Store 88

At the Florida Trail conference a couple of weeks ago I met several really nice people who indicated a desire to hike the FL Trail. One of these was a guy named Ian, who knows my friends Charles and Mary well. Since then he heard of a group intending to hike the length of the Ocala National Forest. They will be doing day hikes, but Ian had decided to backpack the same distance, and roughly matching his daily hiking to the same sections as theirs so he will at least bump into them, or hike a short while with them each day.

I could not get the entire week off due to an out of town business trip, but joined in at Juniper Springs, preferring to backpack it with Ian than join the day hikers. We set off northbound from Juniper Springs campground around 6pm for the short hike into Hidden Pond where we intended to spend the night.

The trail passes through the Juniper Wilderness area, where no vehicles, bicycles, etc are allowed, and no motorized equipment is used to maintain the trail. As a result, the trail is a little rougher than most of the FL trail system, with grasses, brush, and several blown down trees, encroaching on the trail. It was a pleasant hike though, especially once the heat disappeared from the sun. We spotted a coral snake on the trail, which I mistook for a scarlett kingsnake, at least until I got home and saw the photos of it. Lucky I didn't try to pick it up! After that, we arrived at Hidden the pond and campsite quite quickly, just as it was getting dark. We quickly got camp set up, etc. I returned to the pond to collect water and wash up for the night, apparently totally oblivious to the alligator who was hanging out with me while I did so, but the next person down to the pond saw only two big red eyes staring out from a few feet out in the water. I guess I need to wear my glasses when I'm bathing!

We sat around for several hours talking, and getting eaten alive by mosquitos, then retired for the night. The night was fairly cool, but I'm told byt those that had been out camping the previous night that it was a big improvement. Next morning was cool and misty, but that just made Hidden Pond prettier as the sun rose.

We were fairly slow getting started off in the morning. The fastest of the southbound group of hikers, hiking back to Juniper Springs campground, approached us as we filled up our water for the day. I set off again northbound as he left, and over the next 10 - 15 mins met up with the remainder of the southbound group. They had set off from the Hopkins Prairie campground crossing, and must get up early and hustle first thing in the morning!

The hiking was pleasant while the trail was shaded, and there were many small ponds to rest by. Late morning I scared up something very large in the scrub off to the east of the trail, but could not tell what it was. After the trail left the wilderness area was an area of a mile or so that was apparently very damaged by 2004's hurricanes, and was subsequently clear cut/recovered to remove the blown down trees. It was approaching noon, the sun hot, and only a very light breeze. Fortunately, we arrived at FR86 and the Hopkins Prairie campground sinkhole. We had already decided that if the day turned out to be too hot for hiking, that we would find somewhere shady and pleasant to siesta in the heat of the day. The sinkhole was perfect. Cool water and light shade. We headed down the steps to the sinkhole. I swam a while to cool off, then we ate lunch, and napped for a while. A water snake was hanging around where I had accessed the water, but I didn't get a photo of it. Eventually, the shade moved, and our little piece of paradise became hot and sunny, so we filled up on water again, and moved back into the forest and denser shade for the remainder of the afternoon.

As the shadows moved around during the remainder of the afternoon, we kept moving our gear and our napping selves around to stay in the shade. At one stage, afetr moving to a new shady spot, we noticed a wasp buziing around us, but clearly not interested in us as much as in my pack, and the sandy ground around it. We watched it curiously for a while as it dug around on the ground shoving leaves and tree debris pieces around, obviously looking for something. Shortly afterwards, when we moved again to set up and cook dinner, I found the reason why the wasp had been so interested in my pack. I had put the cak down on the wasp's hole, and it obviously knew it was there, but just could not figure out what had happened to it.
After dinner, hoping that the heat would dissipate quickly in the breeze that had picked, we set off hiking again into Hopkins Prairie. The trail around the Prairie had been closed until very recently due to high water from the hurricanes of the past couple of years. Due to the lack of maintenance the grasses were very overgrown, over head height for the most part, and there were a couple of areas where trail markers had blown away etc. The trail was a little had to follow in places, but as the water was rarely more than 20 - 30 feet from the trees there was usually a good indication of where the trail should go. Any inconvenience on the trail was more than compensated by the beauty of the prairie. The setting sun and the wonderful cooling breeze, with no-one else around made this an idyllic hiking evening.

Around the middle of the prairie I lost the trail blazes and doubled back to the last blaze a couple of times to look for the next one. After several times around and across a clearing, I just could not spot the trail. One possible direction would take me through sludgy sticky looking mud, and another through the edge of the lake, neither of which I was particularly keen to tackle with the light starting to fade. Other options would take me through thick overgrown brush, and just didn't look right. All the possible options would take me out of sight of this last obvious trail marker, and not knowing how far behind me Ian was, the last thing I wanted was for him to reach the same point and magically see the trail, while I was off blaze hunting out of sight. I doubled back a little, hoping to meet up with him and/or see a suitable place to camp for the night. When we did meet up, obviously he did not think the light was fading as fast as I, as we decided to return to where I had lost the trail, and attempt to pick it up again.
As we skirted round the clearing again to look for the blaze, Ian happened to look down, and at his feet was a tiny fawn resting at the base of some tall grasses. We both pulled out our cameras and spent several minutes up close photographing it. It never moved except to flare it's nostrils a couple of times. We speculated that it's Momma had told it to stay put, and staying put it was. I'm just glad we weren't a couple of gators!
Despite the distraction of the fawn, Ian managed to find the next trail blaze up close to the trees on the opposite side of the clearing (I had been looking too far out towards the water), and we continued on the trail. A short while later, we found a nice breezy, short grass spot among the tall grasses to set up camp for the night. A nearby recently sawed blown down tree provided convenient log seats that were easily rolled the short distance to camp. We had no access to water, but were carrying sufficient to last overnight and for our initail morning needs anyway. It was perfect, and the breeze held most of the mosquitos at bay too! Just before retinring for the night Ian saw the headlights of a car in the area of the clearing where we had seen the fawn. I couldn't see the lights, but did hear the sound of engine and wheels squealing as they driver attempted to release vehicle from the mud he was obviously stuck in! The noise continued for a while, and shortly after we had settled in our respective tents, we heard the sounds of cussing and shouting, as the vehicles occupants returned back on the road they had driven in on, this time on foot! Other than that disturbance, it was a great night for camping, warmer than the previous night, but with the pleasant breeze moderating the temperature. Next morning, the sunrise was as beautiful as the sunset the night before.

We had decided we needed an early start today as the remainder of the group would likely start out very early, and we wanted to hike with them for a while. After a quick breakfast and easy pack up we were on the trail. The trail turned muddy and wet very quickly after we started out. I am in two minds about whether I would have rather have covered the wet section late in the day last night, to give my boots an opportunity to dry out, but the spot we had camped in had been so pleasant that I am glad we stopped. It may also have been not too pleasant to hike through the wet in the dark. Though apparently, last night had not been quite as dark for Ian as it had for me. When I woke this morning and reached for my glasses, I found only my sunglasses. I was sure I had changed out of them when we stopped to photograph the fawn, but obviously had not. That explains why I thought it was getting too dark to hike, and also why I couldn't see the stuck car headlights. Ian had apparently just thought I was trying to be "cool" keeping them on after dark! Thanks hon!

In any case, if we had night hiked this section we might have missed the wild blueberry bushes in the dark and as we discovered this morning, we would have had to hike at least a couple more miles before we would reach another spot suitable for camping.

Not knowing what the water situation would be for the remainder of the day, we stopped at the first fairly easily accessible water and collected, filtered and treated enough for the remainder of the day. While we were stopped the first of the day hikers passed us, stopped for a while to talk, then continued ahead. The next passed us just as I was filled up, repacked and preparing to leave. Shortly after commencing hiking again I came to the wettest area of the trail, with water around mid calf deep. It mainly had a nice packed sandy bottom though, with only a few muddy spots where there were blown down trees, so wasn't too much hassle, just the inconvenience of wet feet.

I passed the second day hiker resting on a blow down before I left the prairie, and leapfrogged with him for a while as I came off the prairie and back into the forest. I also crossed paths with two unknown backpakers. We exchanged only "Hi's", so I'm not sure how long they had been hiking, or how long they were intending to hike, but they sure looked loaded up, yet extremely fresh and clean, so I'm sure they must have just set out. A little while later I arrived at CR314, and met up with the lead day hikers again. As we sat and rested in the shade the remainder of the group trickled in, talked a while and eventually everyone shuttled off.

We arrived at CR314 while the day was still too hot to hike in the sun. However, it wasn't particularly pleasant sitting on the side of the road with trucks racing past either, so we set off northbound into the forest for just a short distance before locating a suitable shady spot to wait until the heat died down a little. At around 6pm it hadn't cooled off much, but we started up for the evening anyway. There was quite a nice breeze blowing up in the tops of the trees, but unfortunately not much was making it down to trail level, except at the frequent dirt road crossings, which we took advantage of for cooling breaks. We were hoping to stop at Store 88, a convenience store and hiker institution where we hoped to stock up on fresh commercial water, as we were uncertain where we would find the next potable water source, and knew we had a long hot dry day ahead tomorrow. At 7pm, with a couple of miles still to cover, we stopped for a dirt road break, and while checking the hiker guide, were confused by the reference to the store as available 11am - 8pm. So we put a little rush on for the next couple of miles, then encountered a blue blaze paited on a tree. The connector trail to Store 88 is marked with blue blazes, but as we had not yet passed the convergence of the East and West Connector trails, we were a little confused. We finally decided that the blue blaze was old, and ignoring it, continued on. Shortly after that we did indeed come to the trail convergence, and very shortly after that, the correct blue blazed side trail.


So we arrived at Store 88, just a little before 8pm, very sweaty, and found that the reference in the book had been to the barbeque store, which we had known was closed anyway. Store 88 is a convenience store attached to a bar, and is open till 2am. So much for rushing!

Store 88 is great. The bartender came out and offered us cold beverages, that were much appreciated. There are picnic tables outside where we could dump and spread out our gear and collapse on to recover from past hour's humid, sticky, rush. We chatted a while with the occupants of another picnic table whose opening comment had been "Are you hiking?". They were very interested and pleasant though. After cooling off a little we decided to eat here instead of worrying about cooking at camp, unfortunately the bar had no food available except re-heated pre frozen sandwiches. We managed with a selection of those, desserts and candy, but there were repercussions from that the next day! When we had eaten dinner and filled up on water and snacks we set out back down the link trail to find somewhere to camp for the night. It was now dark and we had our headlamps on to see. If you've never hiked in the forest at night with a LED headlamp, you probably have no idea how many spiders there are in a forest. But with an LED headlamp, it's like walking into a Warner Brothers cartoon scene. You know, the one where there is a darkened room, and the only thing you see are pairs of white eyes staring back at you. We investigated the closest set of eyes, to find a big wolf spider sittong on the ground. Apparently the compound eyes of a spider glow like neon in reaction to LED light. The rest of the eyes we just tried ignore or avoid! Despite the spiders we decided we would rather camp close by here, than try to get up towards grassy pond. We had full water anyway, so did not need to worry about dry camping, and it was quite late by this time. The trail was under long leaf pines and open understorey here, which would make for a decent campsite, but could make following the trail in the dark a lot more difficult: all those spider eyes would be distracting and make finding the orange blazes harder! So we headed back up the trail and uphill for a while, hoping to get some advantage from the breeze by being up on the hill, set up camp and immediately straight into the tents to avoid the mosquitos.

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