Florida Trail conference 07

Umatilla, Florida. It always make me think of a single armadillo, for some reason.


It's the site of the Florida Trail annual conference. It was fairly routine. The keynote speaker was Mike, who is out hiking the FL Trail and reporting on it for the Tampa Tribune. I must admit, I didn't think he speach was that good, but even is writing style is not particularly my taste either.

Marti came down from Blountstown for the weekend, which gave me someone to hang out with, as the gang all had other plans this weekend and decided not to come. Ian arrived very late, because he had entries in the photo competition. We both took a prize. (photo on left)

The only other notable things of the weekend were me forgetting my sleeping bag. That's a major dumb thing to do for an experienced backpacker. I managed to borrow one fortunately, because it was a very cold and windy night.

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Store 88

Spent the weekend camping at Store 88 and doing some day hiking with Mike and a couple of friends of his. I'd already hiked this area last year with Ian, so it doesn't really count as trail miles, but I really enjoyed meeting Marti from Blountstown, and day hiking this pretty, and easy section.

I gave Mike a kilt as he'd been so enamoured with mine when we hiked a couple of weeks ago. I really didn't expect hime to actually wear it, but he says he'll wear it for his keynote speach at the FL Trail conference next week. Not sure I believe him, but it'll really shock some people if he does!

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Family in Florida

Mm Mum, Sister Kathy, her husband Ben, and their children Laura and Luke are here for a visit. We've spent a week just hanging around here in Tampa: the nature trailthe beach, the zoo, etc with the kids, and of course, the customary mammoth shopping trips with Mum and Kathy!

I have to go out of town for a couple of days next week, so I've deposited everyone in Orlando to do the tourist thing for a couple of days. While we were there we did the Mickey Mouse thing at Magic Kingdom. The kids seemed to enjoy it, but it's very tiring and I think they're overwhelmed by it all. We all had fun though. Laura is like Kathy, she loves the fast rollercoasters,and she's tallenough to ride them now too. Obviously wealso did the slower small kiddie rides like it's a small world. I've always thought it was cute, but the kids always seem entralled by it.Ijust have so much trouble getting that song out ofmy head afterwards though!

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