Merry Christmas

What a great Christmas Day.

It started off in bed in a small cabin at the Suwannee Valley Campground. Ian brought me my coffee in bed (as all good cabana boys should!) and a bag of charcoal, which I assume was the closest to coal he could find, and receiving the entire bag means I must have been real bad this year. Santa, I can explain!

We did hike today, but just a short stroll today along the banks of the Suwannee and back into the campground where we are staying.

Ian earned his Sherpa patch today. I had decided to carry only my santa hat, water bottle and camera as it was such a short hike. Ian wants to carry his pack the whole way, so he carried the thermos of coffee, sodas and snacks. What a guy.

After the hike we fired up the bag of charcoal and threw a couple of juicy steaks, mushrooms and brussel sprouts on the grill. Desert was microwaved english Christmas Pudding and custard. It was all delicious, and rounded off a great Christmas day.

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Osceola

Want to know what happens to thin blooded Florida hikers when the weather turns cold?

We freeze! We set out all geared up like ninjas. You'd have thought it was an arctic expedition. We both swore we were over reacting and we’d be hot shortly, but we still had most of it on at the end of each day!

We're back in the woods on twisty, turning, uneven, but very well blazed, and recently maintained trail. It's hunting season and we've spent the last few days hiking through State land and private hunting areas. We heard a couple of shots early, but not seen too many hunters, and fortunately no close encounters. We felt safe enough with our orange coverage and the lack of visible hunters. The biggest concern was when emerging from the tree line next to an automated corn feeder, or onto a road that had been seeded with corn. Usually there was a hunter’s stand in line of sight, and each time this occurred we were cautious until we could confirm the stand was empty. That really doesn’t seem like a very sporting way to catch a deer, but I guess it saves having to walk to far in pursuit of your prey.

Ironically, the place we felt safest hiking was through the Olustee State Battlefield. I was here earlier in the year for the Olustee Battle reenactment. It looks a lot different here withouit thousands of people dressed in period costume.

We've been hiking through pine trees and palmettos as far as the eye could see. It was cold, windy, damp and misty. All at once sometimes. We did have some sunny and clear, but it was still cold. The trail was good, but had a couple of areas of blowdown debris and a boardwalk that had been smashed up by falling trees. At one point we passed through a hunt camp where some oblivious hunter had literally set his camper and tent extension right over the trail. Thankfully no-one was home.

We passed a couple of trail shelters on this section, one open sided one in the Osceola Forest, and the Randy Madison shelter, a private shelter for FT members doing long hikes. It is a great little screened shelter situated by a small stream, with a wood stove, plenty of chairs including a rocking chair, covered porch, fire ring. A great little location. If we had been backpacking we would definitely been tempted to stay even so early in the day. As it was we ate lunch and moved on. As we left the property we heard an unknown and unseen female voice wishing us Merry Christmas.

This afternoon we reached the banks of the Suwannee River. I had hiked this small section earlier this year, so it was familiar territory. I was surprised to see that the river actually seemed higher than last spring, however several side streams were now dry, and there was a substantial amount of wind damage, trees down, etc that I did not recall. We ended the day at Little Shoals where the Suwannee runs over a small rapid.

We decided to treat ourselves with with somewhere that is not a tent, preferably with indoor running water in a nice warm bathroom, to stay for Christmas. We're in a cabin at the Suwannee Vally campground. My Christmas present to Ian is giving up the full size bed to him, I'm in the top bunk of a set. We've got a heater, small bathroom, fridge and microwave. I've had a hot shower, and I'm settled down with a cold beer and popcorn, warm and cosy, and with a wifi connection! How much better could Christmas Eve get?

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Palatka - Lake Butler State Trail

The past couple of days have been cool and sunny. Great weather for hiking. However the nights have been cold. We wimped out on the camping for a couple of nights: first one night Deb Blick (from the Florida Trail Association offered to put us up for the night in her spare room, then the next night we wimped out again and ended up in a motel room in Starke. We're back in the tents at Ocean pond now though. Continuing to camp through the winter is going to be a challenge, heat in the morning and a hot shower at night make a massive difference to the day.

We started this section from Gold Head Branch, and after a brief walk through Camp Blanding and some private hunting land for the remainder of the morning. After that we deviated from our maps. The remainder of the mapped walk from Camp Blanding to Lake Butler is a road walk connector. The other night at Debs, she had mentionned that the Florida Trail would shortly be moved off the road and onto the Palatka to State Butler State Trail. This is an old rail bed that the Florida Trail has just received permission to route the Trail along. It has not yet been blazed, but will be soon. Deb told us that it had been recently mowed and was ready for hiking. We would be the first hikers to use it. We couldn’t pass that up, so armed with directions on how to hook up to the start point, we set out. It is a great addition to the trail that moves 25 miles or so of trail off the road. Yeah!!!!

The trail was mainly maintained, but there are a couple of rough patches, and a couple of old railroad bridges that might need a foottread to add a bit of confidence crossing them, but were passable. We just loved being off the road. We saw more wildlife than we would have hiking the road: a herd of about 20 wild hogs, several bobcats, small black snake, chicken, wildflowers, etc. Much nicer than cars!

At the town of Hampton there were a couple of areas of rough trail, but we battled on through and were soon on the long straight well maintained grassy old railbed that we had come to expect. At the end of that day's hike we returned to the start car at the Hampton ball park to find a business card on the windshield from the local police officer saying how he wanted us to know that he’d been watching our cars for the last couple of days (the other car was parked in the same spot yesterday, and both have FL Trail stickers in the rear window) and that they were happy to have us here. How is that for a welcome message for the new trail!

On the final day of hiking we came to the old trestle bridge at New River. We had been warned that this bridge was out and we would have to descend into the river bed and ford the river. Before starting out this morning we had made a scouting trip to the next road bridge upstream of this point to see how much water was flowing and whether it would be feasible to try to cross. It looked low, so we decided to chance crossing it. As we approached the river I spotted something running or hopping by the bridge. At first I assumed it was a large jack rabbit, but as we approached Ian realized it was a Bobcat. It could cross onto the bridge easier than we could, and it took refuge on one of the bridge pilings and watched us warily while we tried to get close enough for photos. Eventually I made my way down the embankment to the river bed, hoping that it would make the cat move into Ian’s view, but suddenly it just disappeared as stealthily as you would expect of a cat. Down at the river we finally decided it was shallow enough to wade across. It wasn’t too cold or deep, and there was a nice solid sandy bottom with no slimy mud. Continuing down the trail were two additional washed out bridges over creeks much smaller than the New River, and both were easily navigated without getting wet.

Around lunchtime today we passed through Lake Butler and joined up with the original FL Trail leaving us just a half mile road walk before turning north and heading into the Lake Butler Forest. It was nice to be back in the woods, but we had both enjoyed the long straight rail trail walk, and especially the 30 mile road walk it had saved us.

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Finishing up the Western Corridor Roadwalks

What a difference a couple of days can make. Last week we were seeking shade and breeze for breaks. Now, a rainy front a couple of days ago has left breezy and much cooler conditions that we have experienced the past few weeks. The next couple of days are supposed to be even colder!

Still, there's hiking to be done, so I just concentrated on getting into the sunny spots and out of the breeze.


The past couple of days I have been hiking alone again. My hiking partner Ian decided some time ago not to hike the Western Corridor, while I chose to hike most of it in short day hike and weekend chunks as it is close to my home. I have completed the entire 222 miles of the Western with the exception of a couple of short road walks connecting the weekend hikes. Ian needed a couple of days off to get some chores done, so I figured it was time to complete the Western connections. I'm shuttling myself using my car and bicycle, so though the hikes aren't particularly strenuous, adding the shuttling in adds some complexity.

First of the three connecting sections was the northernmost section of the Withlacoochee State bicycle trail, through Dunellon, crossing the Withlacoochee and Rainbow rivers, then out alongside the busy highway for the final 5 miles to Pruitt. Later the same day I also connected a tiny couple of miles from Hog Island to the south end of the Withlacoochee State trail.

The hike for the final day started at Richloam Fire Tower, then after only a mile in the woods, followed busy roadsides before turning onto a quieter country road for the last few miles into River Junction. The only things worthy of the camera today were the Little Withlacoochee River and a rather garish Christmas display where I stopped for lunch.

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Rodman to Gold Head Branch

We’re back on the trail again after a week or so break for F-Troop (FL Trail’s maintenance program) for me, and for Ian some time to catchup the section of the Eastern Corridor he needed to complete it.

We started this section at the north End of the Ocala Natioanl Forest at Rocman Campground. This is rather significant for us, because the 50 miles of Ocala up to Rodman was the first backpack that Ian and I completed together, about a year and a half ago. It seems like forever, but we remember back then saying that we both had the desire to hike the entire Florida Trail, and that we doubted we'd ever find anyone who would both have the desire and the time to do so. And now here we are, in a concerted effort to complete the remainder of the trail together before the Spring. We are far enough north now to make daily shuttling from Orlando totally impractical, so have started our first road trip. The intention is to make our way north and west from campground to campground, hopefully staying 3 – 5 days from each and dayhiking as we have been, but based from the tents. Today everything went fairly smoothly. We were both fairly organized and got going at a reasonable time, assisted by the very mild weather we have been having. It was in the mid 60s this morning, and will likely remain warm and dry until the weekend. Of course, mild nights means hot days. It was a sticky mid 80s at the warmest part of the day. Fortunately we were on shaded forest roads and in dense forest for most of the hike.

From Rodman it's a short hike up along the embankment of the canal to Buckman Lock from Rodman. The lock-keeper opened the gate for us, and we talked with him for a while. Then it was back in the woods again to Rice Creek Sanctuary where we saw a good size alligator by the creek, and a family of 5 wild hogs, including one white baby hog. That is the first time I have seen the hogs up close. They passed within 20 feet of me, and were not concerned at all by our presence.

The next morning started out with some strange fungus that looked ice rimmed. At 70 degrees, of course it wasn’t, but it served as a great reminder to us how lucky we are to be hiking in shirt sleeves in the middle of December. I scared up a flock of about 40 turkeys somewhere in the middle of Booger Woods. I’m sure they will be thinned out by the end of the hunting season if they continue to hang out in this private hunting area.

Back out on roads again, but this time sandy back roads which, after a couple of hours, we had had enough of the great glute workout! The roads took us into Etonia Creek State Park. We stopped for a break at a bench overlooking the ravine the creek has carved. We have not seen anything like this so far in our FL Trail travels. The ravine is quite deep and contains many different types of trees we don’t see much in Florida, very tall skinny magnolias and tulip poplars. The entire trail through this State park was very well maintained, with great blazing, signage and bridges, and the Iron bridge shelter, neat and clean, and complete with two chairs to relax in in addition to the picnic table. It would definitely have been worth a stop for the night if the car was not just 2 miles away.

About a mile into the final hike of this section, Ian commented how some unseen dogs had picked up his scent and were really barking behind us. We both assumed it was hunters and continued hiking. A couple of miles later, we had just sat down for a break when we heard the dogs again, much louder this time, and the staccato noise of a voice over a radio. Imagine our surprise when we were surrounded a few minutes later by a team of Dept of Corrections officers and K9 tracker dogs. They were on a practice ‘escapee roundup’ and had caught our scent and tracks, and had been following us! One of the officers asked if we had just come down the trail, then asked to see our boots. Seeing the tread on Ian’s boots he exclaimed that no wonder the dogs had picked up our scent instead of their intended target, as they had spent all afternoon yesterday tracking us too! They didn’t seem too upset, or happy either, but quickly radio’d in that it was a false track. Within minutes a vehicle arrived to transport them, and they disappeared to restart back where the dogs had first picked up our trail.

It was a little bit of unanticipated excitement for us anyway. It must have been a dog day for us today. Twice more during the hike we passed homes where dogs followed us outside their yards and onto the trail. Neither was particularly bothersome except for the worry that we were leading them away from their homes and along roads.

After a hot roadwalk we finally arrived at Gold Head State Park in the mid afternoon. The park buildings were built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1920s. The remainder of the afternoon’s hike took us alongside the ravine of the stream the park is named for: a gorgeous, crystal clear, bubbling spring fed stream.

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Prairie Lakes F-Troop

Spent the last five days on the Florida Trail at Prairie Lakes with the F-Troop crew building a 505 foot boardwalk over a Cypress Swamp that often required hikers to take a high water reroute. Florida is very dry right now but there was still water in this area.

I spent the majority of the week standing in knee deep water with an extension cord over my shoulder and an electric drillin hand. I was very careful to keep the cord strung up in the trees above water level!

After the baordwalk was finished we built a couple of benches for the platform.

Hot, wet, and dirty! Just the way we like F-Troop.

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Paynes Prairie

We took a weekend off hiking the Florida Trail to go hiking!

I know it seems weird, but a group of friends always does an annual Ranger led trip into Paynes Prairie. It's a very short hike in, about 4 miles, then an afternoon free to wander the Prairie. In the past we've seen wild horses, and there are also buffalo there, and the sunsets are pretty. We always take extravagant food in as it's such a short hike, and the good food and adult beverages flow pretty freely.

It was, as always, a nice laid back weekend.

Triple N and Bull Creek

I actually only had 2 ½ miles to hike today but ended up hiking 12 ½. A couple of weekends ago when I backpacked the Three Lakes to Bull Creek section with Grant we opted to hike the shorter white trail back to the car on our final day. Last week Ian and I had hiked the longer orange blazed trail, but had not been able to get as close to the Forever Florida fence (where the orange and white trails connect) as I anticipated. So that left me a 2 ½ mile hike to connect the two. Today Ian started his make up hike of the 40 or so miles I have hiked but he missed. We hatched a plan to drop him about 12 miles down trail, ending with the same fenceline to car miles that I need to hike. While he hiked through, rather than just sit in the car and read/snooze I decided to hike the Florida Trail loop hike in the nearby Triple N Ranch WMA.

The loop hike is a great little hike through flatland scrub and along the banks of Crabgrass Creek. The entire loop is well blazed, grass sections were recently mowed, and some recent maintenance done on the center part of the loop. However the creek section was very rough hard scrambling. The blazes are clear, but traveling between the blazes was often challenging. In several places I actually exclaimed “You’ve got to be kidding”. “How?”, when I saw the location of the next blaze. The area was very lush and could be a very pleasant hike, but I spent too much time and effort worrying about navigating and footing to be able to enjoy the surroundings fully. The trail is only a couple of years old, and sparsely used, so hopefully eventually it will become better. I was obviously the first person through in quite some time, evidenced by the complete lack of foot tread, and the massive amounts of spiderweb “condos” across the trail. I ate more than my fair share of web today, and had one little freak out moment when I missed seeing a low web, walked into it and on looking down saw it’s massive occupant, stunned, but crawling calmy across the bare flesh of my abdomen! Eeek!

It actually took me about 3 ½ hours to complete the loop, mainly due to the very slow going along the creek and the extra time I took to take photos of spiders. Next I moved over a couple of miles to the Bull Creek WMA for that final 2 ½ mile stretch, which of course would actually be 5 miles in and out. We had timed the day to finish at about the same time, so I expected to pass Ian somewhere as I was running a little late. Talk about timing: As I approached the fenceline stile from the south, Ian came over it while I was about 30 feet away! We drank a couple of cups of coffee to celebrate my finishing the Eastern Corridor took a couple of photos, and finished the hike back to the car.

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Seminole State Forest

A great couple of days hiking, and probably the warmest we have had so far on the eastern corridor. It was a couple of very contrasting days. The first, along nice level bicycle/horse trail and some beautifully manicured trail through Seminole State Forest. We came across a ranger out looking for invasive plants, and spent a very pleasant hour chatting with him, and then I inadvertently added a mile or so of hiking by chasing down a blue blaze for a spring. I eventually gave up, and the extra miles don’t count anyway. The afternoon was back into deep forest and a refreshing change from all the paved walking recently. It made us both look forward to getting into the northern forests next month.


The second day though, was when it all went downhill! Towards the middle of the day we passed through recently burned area, where there was also storm damage from a tornado last spring. Someone had re-blazed the trail with orange tape since the fire. It was a little confusing to follow in places where the taping did not quite match the few unburned blazes, but was followable. Unfortunately, when we reached the storm damaged area it had been marked for logging out the damaged trees, and every tree over about 6 inches diameter which was not to be logged was also marked with orange tape!. That made for an impossible to follow trail. Eventually, after wandering around in circles for an hour or so we just decided on a north and west course until eventually we bumped into the blazed trail beyond the damaged area.

We didn’t see much in the way of wildlife, but saw lots of good prints: bears and a small cat in two different areas, and several areas where flocks of wither turkeys or cranes had spent some time walking the trail.

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Bull Creek to Tosahatchee

We’re filling in the road walk between Bull Creek WMA and Tosahatchee Reserve. It’s about 30 miles total so we decided to go easy on ourselves and out feet and split it into 3 short days.

We started out with a couple of miles through Bull Creek, unfortunately we couldn't get the car in as far as I would have liked tostart the hike. I was hoping to get in to the point where the trail crosses into Bull Creek from Forever. When I hiked up to here a few weeks ago with Grant we took the white blazed connector back to the car, so now I have a tiny 2 ½ miles "hikelet" of Bull creek still to hike!

The trail itself was a little rough through the palmetto, long grass and cypress swamps, but nice to have a whole day off the roads again. We saw several hunters, and some very close shots, but no wildlife to speak of, just a couple of tiny frogs, several clumps of pitcher plants and some of the joys of winter hiking in Florida, wildflowers. In the last 3 miles at the northern end of Bull Creek the grass was high and the mosquitoes very large and voracious.

Exiting the woods on Thanksgiving morning, we were now in for the long road walk. We took our Thanksgiving lunchbreak on the level grassy bank by the road. While eating lunch I noticed a large black spider investigating my boots. It looked like a miniature version of a fake plastic spider with bright green fangs. Only it was real! It was quite placid while I shoed it around trying to get a photo, however when it spotted Ian’s lunch mat it took off in that direction, and as it reached it it turned into attack mode.

I haven’t seen Ian move that fast in a while, but I didn’t have to wait long for a repeat. Immediately after setting out for the afternoon, Ian suddenly stopped moving forward and backed up very rapidly. I thought it was probably another spider until I heard a rattle. Coiled right in front of him was a large rattle snake, as thick around as my forearm. He was quite defensive, hissing and pulling himself up, so we never saw him stretched out, but I would guess he was about 4 feet long. That sure made us look where we were putting our feet for the remainder of the afternoon.

A little further down the road we saw our 4th hawk of the day. It was quite an exciting nature walk for being beside a road. We finally made it back to the car, and drove to Moss Park for the annual Florida Trail Thanksgiving campout dinner. We were very late after all the delays of the day, but thankfully they had saved us food. And it was good.

The remainder of the hike was all roads. Not very pretty, but a pleasant enough walk considering it was alongside a couple of quite busy highways. Fortunately the grass sides were wide, and mainly fairly level. We did have a little “Ianism moment” when almost to the end of the road walk, he, for some strange reason decided he hadn’t hiked enough miles down SR520. We were taking a break at the junction of 520 and Yates where the trail changed direction. The blazes were not entirely clear where to cross the road and change direction, but the map for some reason shows a walk down one road and a complete U turn back again down the other. Guess who had to walk it all the way down to the next junction just in case there was a blaze down there? As I continued northbound and turned to watch him “making miles” I saw a SOBO blaze indicating that the trail turned directly onto 520 there, but he apparently had already made up his mind to walk down 520 and back up Yates. Gotta love him!

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Catching up in southern Ocala NF

I'm in the southern half of Ocala National forest. Ian has already hiked this section at the beginning of last year’s 70/70 hike, when I could not join him until Juniper, so I am playing catchup. There was a weekend gathering of hikers from whiteblaze.net at Juniper Springs this weekend, so I decided to join them for the camping and hike around 10 miles a day to complete this missing piece.

For my first 10 miles section into Juniper, Dawn, another whiteblaze hiker offered to drive down to the trail crossing with me and return my car to Juniper. It was a rather late start, around 2:20pm, but with a steady pace, and only 2 short breaks I just managed to return to Juniper as it got dark. I had to stop at 5:20 pm to put a long sleeve sweater on, despite sweating from hiking so fast. A cold front is passing through Florida and as soon as the sun went down it got cold very quick.

On Saturday, joining me hiking were four other participants from the whiteblaze group: Brian, Robert, Michael and 9 year old James. We had planned to start out by 11am for a fairly easy day, but due to my bad navigation we took the wrong FS road heading between the trailheads and ended up burying Brian’s car in a too sandy road. Michael, Robert and I were able to push him out quite easily, but it made for a slight delay in the start time. It was actually 11:45 by the time we got started. I was confident that our youngest hiker James could do the 10 miles, but was rather concerned that we could keep up the pace well enough to get finished by dark.

As it happened James led us off at a good 2mph pace. We took breaks every 90 mins and gave James and Michael a 10 – 15 minute head start after each break, and when he slowed a little towards the middle of the hike we faster hikers took the lead, but just enough to get in front a little way to give him encouragement to keep up, but also keeping he and his father in earshot so we didn’t get split up, or discourage him. It worked well and we maintained a great pace, actually finishing the hike in around 4 ½ hours. Way to go James!

We saw several hunters today while hiking, and at one stage had to circle a dry lakebed with hunters standing around their trucks on the opposite side, which was rather intimidating being right in their line of fire. Thank goodness for safety orange caps and vests. The hike was completed without incident, and we came out with several bags of garbage that we had picked up over the course of the afternoon.

My last hiking day was solo again, as almost everyone from the whiteblaze gathering has gone home. Brian (a different one from yesterday) is taking a break from his ECT thru hike to rest up an injured ankle. He can’t hike with me, though he’d like to, but he has agreed to help me with the car shuttle, following me to Farles Campground to leave my car, then dropping me at the Alexander Springs rod crossing where we finished our hike yesterday. Thanks Brian.

It was a very short hike, and much warmer than the previous two days, but still quite pleasant in the shaded forest. I past a couple of hunters, and a pack of rather noisy hunting dogs, then their frustrated owner tracking them, but there was not much else of excitement for the day.

So now I've caught up with all the miles that Ian has hiked and I missed. He still needs to hike a chunk of Three Lakes and Prairie Lakes that I have hiked and he missed. He was supposed to do some of it while I was in Europe last month, ut that didn't happen. Of course, even when he does catch up the missing East Corridor miles, he'll still be about 200 miles behind me in trail miles as he has decided not to hike the Western Corridor, which I have almost completed. It is not necessary to hike both side though for the Florida trail thru hike. I just chose to do both. Once Ian is caught up on the Eastern side we will move north to complete the remainder of the trail heading westward to Pensacola.

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Urban Hiking

We've reached the southeastern outskirts of Orlando, and spent the past three days hiking round the eastern side of the city on a combination of rural and suburban streets, bike paths, and a refreshing foray through Little Big Econ State Forest. We have both done previous work hikes and day hikes, so it seemed like “home territory”.

The hiking was good, despite being predominantly paved. We both dislike hiking on paved surfaces as continually placing your feet in the same position makes you more prone to blisters. The route took us through Chuluotta before joining the Flagler rail trail and into Little Big Econ State Forest. It was a beautiful sunny afternoon in the shady forest, and especially nice to cross the bridge over the Econ and see the river back in it’s banks without having done too much damage to the area (we kayaked the river back in August when it was in a high flood, which effectively buried the bridge we crossed today).

Out of Little Big Econ we hiked into Oviedo. On the way in we were stopped by an Orlando Parks and Receation dept mower who had seen us stopped for lunch yesterday about 10 miles south, and on seeing us again couldn’t believe we would have walked “all that way”. He was totally disbelieving when we explained to him about the FL Trail and showed him the maps and blazes. In Oviedo we stopped for lunch at our favorite restaurant there. So there are some advantages to hiking in the city, more people and more food!

After lunch the trail picked up the paved bike trail again. We followed it for the next couple of days on and off. There are places where the bike trail was not yet completed where we had to divert off on to a local road. One road took us right past Big Tree Park, so we stopped there for a break and visited the “big tree”, the Senator, a 3500 year old 110ft Cypress tree. Actually, it’s only 2/3 of a cypress tree, the top 50 feet or so was apparently blown off by a 1925 hurricane. Later that day we stopped off at the Urban Café for lunch. It was a new business, and the owner was very accommodating of us, in our sweaty hiker gear and our packs. He took a photo for his wall of fame, and we told him all about the Florida Trail running right by his door.

Back on the outskirts of Orlando again, this time on the northeast side, we crossed Interstate 4 on a nice new purpose built recreation bridge. I know that’s not a cheap way to get trails off the roads, but it sure is nice to see the money being spent and the effort being made for the purpose of recreation. Orlando has many good long stretches of bicycle trail and is obviously attempting to connect them all together. We saw a new piece of trail and bridge being built outside Big Tree park and crossed another trail bridge after the café, as well as the one yesterday. While I would prefer to be hiking in the forests and fields, there is not much of that left in the Metro area of Orlando, so a nice shaded bicycle trail with a well trimmed, mainly level grass border, and safe road crossings is the next best thing.

The low point of this hike was returning to Ian’s car parked one day at Barr Street to find a mindless act of juvenile vandalism. Someone had deliberately backed up to his vehicle, then peeled out I the mud of the parking lot causing the vehicle to get covered in mud. If this had happened by accident it would be no big issue, but you could plainly see from the skid marks in the mud that there would have been no reason for a car to be backed up in that position unless to cause mayhem. Fortunately there is no permanent damage, and Ian took the whole episode rather calmly, I thought. It just goes to show how low some people will go for a moment of mindless entertainment.

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Backpacking with a new friend

This past weekend I spent backpacking with Grant, a recent acquaintance from whiteblaze.net.He is planning an Appalachian Trail thru hike next year and wanted to do a few shakedown hikes. He lives near the Prairie Lakes area which I haven't hiked yet so we decided to hike from the southern East/West Corridor split point to Bull Creek.

One thing we had not counted on was it being the first weekend of hunting season in Three Lakes and Bull Creek, but we ran into a Ranger as we left the car and he said that we should be OK as long as we were visibly orange, didn't hike at dusk or dawn and camped only in the established backpacker campsites. Great advice, except it was dusk already and there was no way we could make it into the first campsite before dark! Fortunately there was a convenient decent place to camp just past the road. We assumed we were close enough to the road to be safe, and there really wasn't much else we could do except hike in the dark anyway!

Our "campsite" was a decent enough place to camp, complete with a log to sit on, a flat space for my tent and two conveniently spaced trees for Grant to hang his hammock. We were a little concerned about the stealth camping, but decided we would be up shortly after first light and get on our way suitably garbed in blaze orange shortly after light. We heard surprising few hunting sounds before light. The most obvious hunting sound was the approach of a truck, or ATV, and then a very loud and very bad fake turkey call. We both laughed and commented on how unrealistic it sounded and no animal was likely to fall for that. The sound of the same vehicle driving away was the next thing we heard.

We had a good hike, but seperated briefly on a roadwalk stretch connecting the Three Lakes area to Forever Florida. Unfortunately, in the few minutes we were out of each others' sight we took different paths and ended up losing each other for the remainder of the afternoon. I knew I was on the trail, and as the afternoon got later, and not having seen Grant's footprints in quite some time I stopped to wait. At least in Forever Florida there is no hunting, so I felt safe hunkering down by the trail. Grant eventually caught me up, having taken a detour to get some ice water from the restaurant at Forever Florida. By this time though his feet were severely hurting, and there was very little chance we would make it to our intended campsite before dark. As it was over the border of the Bull Creek WMA we were fairly sure there would be very active hunting there, so reassessed our plans.

Forever Florida is an eco preserve that allows tourists to stay in cabins or camping on their grounds. They have a small camping area that backpackers can use if paying guests are not using it. We decided to give it a try. On the way we passed several deer in the road (the toour bus drivers seed the roads with corn as they drive) and a pygmy rattle snake. We found the campground empty except for a Forever Florida cowboy that was living in the campground temporarily until more permanent accomodation could be provided. He was very agreeable to us camping overnight. Shortly after we had set up camp we were visited by the Game Warden. He was also happy we had stopped as they apparently get quite a lot of poaching on their property from the Bull Creek hunting area and was happy to know we were safe on the grounds for the night.

The campsite itself is a cleared area with several buildings. As we stopped at the picnic table I wondered if one of the buildings might contain toilets as it had several cubible like doors. Investigating the first one I indeed found a flush toilet and running water! Even better, continuing down all the stalls, the last two contained actual solar heated hot water showers! What a find!

After a very pleasant night we set out for our final day's hiking, but realized we had little chance of completing the entire loop to our proposed destination. Instead we decided to take a connector trail short cut back to Grant's vehicle parked at Bull Creek. It turned out to be a good thing, as we returned to find a flat tire!

So not the weekend we planned, but a good hike for me anyway!

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Tosahatchee

Florida is supposed to be in a drought, but someone forgot to tell Tosohatchee that. We spent the first 5 minutes of the hike attempting to take the high path along an old disused dirt road, but eventually realized the futility of trying to keep our feet dry. Within a half mile or so we were knee deep in cold water. The hiking went well for the first hike out in a while. The trail was mainly wet, but in some places just very muddy, and in a few rare places is was actually dry.

At some stage in the swamp we heard a very loud double boom that sounded like a building being blown up. We were curious, but kept hiking. Later we learned that the Space Shuttle had landed that afternoon. What we had heard was the sonic boom. We were very close to Kennedy Space Center in Tosahatchee. The boom sounded different here than it does from my home in Tampa when the shuttle lands. Much louder of course.

Just as we were starting to get discouraged with the wet, mud, lack of wildlife (other than the voracious hoards of mosquitoes) I walked past a tree and caught a furry grey movement out of the corner of my eye. There were three small raccoons clinging to the tree. One fell out as I turned to look, and he slunk away to hide in the grass. The other two posed, to a varying degree for some photos. I know raccoons are considered vermin, but they sure are cute when they are little and before they have figured out how to beg or steal food.

After a brief time out on the roads as we passed through Christmas we entered Orlando Wetlands Park. I had hiked this section previously, but as it's just a partial day's worth of hiking I rehiked it. OWP is a water utility wetlands facility that assists in the treatment of waste water from Orlando. The park is officially closed October through April, but hikers are allowed to use the perimeter trail. It was a quiet walk, apart from the buzz of mosquitoes. We saw a couple of otters, armadillos, turtles, and the rear end of a wild hog, as well as many buzzards a couple of hawks and an owl.

The final part of the day was a short road walk past the site of the original wooden Ft Christmas.

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Annual Juniper Backpack trip

The annual Juniper Wilderness backpack trip is usually a fun filled time: it's on familiar territory, and usually the same core of friends, with a few new ones thrown in each year. This year was no exception. We all had a great time. I suffered a little from the shortness of breath caused by my recent cold, and coughed all through the cold night. Ian suffered worse though, he had brought his lightweight sleeping bag and it turned out to be the first night in the 30's this year.

The hike in was good, and we saw many more other hikers on the trail than last year, which was immediately after a forest fire. This year the ajor trail damage was caused by windstorms. There was an area about a mile long that was constant blowdown of small trees, hundreds of them. It was like trying to hike through pick up sticks. The saddle campground at Hidden Pond was occupied, so we continued on out to the opn campsite by the lake, which I think most of us prefer anyway. There was no drunk naked guy at the Pond this year, but there were at least two other groups camping around the lake. Just as we were setting up our dinners someone called our "Bear" and sure enough a large Black Bear was wandering along the opposite lake shore. It apparently circled all the way around the lake, as someone later saw it while taking a bathroom trip, but it never bothered us.

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Time with the Family

Back in Orlando after a great visit with my family in England. Spent a week plus between their various houses. Unfortunately I was sick with a cold, so I really didn't do much, and don't recall too much of what I did do, except a visit to Laura's school to watch football (soccer) practice.

The flight home was hard on my ears, and I didn't get much rest. Fortunately Ian was feeling magnanimous and actually picked me up at the airport. He told me he never does pickups! For whatever reason, I'm glad he changed his policy this time. I'm snuggled up in my futon mattress on the floor of his sitting room. I'll be staying here for the foresseable future until we get back out hiking. Orlando is close enough to the remainder of the Eastern Corridor of the FL Trail that we still need to hike that we can stay here at Ian's and do some day hikes to get us up thru the sububurbs to the southern Ocala National Forest. We plan to start hiking early next week, so I need to work on getting rid of this cold. I'm going to have a tough time hiking with this stuffy, runny nose.

San Zoilo

WOW! How can you put a couple of the most intensely emotional and unexpectedly fun weeks of your life into words?

This past week was spent at the competitor English language program run by VaughanTown at San Zoilo monastery in Conde de los Carrion. I was correct in my assumptio that both programs were essentially the same. Both were staffed by an Anglo Master of Ceremonies and a Spanish Program Director, who traveled with the group, and whose primary function was to encourage the group bonding experience and keep the program flowing, as well as dealing with minor issues that arose during the week (Dr visits, heating issues, etc.) The host locations, while being very different were very attractive and comfortable, both situated on the outskirts of a small historic village, and both had their own charms and attraction. The food was good, the wine flowed freely at mealtimes, but the absolute make or break enjoyment factor came from the participants, who were about as diverse as one could possibly imagine in a group of around 40 adults. One to one conversations, which I had expected would remain on a fairly superficial level, actually ranged from the simplest subjects to intriguing, socio-political, religious, and personal matters. From mature to juvenile, borderline psychotherapy, serious, humorous, and everything in between. If that were not enough, mealtime sessions were even more animated and hilarious. It is amazing how a simple explanation of any topic can go totally off on a tangent at the simple miscommunication, or explanation of a word or idiom! No topic was sacred!

This week I knew alittle better what to expect. I was pretty exhausted already from the over participation in the previous week's activities, and my voice was somewhat strained. Undaunted, I engaged Pedro in a four hour long conversation on the ride to northern Spain. The bus got a little lost, but it was a pleasant detour following the Camino de Santiago. Our accomodation for the week was at the restored Monastery of San Zoilo. The rooms were lovely (wouldn't it have been nice to get a picture?), and the weather continued sunny and warm, though still a little chilly in the mornings for me. The Monastery was very close to town, a nice easy stroll for the one to one sessions. The Camino passes through the center of town and the hiker and biker pilgrims were out in force. The Monastery itself is beautiful, with the cloisters and church also available for walking one to ones. The hotel was open to other guests as well as our group, so the after dinner drinking tended to be a little more subdued and earlier to finish.

It didn't dampen the experience though, I had great fun again, and met more wonderful new friends from all over the world and all over Spain. I think I am particularly most likely to stay in contact with Nigel and Stephanie, who live not to far from my parents in England, and Javier from Madrid. I'm sure I will be back in Madrid sometime in the next year or so, and Javi is intending to be in Orlando early next year.

I will definitely be back for more.

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La Alberca

I'm sitting in a laundromat in Madrid waiting for my clothes to dry. I'm exhausted, my voice is almost completely gone, and I just had an exhilerating week of conversation and fun with complete strangers!

The purpose of this visit to Spain was to participate in two English immersion programs for Spanish speakers who wish to increase their conversation, comprehension, and presentation skills. The philosophy of the programs is to take an equal number of Spanish and Anglo participants to a fairly remote location, where all everyday activities are conducted entirely in English. There are two companies running the programs: Pueblo Ingles and Vaughan Town. They are essentially competitors, and I couldn't decide between the two, so decided to give both programs a try. Their programs appear to be essentially the same from what I have read. I had a basic idea of what would be involved: breakfast at 9am, two Spanish and two Anglos (english speakers) per table, followed by four hours of one to one conversation sessions, 2pm it's time for lunch (2 and 2), siesta. At 5pm an evening group activity, two more hours of one to one sessions, an entertainment hour, then more two to two over dinner at 9pm, with the day officially ending at around 10:30pm, when the bar would be open and those still willing to chat could do so over a few quiet drinks.

That was the theory anyway. Despite the various explanations on the websites, I could never have anticipated the actual experience. From the initial bus meeting point, where we Anglos had been instructed to “grab yourself a Spanish, and talk his/her ears off on the bus”, I realized that this week was going to be far more complex than I could have imagined. My bus trip was shared with Estrella and Frederico, probably the first terrified Spanish people I have ever spoken to for two hours each. We started off on the basics of family and work, interspersed occasionally with the bonus (for me) of having a tour guide to explain the features of the area, the kinds of wine produced there, the agricultural processes, the history, culture, etc.. Conversation flowed naturally into so many different subjects that wouldn’t usually occur with a casual acquaintance or even possibly with a long time friend.

Our destination was the outskirts of La Alberca, a small historic village in the northwest of Spain. Accomodation was in large apartments shared by an Anglo downstairs, with the Spanish taking the more luxurious upstairs (that's OK, they paid to come here, and they're working!). The complex itself was laid out round a main building which housed the dining hall, bar, and meeting room. My apartment was right next to the main building, and had a nice sunny lawn area where we tended to hang out in the afternoons enjoying the sun. The weather was wonderful the entire week at La Alberca, though felt a little cold to me coming straight from the Florida heat.

The staff was Brian, the Anglo Master of Ceremonies, Mayte, the Spanish Program Director. There primary function was to encourage the group bonding experience and keep the program flowing, and dealing with minor issues that arose during the week (Dr visits, heating issues, etc.) They did an awesome job: the week went smoothly, and the group cohesion was an incredible thing to experience. I would never imagined, without seeing it, that such a diverse group of people could share such an intense experience in such a short time. The conversations were far beyond what I had expected, and more fun than I could imagine. Scattered among the one to one conversation sessions were other activities such as phone and conference calls, group activities and impromptu skits. Though these were a source of fear, they were a great source of amusement for all, even the terrified participants.
Top the whole thing off with some very intense dinner conversations, late night parties, disco dancing, ancient ceremonies, and the very occasional lapse into Spanish (only once or twice), and it made for a very enjoyable, intense week.

I have committed to a similar session with the competitor company starting early tomorrow morning. Foolishly, I did not anticipate how exhausting this would be, nor how many clothes I would wear! Hence the laundromat. When I'm done here I'm going to eat and go back to my room to siesta!

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Makinson Island Paddle

How much fun could my first weekend of retirement be? We paddled out to Makinson Island, with a tailwind, no less. I actually cruised for a while, with my paddle held up as a sail. The island is remote, open, the grass cut, and a nice pavilion for rain cover, picnic tables, and porta potties. Perfect.

The group planned a mixture of group and individual meals, and as we all unpacked our kayaks it was very obvious that there would be too much food, and way too much alcohol. The women outnumbered the men, so this was a very "girl focused" weekend.

After dinner the table was littered with mainly full bottles, brownies, liquer filled chocolates, etc. Did someone say girls weekend out? I have no idea when the guys disappeared for the night, but us girls had a blast. A little adult beverage to loosen us, some body and muscle sculpting exercise sessions, followed by massages to relax us again. Needless to say, a good, but very responsible, time was had by all.

Whatever the magic of the night was, it appears to have worked on me anyway!

In the morning Rodney cooked pancakes for breakfast, which we ate with leftover steak from last night.

It was an awesome relaxing weekend. Right up until we got back in the kayaks, into the water, and faced the paddle back, into a 25 mph headwind. Exhilirating!

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So Maybe Bicycling isn't my Strong Point!

Spent a great day bicycling the West Orange Trail. Nice easy ride, but with a couple of hills, and then we stopped for lunch in a nice bar and a nice easy ride back to the trailhead again. I'd had a little problem with my rear brakes not working, so had just disconnected them; none of the hills were steep enough to worry about not having the rear brake.

We were almost back to the car when the heavens opened and it rained like someone was standing over us with fire hoses. We got soaked, threw the bikes on cars and headed for our respective homes with barely a "goodbye".

I stopped off at the bike store on the way home to let them have a look at my brakes. I felt pretty foolish when the guy just flicked the cable where it passes through the connector on the handle, and voila, my brakes are fixed! ooops!

F-Troop Bradwell Bay

The Bradwell Bay Wilderness is a notoriously wet section of the Apalachicola Forest. Florida Trail’s F-Troop staff and volunteer crew spent the weekend lopping, axing, and sawing the trail through the first couple of miles of the currently very dry Bradwell Bay.

It was very hot! Mid-September may be too early for such hot work. But everyone had a great time, and I know I’ll be grateful for that little piece of cleared trail when I pass though here again in a couple months. Especially if it’s really wet in there by then.

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120 miles of road!

It wasn't fun, but it had to be done.

The Western Corridor of the FL Trail has a 60ish miles of road walk where the trail is not yet complete. I had made the choice to hike the Western Corridor because it is close to my home in Tampa. I have hiked all the real trail, ie non road sections during various weekend and day hikes, but I need to cover the road walks too, to eventually claim the End to Ender status of having hiked the entire length of the FL Trail.

I haven't had much luck talking anyone, even Ian, into hiking the Western Corridor with me, so I know that persuading anyone to walk the 60 miles of road is just a pipe dream, so I'd have to hike it alone. I had some free time this week, and the weather is not too hot, though still rather uncomfortable for carrying a backpack, so I decided I'd break this big roadwalk into daily chunks and get it done. Not having a hiking partner meant I would have to do the hike out, and get back to my car myself. The plan for this was my bicycle. The good part of all this being road is that it can be ridden on a bike as easy (or actually easier). It doubles the effort, but I have found that if I bike out a reasonable distance to hike, chain my bike to a tree or fence, then hike back to the car, I can get miles covered fairly painlessly. It appears to be much better to bike first as my legs get much more tired, and distances harder to reasonably judge, when hiking. This tactic is especially useful along the roads as the traffic is generally lighter earlier in the day, when it gets busier during the day I can just walk on the grassy banks beside the road wherever possible.

The route took me from the southern point of the East/West split at Three Lakes, through Kissimmee, around the north end of Lake Tohopekaliga, then across country (via road) to the paved Van Fleet state bicycle trail and on to Green Swamp. In general the trail was not very well blazed, but well described in my data book, and therefor easy to follow. I was rather disconcerted to find that the East/West corridor split at the south end here is not really marled at all. I thought that the decision point at the north end in Ocala was poorly marked, but it at least was marked. I know most hikers that come to either of these points in their hike have already made the decision on which route to follow, but in this case I doubt most would even be aware that the other route had split off at this point.

It was gruelling, but it's done. There was quite a lot of construction on this section, and the roads were extremely busy in places. I felt particularly vulnerable to traffic on the southernmost road section while biking, and most loathed by traffic while cycling through the construction heading into Kissimmee, but my closest brush with a vehicle was just short of the Van Fleet trail when a church van nearly side swiped me on an otherwise clear road. I have found that of all vehicles to not pull over to give a cyclist room, even when the road is completely clear, church vans and mini buses seem to be the worst!

Some of the nicer parts of the hike were the interaction with grazing cattle, who for some reason are not bothered in the least by 60mph trucks zooming by, but appear confused and then terrirfied by a cyclist or hiker. Passing through Kissimmee on a bicyle/pedestrian path was nice, especially as there was a hot dog vendor and kiosk to provide refreshments. And the very brief section on the Old Tampa brick highway was neat for the history, the quirky "citrus" marker, and the cool shade provided by the overhanging trees.

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It just had to be the can opener

I moved to Orlando today, and I'm now officially living in my RV. I know Orlando isn't exactly far from home, but it's far enough that I'll have to make a conscious effort to go back to the house for anything I have forgotten. I also don't have my car here with me yet, so I have to hoof it if I need anything from the store. Fortunately I have a super walmart within a mile, so I doubt I'll go without anything I need but forgot.

The decision to not stay in Tampa was mainly becasue I spend most of my weekends over here doing hiking/biking/kayaking trips anyway. I'm on vacation next week, and I want to hike the 60 miles of road walk that I still need to complete for the Western Corridor of the FL Trail. It passes right by the endo of the road where I'm staying, so it just made sense to be over here.

Today was also the first day of my last month of working. By the end of September I'll be voluntarily unemployed. It's time for me to start enjoying being over here in the States and working only on seeing some of the places I want to see, doing some long hikes, etc.

Oh yeah, the can opener. It was the first thing I realized I didn't pack in the RV. I noticed that when I was standing with my supper can of soup in my hand. I guess I'll be walking to walmart in the morning!

Happy Birthday Mark

Spent the weekend in Louisville, KY to visit friends Mark and Elke and attend Mark's birthday party. They are great hosts and obviously very experienced in this custom of opening your house to various friends and colleagues. The party was great and went very late. I very much enjoyed meeting Mark's co workers and friends, and the additional company of their visiting friends from England. We ate out at a couple fo great local restaurants, and polished off the weekend with a grand buffet brunch on the riverside this morning before they dropped me back at the airport.

Thanks again for the party guys.

Tubing the Rainbow

As many times as I've kayaked this river, I've never just floated down it on a tube. Until today.

Had a great lazy day out on the river. Nice and hot and sunny, and a great group of Florida Trail'ers, led by Rodney.

The river was as clear as always, and even easier to enjoy from the comfort of a rubber tube. It was warm enough to want to be in the water a couple of times an hour, and lay out in the sun the remainder. We saw the usual wildlife, birds, fish, and a couple of otters, one of which swam by us for a while while he worked on cracking open an oyster on his belly. Of course, I didn't have the camera becasue I'd been concerned about keeping it dry. That figures.

I'll have to remember to add this to the list of things to do with out of town guests in the summer.

Little Econ Flood

When it rains, it pours.

The central florida area has received some torrential rainfall in the past couple of weeks, and the rivers are all in high flood. Ian called on Thursday with an invite to join the gang on an impromptu kayak tripon the very flooded Little Big Econ River. Usually the river is about a foot or so deep and you have to worry about sandbars, so the idea of paddling high water seemed like fun.

It was. The water was high and swift. We were up in the trees at the tops of the banks, and in a couple of places the banks were breached with water flowing both into and out of the river. All the beaches we usually pull up on for breaks were non existant. We actually ended up stopping for lunch at the Florida Trail bridge, which was impassable by water or land. By water it was a mere inch or two from the bottom of the bridge, but only in the humped center of the span. That inch or so was pulling swift and hard, and straining debris that was sucked into the flow. The trail at the ends of the bridge were several feet under water. After lunch in our boats anchored to the bridge we had to paddle quite far inland and through the old railroad bridge posts to get around and downstream.

Had a bit of excitement with a friend of Rodnay's on her first kayak trip. For some reason she wasn't wearing her life vest, but had it snapped to her boat. She flipped once, whihc for me would be more than enough incentive to put the jacket on, but still it stayed on the boat. On her second flip we were in very deep and fast water on a bend in the river with lots of overhanging branches straining the water. It was quite an effort by the entire group to get her, and her boat, out of the water,the right way up, and back on the river. Amazingly, she still didn't put the jacket on! We werealmost to the takeout point by then, so I just figured the best idea was to pull ahead and get off the water. If she had no concern or respect for the water,I no longer wanted any part of it.

As a result of grounding my boat and wading round in the high brush on the last rescue I must have upset some displaced ants. Shortly after putting back in the water I realised my boat was full of them. The first sign waswhen they swarmed around my legs and ass and started biting. Ants in the pants, and in a kayak in deep, swift water too. That was fun!

New Toy

Well, new toy, vehicle, home, storage shed, etc.

Today I bacame the new owner of a used RV. It's 25' and though it officially sleeps 6 I think it's just about big enough for me to live in. It has a tiny bathroom with shower and toilet, a seperate sink, queen bed in the rear, small kitchen with microwave, 3 burners, fridge/freezer, dinette that seats 4, and an oversize king cabover bed. The cabover is soon to become my storage closet,the bed will stay made up as a bed, and the dinette as a table. That was a basic requirement for me in the selection process. I wanted to be able to live in the RV without having to collapse a bed into table and vice versa.

I still have a couple of months to wrok, but shortly after that will set off to start seeing some of the US. The RV will literally be my mobile home.

The sun finally came out!

...on the day I flew home!

It hadn't occurred to me when I booked the flight, but today is 07/07/07. As well as the symmetry in the digits, it is also the anniversary of the London Underground bombings, the first day of the Tour de France, and there have been several car bomb and airport car attacks in the weeks I have been in England. Needless to say, once I realised all this, I expected airport security to be a little tight. It was, but knowing what to expect I made sure I was very early arriving at the airport, and carried the smallest carryon I could with as little in as possible. It was pretty smooth going through, all things considered.

Waiting outside the terminal after dropping off my rental car I felt something very strange. The sun! It'sthe first time I'd felt it during my trip I think.

But aside from the rain it was a great vacation. Spent equal time with Mum and Dad and Kathy. Really enjoyed seiing the kids again, but didn't get any photos due to the whole "busted the camera" thing. Stupid!

Whenever I spend time at home I wish I had more time to spend, but it's hard to sacrifice hiking and rafting trips to spend time in the cold and rain, even if it is with my family. I've got to figure out a way to do more of both.

Wettest June on Record

Of course it is!

I'm home in England visiting with my family. I never expect great weather for my UK trips, it's not like I come here for the weather, I come here to see my family.

But it would be nice to sometime have both!

National Trails Day

Started off the weekend at Withlacoochee River Park for the local FL Trail chapter's National Trails day event. There was a reasonable turnout, but mainlymembers. I just don't think that expecting the non hiking public to turn up for such events is realistic unless there is some other massive draw, like the bicycle trail opening I went to recently in Blountstown. Free barbeque dinner seems to pull in a crowd!

The event was OK though, we took a little hike, and the dignitaries were almost through with the speeches before the tornado sirens started wailing an oncoming storm. It rained hard and the wind whipped around for a while, but no major damage.

After the Trails event I continued on up to Lake Norris to join the gang for a car camping weekend. It was almost dinner time by the time I found them. The kayak plans for the day had basically been abandonned due to the wind and rain all day, but a couple of people had gone out anyway. Ian, Charles, Mary and MichaelAnn had just just hung out all day at the campsite, cooked out, and had a few adult beverages by all accounts. They were in good spirits and we had a great evening in the old barn.

This morning, when everyone else cleared out, Mary and I took a nice long walk on the blazed FL Trail. This trail isn't in any of my maps or books, but is obviously maintained, and possibly a future piece of off road trail waiting to be connected into the main contiguous trail.

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Grand Canyon Work Your Way

You've got to love last minute trip plans. I do: Three weeks ago I received a very quick phone call with an offer of a Grand Canyon "work your way" raft trip if I could make it to Phoenix by the following Friday. Work your way is a free trip as part of the crew on the rafts. The work is mainly helping with the tying up and launching of the boats, food prep and cleanup, loading/unloading boats, etc. I'd taken a trip a couple of summers ago that had a couple of work your ways and was fairly confident I'd be OK with the camp duties, I've always helped out on my other trips anyway. The tiny bit of concern I felt was for my ability to navigate up and down the moving boat, as my previous experiences had basically just been the "sit down and hang on" variety. It didn't give me too much pause though. I wanted to go, and go I would.

Unlike the other trips which started out with a restful night in a hotel and a smooth comfortable ride to Marble Canyon to meet the rafts, this time I found myself at the crew trailer taking a freezing cold shower at 6am, being instructed to borrow a vehicle to go pick up hot coffee from a local convenience store, then help myself to grits from the pan on the stove that should be ready by the time I returned. Coffee in hand, I ate my fair share, and glad I did, as the next several hours were spent rigging the rafts. First ice: tons of ice, loaded in the bottom of giant coolers, shortly followed by food deliveries, produce, dairy, meat, and bread. Then drinks; sodas, cases of them, and giant jugs of fresh water, as well as chips, candy, cereals and other groceries. After all the consumables the sleeping kits are loaded (not forgetting to procure a sleeping mat and bag for myself), and tied down, topped off with rolled up side tubes that would later be inflated and attached to the boats, and the all important giant bags of life vests. When everything is secured into road travel mode, the two massive fully loaded rafts are gassed up and winched on to a converted car carrier trailer.

The crew piled into the sleeping bunks of the truck and tried to nap for the trip to Marble Canyon. But the day's work was not yet done. At Lee's Ferry, in the full heat of the day, the rafts are winched into the Colorado River, side tubes inflated and attached, and the rafts re-rigged into river travel mode. It was a long, hot, dusty day and I was ready for a shower, good dinner and an early night! Next day, the first task was to relocate the rafts down to the launch ramp in anticipation of arrival of the passengers. So here it is, my moment of nemesis. Am I strong enough to actually assist in moving the heavily laden rafts back off the sandbar they had stranded on overnight? And would I be able to get back onto the raft after it was pushed free? Well, the boats came free, though I'm not sure my effort made much difference. Getting myself back onto the raft? Well that was a whole different story. I leaped for it, and was almost on, but would never have made it without the assistance of Riley, the trip's swamper and an awesome young woman who practically grew up on the river, and would be showing me the ropes (literally, in the case of tying up the boats) for the next week.

The passengers arrived, and we set off down the river. I spent the first day riding with Travis, and it's a whole different river from up there in the swamper's seat. The swamper's seat is a boat seat strapped to a cooler or row of large ammo cans. It's next to the driver, (and the noisy engine), and it's the highest point on the raft. You don't get splashed as much as on the main boat, I was in for a hot and fairly dry trip, and if I thought some of those rapids looked scary from the main boat I was in for a heck of a ride!

It was during the initial short run to our lunchtime beach stop that I realized I was not going to be able to keep my camera close enough by to take my usual 700 or so canyon shots, and still be able to keep the camera protected and dry. I was also still rather concerned about being ready to jump out of my seat, run down the side tubes and jump off the boat to tie up without getting caught in a multitude of straps. Keeping my water bottle close by seemed more important than the camera. Consequently there are not as many photos of this trip.

We stayed the first night at North Canyon, and had an interesting tent raising experience for an hour or so, but everyone eventually got settled. The food has always been good on my river trips, and tonight was no exception. Dinner was great, even though I had to play a part in cooking it myself.

Next morning it was a 4:45am start, with Riley providing the jet blaster alarm clock when she started the morning coffee water. We stopped for hikes at South Canyon, and a brief wander in Redwall cavern. After lunch at Buck Farm we cruised past Nankoweap beach and saw three mule deer right on the beach where I had slept last October. A short while later we saw a coyote on the river bank, but my camera was not close by at that time.

After a night at 60 mile canyon, we set off for the short ride to the Little Colorado and hiked up to the flume to play. On the right is a picture of the passengers "diapering up" for the ride in the flume, and below is the first few brave souls to test the water. After getting the flumers started I took a little walk up the river bank, enjoying the clear blue water and red rock formations.

The day was overcast, and continued that way as we passed the Hopi salt mines and pulled in to Carbon canyon for lunch and a hike up the canyon. Late afternoon, after a short river day and some good hiking we pulled up on the big beach at Tanner Canyon for the night. It was early enough for cold baths in the river while the sun was still shining. During this process we discovered a small rattlesnake curled up in the rocks by the river.

And then the rain came! It started right after dinner, and turned quickly into a massive storm, with high winds and very close lightning. Those of us that had not yet put up a tent had a very wet start to the night while dealing with that issue as quickly as possible. By the time the tent was up I was wet and cold, but snuggling down in the sleeping bag helped warm me up. The wind got harder, threatening to flatten the tent, or blow it off the boat, and the lightning got even closer and brighter in the early hours of the morning. Judging by the proximity of lighting to thunder, it appeared the strikes were below the canyon rim. Even more surprising was that the storm and rain lasted all night, and was still raining next morning. I was expecting to see some very unhappy people the next morning, but everyone took it in good spirits, and the rain eased off as we prepared and ate breakfast.

Gorge day. What can I say? The rapids came thick and fast, and I was right about those rapids being scarier from the swamper seat! We made a quick stop at Phantom Beach for fresh water, then continued down to Ross Wheeler camp for the night. Next day we stopped at Elves Chasm, Randy's Rock for lunch, Blacktail Canyon, and Deer Creek before making camp just upriver of Olo canyon.

The evening above Olo was wonderful. There was a little time to chill before dinner, and Elkanah brought out his guitar and played and sang for us all for the remainder of the night. It was very relaxing and we all seemed to stay up quite late.

Next day we hiked up Havasu Canyon for a couple of hours, then continued downriver, stopping at Stairway for lunch. I had been very nervous about landing here, as I remember how bumpy the landing can be inside the rapid, and this is the only place I have seen several flips and stranded boats on various trips. When we pulled up in the second raft Riley was already scaling the rocks looking for a suitable chock to tie to, and I was pretty certain I wouldn't be comfortable or safe following her. Elkanah came to my assistance though, and jumped off his raft to tie up ours as soon as his own was secured, and I got to sit safe on the raft until we were tied up. In my anxiety I seem to have neglected to take the camera out of it's bag all day today. Typically, because a hummingbird buzzed the boats and landed several times on bright objects posing for those with their cameras ready, then late in the afternoon, after great runs in Lava rapid, we pulled around the corner to a beach for what we thought was to be a short break, and came across a bobcat sitting on the beach lunching on a snake. Unfortunately our "oooh a bobcat" exclamations scared him into the brush before cameras could be retrieved. Our river day ended a mile or so later at Fat camp around mile 200.

I obviously wasn't paying attention that morning, because we stopped early to take a small hike up a canyon to some petroglyphs but I have no idea where we were! Lunch was eaten at Pumpkin Springs, where several people played jumping off the rocks into the river, but I just helped prepare lunch. Today was my first very frustrating experience tying up the boats, as I couldn't find a suitable rock to tie up to, and I was rather nervous when everyone started jumping from raft to rocks without being tied up. Everyone survived though, and I got over it.

Later in the day, approaching Diamond Creek i got very hot and drowsy up in the swamper's seat. In fact I think I dropped off to sleep up there. Guessing that would not be a good place to "drop off" I made my way down to the front of the boat for a few minutes of cold splashes to wake me up. Shortly after, we stopped at Travertine Canyon for the short hike up to splash in the Grotto. After a thorough soaking and the rope ladder assisted climb back down to the rafts, we cruised through our final rapids of the trip and into our final beach at Gneiss Canyon. This was a great campsite, but judging by the heat still retained in the rocks on this spring day, it might be a little hot and uncomfortable in summer. Riley and I handled dinner while the guys reshuffled everything in the rafts in preparation for derigging the boats in the morning. We cooked meat and veggie spaghetti with lots of great assistance from our volunteer kitchen crew. It was thoroughly appreciated. You know who you are!

During and after breakfast the side tubes were removed and re-rolled, and the boats strapped together for the final part of the journey. Everyone gathered for group photos and we all piled onto the rafts for the last time together. The two drivers took turns driving and reading to the passengers as we continued downstream to meet up with the jet boat. When it arrived we all said our good-byes and they were off on their high speed conclusion to the trip.

We, however still had a long hot day ahead of us to cover the same distance at a much slower pace. Early in the afternoon we rounded a bend to find another unloaded raft stranded on a sand bar. We all jumped off to help push it off but it was stuck pretty fast. Eventually our raft and another were used to pull the grounded raft back out into deeper water. Unfortunately for me, I was on the shallow side of the raft pushing when it finally broke free. Leaving me now stranded on the sandbar! I thought someone would come back for me but was just told "swim", so jumped in and swam to the nearest raft where two big strong young men grabbed my upstretched arms and manhandled me upward onto the raft. My first swim in the Colorado!

At the end of a long day we finally approached Lake Mead and the end of the river. Half an hour later we were tied up on the dock at South Cove, and very shortly after that, sound asleep.

The final day was a blur of activity. Very early we moved the boats around to the unloading ramp, and back onto the awaiting truck. It was here that I finally managed to fall off the raft and into the water just as we were loading the second raft. Fortunately the water was only 3 or 4 feet deep and I landed on my feet. No harm done.

When the truck was loaded we once again all piled in, and in a repeat of the first day attempted to nap in the sleeping cab of the truck. About halfway back to Flagstaff we stopped at IHOP for breakfast. I confess I have never eaten steak and ice-cream for breakfast before, but it was good! Back at the warehouse in Flagstaff we spent several hours in the reverse of the rigging process: emptying coolers and water jugs, removing and sorting food, sleep kits and tents, and washing down everything. It was very efficient and accomplished fairly quickly. As we were de-rigging, who should stop by to say hi? TJ and Trey, the two drivers from my very first canyon trip. It seems like I just came full circle!

This was an awesome trip. I loved experiencing the entire process from start to finish. Even though it was quite hard and tiring at times, I would go back in a heartbeat. I can't thank my crew enough for the patience they showed dealing with my questions and inexperience, nor the passengers who willingly held out hands, shoulders and heads for me to grab on to for stability when runnning up and down those side tubes, and for all their help getting me and my ropes back on the boat after stops. Thanks also to Arizona River Runners for allowing work your ways along on trips, but the biggest thanks of all go to Elkanah for being willing to put up with me for a week and extending the invite for the trip.
Until next time......


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Gores Landing

This weekend was supposed to either be a kayaking weekend, or the weekend I bought my RV. Neither happened.

I did at least get a deposit down on my RV, and I did drive up to Ocala National Forest with my kayak and camped out with the gang.

The RV process is obviously going to take a lot longer than I expected. I have researched the options pretty thouroughly, but assumed I could just walk onto the dealer's lot with money in hand and drive out in my new purchase. Not so. My research identified the RV model I'm interested in. I don't want anything too long, so preferred the models below 25', but I'd like to live in the RV eventually so I wanted a model with a cabover bed, which will eventually become my storage closet. I was surprised to find how many of the privately owned used models have entertainment centers, not beds, over the cab. The other two "must haves" for my RV are a seperate bed and eating area, and a bathroom with a shower. If I am going to be living in it, I don't want to have to collapse a table every night to go to bed, or pack up the bed to have breakfast. The bathroom, well I could probably make do with washcloth baths and a cassette style potty, but for full time I'd like the luxuries of flushing and a shower.

The purpose of living in the RV is to be able to travel a bit more and see some of the States. Travel means miles, so I wanted to get a used RV with reasonable existing mileage, and had pretty much established that I wouldn't likely find that in a private sale for a reasonable cost. So I started looking at used ex rental units, though doubting that I'd find anything in as good a condition as I wanted, at the low mileage I wanted, but at a reasonable price.

To my surprise, while looking at Cruise America's website I found an online inventory for their Orlando location that showed an RV the perfect length, layout, mileage and price! I didn't expected it to be in great condition, but figured it would be worth a look. Unfortunately, after scouring Cruise America's sales lot, we determined that my RV is lost.

Actually, lost is a little strong. Mislaid is more accurate, and it appears that this may work in my favor. After some creative computer searching, the missing RV was tracked down to a small garage/storage facility somewhere in Georgia. It appears that back in 2005 when all the hurricanes kept coming through Orlando, this particular unit, only a year old and with 34k miles on it, was rented out. When a hurricane was due to hit Orlando and the unit was due to be returned, the renters called for advice on whether it was safe or sensible to drive back to Orlando and into the path of the storm. They were told to drop it at the nearest Cruise America affiliate, in a small town in GA. They did so. I'm sure similar situations have happened before. In this case, the affiliate it was dropped at don't actually do much RV rental business, and for some reason the "available for rent" at the location did not get updated. The upshot is that it has been sitting unused on the lot in GA since 2005. Low mileage, little use, but a 2004 model that needs to be de-inventoried as Cruise America doesn't rent out vehicles older than a couple of years.

It seemed like serendipity, or a match made in heaven. For a $500 fully refundable deposit Cruise America would pay to have the RV returned back to Orlando for me to inspect and decide if I wished to continue with the purchase. I have to say, having created quite a bit of panic when I pointed out (with inventory printouts in hand) that they were missing an RV,the staff were actually quite pleased at the idea of recovering the vehicle. I was a little cautious about paying the deposit, sight unseen, but they manager assured me that if I decide not to persue the purchase he would have no hesitation returning my deposit as he would not have any problem selling this RV with such low mileage.

So I kind of have an RV, but I still have to see it. I did at least test drive another RV of the same model and year. It actually didn't feel as big to drive as I had expected. Rather like a UHaul truck, but with the added advantage of beig able to see out of the back window. It was a much smoother drive than I expected.

After all that, I set out to meet up with the gang at Gores Landing in Ocala NF. They kayaked today and will again tomorrow, and are camping overnight. I got there just before dark, and the rain, which poured down when we were about half way through cooking dinner. It was one of Charles' masterpieces, pork loin in some exotic sauce, delicious. We rigged up a tarp to eat under, enjoyed a pleasant eveing and headed for the tents in the rain. Hmmmm, it would have been nice to be able to retreat to a nice dry RV in such a storm!

The storm kept me up a good long while into the morning hours, and I slept fitfully the remainder of the night. Something about being in a tent under trees in a storm just makes me nervous I guess. To cut a long story short, I decided not to kayak this morning. I helped the guys shuttle their cars to the take out and just spent the remainder of the day wandering around in Ocala NF, took a couple of short hikes, etc.

So. Not a whole lot achieved this weekend, but it felt like a lot.

Blountstown Greenway Trail

OK, so I have to take back everything I ever said about Mike DeWitt and my shortest weekend hiking mileage ever. This weekend I covered a grand total of about 3 trail miles, and it took me all weekend to do it!

This weekend was the official opening of the Blountstown Greenway Trail, which has been designated part of the Florida National Scenic Trail and moves 3 miles of trail off the roadway and onto the new trail. Getting the Florida trail off the roadway and into the woods is a good thing, even if on a paved trail. The new greenway section also gives easy blue blazed trail access to the Panhandle Pioneer Settlement and the Apalachicola River for those interested in the side hikes.

Even though I can only claim 3 trail miles for the weekend I did actually hike more than that, starting at the Pioneer Settlement (Sam Atkins Park) on Saturday morning, hiking the blue blaze trail to the conection with the through trail, the westward section out to FL71 and back, into and through the Blountstown Railroad Depot, and out to the point where the eastward trail connects to the new trail, and down the blue blazed spur to the river. I actually hopped on a shuttle bus for the 1.5 miles back to the Depot so I would not miss the ribbon cutting ceremony. I feel I redeemed myself for that lapse by rehiking the entire Depot to Pioneer Settlement and back,then Depot to River and back in the afternoon.

It was a beautiful day for the event. Many families were out walking and bicycling the trail, and generally enjoying the free entertainment and lunch. Everything was very organized, with water stations, music, great food, information booths, lots of brightly colored free t-shirts, balloons evrywhere, a giant pair of gold scissors for the ribbon cutting, and plenty of tp in the porta-potties! It sure looked like everyone was having lots of fun.

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A Pile of Sun Bleached Bones

That's how I thought I was going to end up on this hike. It's another solo backpack trip because everyone else seems to think it's too hot for backpacking already! They may be right!

The trip started with a roadwalk along US98. It was too long, and a little under pressure to get back into the woods before nightfall, but I fnally stumbled into Hickory Hammock campsite just a little after dark, considering myself lucky to have actually spotted the blue blazes on the trees, when even the orange were pretty hard to see by headlamp. There were lots of armadillos out on the trail around dusk, and several scurrying around in the bushes at the campsite after I was setteld for the night. They didn't disturb me near as much as the airboats churning up the Kissimmee River until after midnight though! Even though the airboats kept me awake late, I was still up early Saturday morning. I planned quite a long day into Fort Kissimmee, so fixed a quick breakfast and coffee and got packed up and on my way.

My first stop of the morning was at the Hickory Hammock equestrian campground. You just can't beat orange blazes leading right up to a pair of composting toilets! The campground is currently closed, but the toilets were unlocked and stocked with paper and sanitizer. Between that and the picnic pavillion I just couldn't resist an early break. The next couple of hours took me over the high rise bridge and the long boardwalk. There's not much water round these parts right now, and the high grass on the boardwalks was more of an issue than high water, but it was a very pleasant morning. I saw a several turkeys, and a dog-fight between a hawk and a bluejay. The hawk had apparently snatched a baby bird from it's nest, and bluejay mother bird was defending her irrecoverable offspring. The action was too far away and too fast for photos, but was interesting to watch. I also ran across a much slower red rat snake, which did co-operate for pictures. After a stop at Bluff hammock for lunch I set back out on the trail, which winds through more sloughs and swamp. Again, all very dry right now, but a nice mix of fauna between the dry grasslands and cactus, and the lusher marsh plants, including this bromeliad which had fallen from a tree, but was faring very nicely on the ground.

Over many more dry stranded boardwalks and I finally reached my destination for the day at Ft Kissimmee campground. It started to rain right as I reached the main camping area so I took refuge under my second picnic pavillion of the day and cooked supper while I waited out the storm. After dinner I took advantage of the cold but refreshing shower, and continued on to the north camping area to pick my spot for the night. The campsites here are close to the river and there were many large noisy gators grunting down on the beaches all night. Just at dusk a small herd of deer came racing through my campgound, scattering to both sides of my tent when they rounded the bushes to find me there. I don't know who was more surprised, me or the deer!

Sunday morning I set off north past the Ft Kissimmee Cemetery. I took quite a nasty fall somewhere on the north end of Avon Park. Right into a cow pat. Fortunately a fairly dry one, but landed awkwardly on my front, with the weight of the pack pinning me down, and an arm and hiking pole stuck up underneath me. I gave my knees a few good scrapes and bruises on the way down too. After releasing the pack and struggling up from under it, I took a short break to wash up with wet wipes. While patching up the hurt parts a hawk flew down and landed in a nearby tree, voicing his displeasure at my intrusion. My inactivity at least gave me the chance to snap a couple of shots.
My other successful bird photo of the day was the only turkey of the weekend that stood still for long enough to make its photo debut. I stalked it for a few minutes, quite surprised that it didn't fly off as I got closer, snapping shots every few paces. Eventually I was close enough to see him swivel slightly on his single leg. Yes, I had been stalking a hunter's decoy turkey! After snapping this shot I hurried on, no doubt watched from somewhere by the hidden hunter whose chances of a last day of turkey hunting kill had just been negated by my tromping through his hunt area. I'm sure glad for my bright orange tshirt and bandana covered pack!

Today's lunch break was taken at the newly replaced Tick Island Slough bridge. It is the same design but shorter than the one I recently helped build at Monkey Creek. It was nice to see a completed version. After lunch I approached the Kicco area, with it's beautiful old oaks trees. I scared up an owl in one of the trees, and he flew up into a tree ahead of me. It was kind of a long shot through the trees to get a picture of him, but he turned to face me right as I clicked off a shot.

After Kicco is a long, hot, walk along a dirt road through cow pastures. It was a very breezy afternoon, for which I was greateful as there was absolutely no shade for 4+ miles in the hot mid-afternoon sun. In the first mile a passing truck stopped to offer me a ride, but I explained that the purpose of the trail was to hike, and he continued on. Two miles later, having seen nothing else but cows, sunbleach cow bones, hot dry road and no shade I may have reconsidered, given the opportunity, but none presented itself. I was oh so grateful to see the first shady oak grove at the north end of the pasture though. A half hour break here managed to sustain and re-energize me for the remainder of the hike into River Ranch.

Being a Sunday night there was little activity at the Ranch. There was one other occupant at the campground, a large popup camper with a 3 generation family out for a long weekend. As I set up the tent and prepared to wash out some socks (and the cowpat encounter t-shirt) they came over to my site and offered to share their evening meal. Great trail angels. After my shower (I think I used up the full $11 for my tent site in hot water in that shower) they re-appeared with foil packets of real food cooked over their fire, chicken, fresh veggies, apple salad, and cookies. It was a wonderful change from everything dried and prepackaged I had eaten the past couple of days.

Sunday night was the quietest of the trip. The strong breeze from the afternoon died down completely immediately after I had just washed out everything I was carrying and was hoping to air dry! So Monday started out with wet clothes and a bag of wet laundry to be carried. It was also to be a long road walk for the majority of the day. Walking along any road is never much fun, but walking along one as busy as SR60, with not a single spot of shade or place to get off the road in 5 miles or so was gruelling. Fortunately for me, the breeze from yesterday reappeared early. It was cloudier than yesterday, but during a break under the SR60 bridge over the Kissimmee river I managed to hang up my wet laundry and tent to dry out, lightening my load somewhat. The breeze and clouds also made the road walk a little more bearable for the first couple hours, but my luck gave out and the sun came out strong again shortly before I reached the turn north into Prairie Lakes and another two mile road walk along another dirt road.

After lunch was more hot sun and dry, treeless trail. The one shade tree I found in several miles was shared with a wary turtle, who just chose to stand stock still while I took a break and some photos. The absolute highlight of the day, and possibly of this whole trip, was the sight of Godwin Hammock. After a whole day in the sun, this Oak hammock in the middle of the seemingly endless wiregrass and palmetto scrub fields is an oasis. The entrance to the Garden of Eden could not have been more enticing or welcome than the two massive trees, one complete with a hunter's tree stand (empty) guarding the trail's entrance to Godwin Hammock. I was so grateful for the shade I collapsed on the spot. Absolute paradise: lush, green and tropical. I swear I saw parrots! What I neglected to do, in my semi-delirious state, was take any photos of the entrance to this Oasis. After my break, enticed deeper into the lush greenery, I realized only miles later that I had forgotten to go back out in the hot sun to capture this idyllic spot.

There is supposed to be a campsite somewhere in Godwin Hammock, but I confess I never found it, despite looking. I had lingered long enough in this beautiful mile or so of meandering hardwood hammock that by the time I reached its end, and the emerged back out into the grasslands it was late enough to warrant stopping, campsite or not. I pulled out my GPS, took a reading and consulted my maps, and was apparently right on top of the campsite. I dropped my pack and wandered back for a few minutes, but still did not encounter the campsite. Returning to the pack, I pitched my tent right on the boundary of hammock and prairie for the night.

I fell asleep quite early in the quiet campsite, only to be woken at around 10:30 by what sounded like a dog size animal walking around the back of my tent, sniffing and scratching around. I assumed it was probably a fox. My stirring inside the tent sent it running off. A few minutes later a single coyote howled not to far off, followed by a cacophany of howls from all around. The serenade lasted well into the night, and was a little scary for a while when it was close by, but drifted away as the night went on. Each time I woke in the night I heard the coyotes calling across the prairie.


The final day of this trip is through the main area of the Prairie Lakes/Three Lakes management area. The trail blazes were a little sketchy, misleading or missing in places, and I got off the trail a couple of places, but managed to make my way back to it with the compass and dead reckoning. There were also a couple of places where the trail was rather overgrown, but in general it was a good trail. In the afternoon, after lunch at the dry pond campsite, the oak trees turned to tall pines with little shade. The strong breeze of the past several days did not materialize today, and the last hour or so of hiking was very hot. I was glad to see the trailhead parking and kiosk, and just had time for a quick shower down with my remaining water before my ride arrived.

Thanks to Mark for driving out all that way into the middle of nowhere to take me back the 80 miles back to another middle of nowhere to pick up my car.

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