two, the trail would begin to re-occupy virtually all of my thoughts.  I didn’t realize it as it was happening, but I’m pretty sure everyone around me did.  I felt alien and antsy. I slept poorly.  I felt as out of place as a turd on a wedding cake.

And then, “Bam!” I’m back to pushing the shift lever forward.  I’m happy to report that after doing a Texas two-step on the clutch pedal – and that took some time - I have managed to get the rig back in its unstoppable forward gears. 

Hikers, it’s an old transmission.  The kind made before they fully perfected the neutral gear, I guess. Although it’s more reliable than the new ones they make these days, the shifting of it occasionally requires more sensitivity than I can muster.  Like with any old four-wheel drive, there’s always something to work on.  I guess I ought to get to work on that sensitivity sensor. 

“And that’s all I have to say about that.” – Forrest Gorp

Cheers – and Happy New Year from the Florida Trail ! – Mike.

PS – Happy Birthday to my climbing and scuba buddy-girl, Nancy Cline.  Some people actually do get better with age.  Why did it have to be her? 

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Monday December someteenth at 5:57 PM I dropped DeWitt back into the trail. After meeting him in the same spot days earlier. I did some shooting as he faded into the trail the way baseball players faded into the cornfield in Field of Dreams.

I wondered did this just really happen? We both come from the Tampa bay area. I moved here from Tarpon Springs in 1973, he lives in Tampa. 

Maybe he was Santa Claus, he did leave gifts, of insight and observations yes, he was following stars too on this trail journey.  DeWitt did happen and as if in The Wizard of Oz I just spent talk time with the tin man, lion and scarecrow rolled into one. The Wizard pulling the magic levers and connecting the reality was the Florida Trail.  I live here and have for 33 years, the trail is my backyard and the world around me is much like rural Pinellas county was in the 1950s.

It was like that when I moved here and is why I moved here.  Wakulla and Franklin counties have over 70% federal and state lands and are still bio-diverse and alive with natural wonders.  I often tell people that the wildlands are better now then when I moved here. Much has been learned about fire and ecosystems, about the need for bio-diversity and about water quality and how it is the key to a healthy habitat for both man and nature. Some of these lessons are even practiced here.

DeWitt brought me back to reality on how great it is to be in the Last Best Natural Place in Florida. I still love Pinellas and lead trips on the Pinellas trail a few times a year but that is urban and a needed but different wild. I have watched as St. Petersburg Mayor Rick Baker has began to turn the city into a safer place for bicyclist and pedestrians after the town was labeled a MEAN STREETS community by the national press a few years ago. I grew up on the Anclote river, it was wild and I miss it.

This summer I watched as a 100 pound lab was gobbled up by an alligator as I prepared a kayak trip with a few paddlers. A little yip was all there was, the gator wasn’t aggressive just opportunistic. He had waited all summer, we watched him waiting for the opportunity, so did the dogs owners. It is his place, the gators, not ours, the Saint Marks National Wildlife Refuge. He gobbled, sank to the bottom for 15 minutes then swam off with doggie in mouth while the owner was still out of control with sadness (gross understatement). No wild fight or commotion just a natural acquisition.

Those kayaker have not returned, and the gator was eaten later at a wedding down the street. I had objections to its destruction. My feelings were to erect a sign at the entrance to our neighborhood stating: DANGER Wildlands Interface, keep your pets, feral children, panic related emotions under control or turn around now—natural processes at work.  I was in the minority however with the sign idea so the gator that ate the dog got eaten by the wedding party, so did I eat the dog? Yep!  I have learned to go with the flow if needed, but to always give options for discussion without anger.

To not spoil the magic here for future generations we have to learn to honor it and leave it to its natural processes. Hard, you bet, but for the most part North Florida is still wild and that wildness protrudes into the reality like a big red rat snake eatin a squirrel on your screened porch. 

Politics too follow the wild side with Wakulla being the last remaining county in Florida with an unincorporated county seat.  I just tell people I live 35 miles and 100 years south of Tallahassee and they understand.  I love it all and it all is connected, those frontier politics and the natural bio-diverse frontier we play in.

I witnessed it grab DeWitt by the heart and soul, fog his mind for a moment then spin him in time to a place not without either history or nature. It hit him like Oz hit Dorothy and he rattled of it for days.  It was always a part of him you bet, in dreams and in a world more nature driven then Tampa. He found Oz and just maybe we shouldn’t look behind the curtain, we should just leave it all alone and observe the wonders and magic we call North Florida, nature knows how to manage nature. 

Mike mentioned fishing and me, well it is actually an acquisition program that began about 7 years ago using kayaks. Kayak fishing to me is like being the invisible man in a bank robbery. I do love to filet but I love to observe more and the kayak has opened my eyes to more observable natural processes than I can process.

I have played with about all the motorized boating options (except jet skis) but the kayak has won my heart and soul.  Kayaks are more than stealth and less than no impact, sharks run into it while feeding and porpoises procreate as I sit quietly and wait for my dinner to do the water dance before entering the kayak.

I love fish and love to release gently too. I debarb and only use single hooks. Fishing is primal to me and essential, it is life and my travels as I fish for information for my films. Mike let me fish into his mind and minds eye for days, special is a small word when it comes to trails and when it comes to sharing experiences, thanks Mike.

Get out you lovers of life and explore the trails in your neighborhood and beyond, you will have no regrets. And if you need a mission, assist in creating trails in and around your town.

From Sopchoppy Florida the Worm Gruntin Capital of the World
Sopchoppy Robby

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Howdy Holiday Hikers!

Well, I gotta tell ya, It felt reallllly good to walk across the new bridge at Monkey Creek.  When last I saw it was one-quarter finished, a single wobbly span set in place after a full day’s work.  To see it complete and functional brought a smile to my kisser.

I spent that one day of what turned out to be a two-week project with F-Troop, the group of Florida Trail staff and volunteers that undertook the building of this erector-set design bridge.  F-Troop consists of personalities of all ages and backgrounds.  What they have in common is that they know how to have a great time while working like sled dogs.  They are free-givers of their time and their ligaments to advancing a dream that marks its 40th birthday this year – The Florida Trail.

The bridge was purchased for the trail by the US Forest Service, the Florida Trail Association’s government partner.  All federally-appropriated funds for the Florida Trail are received through the US Forest Service.  I didn’t know that.

I’m a public-private partnership guy so naturally I dig that sort of thing.  When active citizens and government share power, we actually get the government we deserve.  I’m going to be paying a lot more attention to how my representatives treat the United States Forest Service. 

The 5000lb spans of this 80-foot bridge were placed manually using winches, block and tackle and gallons of sweat.  All this was accomplished under the enlightened tutelage of a 28-year Forest Service veteran by the name of Ian Barlow.  Barlow’s stomping grounds is the Nez Perce National Forest, a land of big trees on big mountains in Idaho.  He is an expert, nay, a Zen master, at moving big stuff from here to there without the use of engines of any kind.

I had the chance to hang out with Ian.  His passion is bridges and, by the way, he’s not thrilled with how the Monkey Creek bridge aesthetically complements the landscape.  He has resolved to find a more elegant option for future bridges.  And he will.  He’s landed on a suspension design that would use massive cypress trees as anchoring structures.  It’s working great up in British Columbia, so why not here, eh?

I want to share with you something I’ve been told many times but that didn’t stick to me for good until I heard them from Ian Barlow.  Keep in mind that Barlow is an infinitely practical and experienced man, not a pie in the sky nut log.  This guy quit school because they had recess. Know what I’m sayin’ here? This is what Ian Barlow said to me:

“Nothing is impossible.  It’s merely a question of working through the solutions.”

Don’t just shake your head. He knows what he’s talking about and it’s true. Nothing is impossible. So profoundly does this pronouncement resonate with me that I shall never regard anything - and I mean anything - as impossible as long as I live. 
And might I add that once you look at the world through those eyes, you will find that you are waist-deep in righteous mojo - a legitimate force of nature.  It will certainly change the way you make choices in life.

Think about that for a moment while I make us a cup of coffee… do you take it black, black or black?  Really? Me too!

Sluuurp… OORAH..  Good stuff!

Back in 1966, when the first of the now famous orange blazes were painted along the trail in the Ocala National Forest, the idea of a trans-Florida Trail was as dead as Ponce de Leon.  Impossible, said some.

Now, thanks to a lot of people who believed nothing to be impossible, we are never more than an hour’s drive from the orange blazes and the natural wonders along it.  As bipedal beings, we could argue that such a trail should be our birthright.  Nothing could be further from the truth. 

Each mile of this trail has been hard won.  It is half again as long as Texas is wide and each step taken upon it falls upon ground that has been begged, borrowed, bought or bestowed.  Every last wilderness foot has been routed, blazed, bridged, mowed and maintained by volunteers.  These volunteers drive their own vehicles and buy their own gas.  They cook for each other at the end of the day and share bone-tired laughs around the campfire at night.  Our kind of people, hooah?

It is because of men and women such as these that our hike together has been so cool.  Those scenic routes through enchanted forests, those rustic and amazing bridges over pristine waters, that’s what they’ve been giving us for Christmas for 40 years.  We’ve been opening their gifts to us since October.  I’d say we’re having a doozy of a Christmas, wouldn’t you?

Tomorrow I head home for a few days to spend Christmas with my family and friends.  I’m meeting my lovely and long-suffering wife in the seaside ville of Panacea.  Yeah, I know. It’s very groovy, happening, sort of name, isn’t it?  Located less than two miles south of the Florida Trail and a full days hike from Monkey Creek, this town is doing a fine job of living up to its moniker.  it even has an all-you-can-eat shrimp restaurant with full-blown Sunday Services thrown in for free – yep, the church kind.  Nobody can leave until the service is over because the cashier is in the choir. You’ll walk a million miles before you find another one of these.  And the shrimp won’t be near as good.

Also to be enjoyed within this coastal Wakulla County hamlet is a marine sciences facility that you can tour, another restaurant serving a killer grouper sandwich and a pristine coastal wildlife refuge just about everywhere you look. The whole “Panacea” thing just falls right in to place, doesn’t it?

Anyway, my yuletide trail buddies, before us lies the vast balance of the St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge, the subject of a recent blog.  One reason I’m waiting until after the Christmas break to hike it is that I want to bring a better video camera and audio recorder back with me.  There is a high likelihood of encountering bears here, and I have high hopes for capturing some great images of them for you.  The other camera just wasn’t packing its share of the journalism weight.  I’m also changing up some gear, and i’ll write more of that as it happens.  Until then,

Boughs of holly cheers from the Florida Trail, Mike

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