Since we have to get up and have the RV moved every morning by 7:00am we got a nice early start on our hike. That was a good plan anyway as it was supposed to get into the low 80’s today.
The place we went is part of the Florida Trail. It really is a beautiful trail and goes a LONG ways. We only met two people on the entire hike that we did and they were doing the entire trail. They were carrying very large packs and assorted gear. As we spoke they mentioned that it would take over two weeks to do the trail from end to end. We didn’t go that far – although if you’d seen us you would have thought we’d done the whole thing. I’ll explain.
Mike wanted to go on a long hike to get the dogs really tired as tomorrow most likely will be another long day of rest. The portion of the trail we did was flat we the exception of half a dozen hills. We started out great. The girls were running around like wild dogs zipping this way and that. They’d run way ahead and then race back. They’d do huge sweeping circles coming back minutes later with tongues a flopping. All the while Mike, Slugger, and I were leisurely walking along the trail.
The trail was pretty. It kind of reminded me of what I would expect a jungle to look like.
The trail was very pretty.
Many parts of the trail had a lot of moss on the trees.
And as you can see, the scenery varied a little bit.
And it was indeed a very pretty day for a quite walk.
We came across this HUGE tree that had blown over, roots and all. Looked like a good photo op to me!
Along the way we saw hundreds of pinecones. Unforunately you can't tell from this picture really but these were the biggest pine cones we'd ever seen. Even bigger than the large ones we saw in the Redwood Forest.
We also came across a tree that had hundreds of beautiful flowers.
And this huge tree that was quite a sight to see. Way too big to hug that's for sure!
This went on for a couple hours when my legs started bothering me. Mike said there was a small park ahead where we could stop and rest. It seemed like a long time to the park but the scenery was so pretty. We took a short rest at the park. Well I should say most of us rested. First we offered everyone a drink. Slugger and Wazzu each drank close to a full bottle of water. Sparkie wanted nothing to do with it. Slugger was the first to plop down. Then I found a fairly level place to lay down. As always, Slugger is much happier when he is touching so he had to move over and lay against my legs. Great, there are miles and miles of land and he has to lay on me. Wazzu was a very good girl and laid down near me. Mike found a nice little spot to sit and rest. Sparkie was very busy the whole time. Run here, run there, sniff this, sniff that, chew on this stick, chew on that stick, tear up the empty water bottles…..well you get the idea.
After about ten minutes we decided to continue on. We did pretty good for about hour before the trouble started. I was having big trouble as was Slugger. It became what looked like a very strange game of leap frog. I would like down in the path while the rest of them would continue on. Wazzu of course would stay with me. She would lay down just ahead of me in the path. Then every little while she would come over and nuzzle down to find my face and give me lots of kisses. When she was sure I was okay she would go back up and lay down in the trail.
Further up the trail Slugger would just plop down in mid stride. I would decide to move on and would end up passing the others as they waited for Slugger to get up. This went on for a little while and then suddenly we had a third member playing the game – Wazzu. Sparkie on the other hand had at least slowed down to a trot but was still going off here and there to explore. She totally didn’t understand the hold up.
There were times in my mind that I really thought there was no way I was going to make it back to the car. But my heart knew that was written: Cry to the Lord in times of trouble and he will save you from your distress. So I cried out asking for help and continued to praise God for all the wonderful things. Indeed, as always, He was faithful to His word as eventually we all did make it back to the car.
I will say however that once we got to the car there wasn’t ANY movement coming from three of us. We got back to the RV just as the place was closing down. They had indeed gotten to us and repaired the “emergency.” We were hoping they’d fix one other thing that is very important – but since we can get around that by doing a manual adjustment each time we stop, they didn’t consider that an emergency and therefore didn’t fix that.
Since they were just closing they didn’t have our paperwork done so we had to spend the night. Which didn’t bother any of us as we had no plans to move a muscle so it didn’t matter where we were.
I must say it didn’t surprise me that both Wazzu and I had trouble on the hike. That is just plain too far to try to take either of us. I’m extremely surprised that Slugger had trouble. He hikes a lot and he was on leash the entire time so he was just walking. And most of the hike we were in the forest so it was well shaded.
What should have taken four hous without me and maybe five hours with me (way too long for me!!) ended up take a little over six hours.
I’m pretty sure Mike won’t be taking me on any long hikes again any time soon.
Debbie
2/21/07
No comments:
Post a Comment