"Bigger Than a Bob, Ma'am!"

We're back on the road again. This time SR20 for a couple of days.

Despite SR20 being such a busy road the walk actually wasn’t too bad: for a lot of it's length there is a nice wide grassy area on either side of the road, with a fairly level walkable strip along the furthest point from the road. When this lucky level strip disappeared the walking was miserable. Either “one leg higher” hiking on the steep slope, or down in the the bottom of the roadside ditches which contained a couple of inches of standing rain water. When the road wasn’t too busy I hiked on the edge of the blacktop. That brings it's own discomfort, from stepping exactly the same place in your shoe on each step. A recipe for blisters. I'll admit I even junped a fence for a 5 or 6 mile of this stretch so I could walk on a dirt road on the ohter side of the fence.

The weather has been flaky, drizzly rain, follwed by a day of bitterly cold wind, then a cool and breezy but sunny day. I know most would say that mid 40's is not really cold, but when it is accompanied by a stiff breeze it’s tough on those of us that were hiking in the bare minimum of clothes 2 days ago!

Swwetest part of the last couple of days was Valentine's morning. My usual coffee in bed, supplied by Ian, my very capable Cabana Boy, was accompanied by a Valentine’s gift of chocolates and a Shrek card that burped when it was opened. You have to know Ian to truly understand this gesture, but how can you fault a day that starts out like that? I ate some of the candy for a breakfast appetizer, drank the coffee, and finally forced myself out of my nice warm bed to a frosty morning. The temperatures were below freezing until after 9 am, but fortunately for us we had plans to do some running around before starting our hike for the day. By the time we had driven to Eglin Air Force base to pick up the permits we will need for next weekends hike through there the temperature was up to a wonderful sunny 50 degrees.

Most notable point of this roadwalk was Ian passing his 1000 mile mark on the FL Trail. Go Ian. (Now catch up the 222 miles of Western Corridor you skipped!) We celebrated with a couple of sodas at that point. Weirdest event of the day, the week, and possibly even the entire hike? Around mid afternoon a guy pulled over in a really messy car, acting very shady, and claiming to be an off duty Sheriff’s Deputy and advised me that he had just seen a very large cat “too big to be a bob (bobcat)”. He seemed to want to drive me past where he had seen the "cat", but when I mentionned my hiking partner and turned to see how far back Ian was he got jumpy and took off in his car like a maniac, almost causing an accident in the process. Very weird. I waited for Ian to catch up to me, just to be cautious, but of course we saw neither the large cat or any sign of cat prints.

Hiking will resume in a week or so. I’m taking a week off to go sun myself on a beach in Jamaica.

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