We had a small gathering last night at the condo. I live there with my boyfriend now. So, once again, I am not full time van life-ing it. Not thrilled by that fact, but I’m still very happy he HAS taken up my hobby of long distance hiking. So, the van comes in handy often. So, to spite too much rum and way too much food last night, we are heading out on the Florida Trail. This also to spite, the Coronavirus that has everybody up in arms. Thank God I bought toilet paper long before the hoarding of paper goods commenced.
Not sure if I’ve mentioned this or not, but I prefer hiking at night. Where we live, in SW Florida, even in the dead of what would be considered Winter, it can be a near 90 degrees out during the day. So, heading out at night helps keep energy levels high. The heat can be brutal, and drain your reserves quickly. So we found ourselves on the road around 5:30PM.
By 12AM we still had not reached a viable trail head. We entered the Florida Trail area through Clewiston. Many times I’ve parked at John Stretch Park, but because I’ve already completed the miles coming to and from that park, we decided instead to head south and make our decision whether to park or move on at Florida Trail mile marker 91.2 off Miami Canal Road. When we got to this point, if we proceeded south, even still an entire hour would be repeat miles. So, we decided to push on and attempt to park at Florida Trail mile marker 66.1. It’s another 25 miles, but we assumed it would be paved for the most part, and have plenty of ammenities like picnic tables and regular parking spots. This seemed like a good choice at the time. Another benefit of pressing on? If we parked there, we could head south to hike, turn around, and make a pit stop at the van, cook, eat, then head north, turn around and come back again to the van. This would allow us to cover many uncharted miles of the Florida Trail, helping me to complete more of which I haven’t yet.
To our chagrin, it wasn’t mostly paved, it was mostly dirt, with lots of potholes and divots. It was a slow bouncy ride all the way to mile 68.1, I believe. Yup… Where we found a locked gate. So, we decided to head back from where we came, during which we found a road that would take us around and through another route, from another direction, but to the same location. So, we backtracked back up to the nearest wayside, mile 79.3, took the paved road that intersected there and headed east. We went about 2 miles, when we started heading south again down a very sketchy sort of paved road back toward the trailhead we were attempting to get to. We thought we had it this time. Back down we go another 11 miles south, and BAM, another locked gate. WTF?!?!?! We concluded that perhaps the Coronavirus park closings had something to do with the gates all being locked. So, my boyfriend decided he wanted to head back to John Stretch Park, another 26 miles backtracking again. So, that’s the direction we go forgetting all about the Coronavirus park closings.
When we got to John Stretch Park, there were barricades and the park was, duh, closed. Surprise! Ugh… It’s right about now my boyfriend is becoming visibly irritable. I’d say for good reason. We have been driving since early evening, and at this point it was well after 12AM, and we still haven’t done a lick of hiking. He starts threatening to drive home. I convince him to head back to where we started making bad decisions, mile 91.2, off Miami Canal Road. He agrees.
We park the van. We were supposed to cook out and have dinner, then hike, but given the new time constraints, we decide to just chill for a moment, then go to bed. I set the alarm for 4:30AM. We both crash hard. When the alarm sounds, I shut it off and got out of bed, leaving my boyfriend behind to sleep another half hour. I figured he deserved it for driving us around all night. At about 5AM he got up, we adjusted our bags, made coffee and finally hit the trail.
Unfortunately, from this mile marker in each direction for at least an hour, we would be repeating ground I have already completed. So, the miles didn’t really do me much good, other than as a general work out. Because of speed alone, we may have covered a quarter mile that was new, otherwise same old ground. It was fine though. We had driven all the way out there and at least we got some hiking in, even if it didn’t help me complete any new miles of the Florida Trail. On top of that, now I know for next time, which could be as early as this coming weekend, that getting to some trailheads may not be as accessible as I’d like. Lesson learned.
