Day Two-Hundred-Forty-Three, Okeechobee, The Lake

I'm hungry.  Underfed.  I did enjoy one or two snacks.  A bag of cookies I bought for a dollar.  Three granola bars.  Five cans of Pepsi at a saloon.  Something from a microwave.  So I'm not going to starve, not right away.  I got some calories.  At least as many as they recommend, but less than I'm accustomed to.  I'm an American, dammit.  We're big eaters.  Gluttony is our God-given right.

And it has served me well out here on the road.  I know many survive on much less.  But I'm still dropping weight, little by little.  I'm glad I had some in reserve.  Otherwise I'd be gone by now.  And then who'd be James Harry Pierce? 

No one, that's who.  You couldn't recruit.  Not even if you doubled the wages.  There are easier ways to spend your life.  Forget the walking part.  Just being James is trial enough.  I should have quit years ago.

But you fall into habits.  If you fall in a river you'll cling to the first rock you see.  Though you be pelted by logs and debris.  There are worse things waiting downstream.  The current is strong.  You cannot go back.  It's your own fault you're where you are.  A few strangers look blandly on from the bank.  One or two might applaud.  Some are disgusted; most are yawning and bored.  They all think you're out there on purpose.

I did have a sandwich prepared for today.  I ate it last night.  As usually happens.  There must have been a pound of jalapeños on it.  I watched the nice lady put them on.  I did not have the courage to protest.  I didn't want her to think I was weak.  And it tasted fine.  I woke up well before the sun rose.

With intestinal problems, abdominal cramps and a strong sense of urgency.  It was no way to start the day.  It did get me out of bed.  Better than any alarm clock has.  Alarm clocks can be turned off.  This persisted at least until noon.  I managed.  It could have been worse.

Less than a mile down the road I found a bridge to the lake.  Which is encircled by a canal, and a tall embankment.  It's an awfully big lake, 110 miles round.  It is remarkably shallow.  But it can get lippy in hurricane season.  They like to keep it penned in.

It's a good looking lake.  I tried to take pictures.  I don't think it I did it justice.  There are no buildings on its shores.  Just one or two crocodiles.  And more long snakes than I cared to count, the detestable evil things.

I walked along the top of the dike.  The lake was to my right.  Looking very much like the sea itself.  There was no surf, of course.  But the vastness of it.  There were palm trees and a thick buffer of marshland.  To my left was the canal with a few fishermen.  Beyond that were trailer parks.

And some nice homes.  Here and there woods.  All of it teeming with gators.  There was no one out on the lake, insofar as I could see.  And I was up so high I could see for miles.  The sky was wide overhead.  Blue with very tall white clouds.  I was walking into the wind.

Two miles in I passed a sandwich shop.  I did need to get myself fed.  But it was a hundred yards across the canal.  I wasn't about to swim.  And it was a Subway, so no harm done.  There's another six miles from here.  It's where I intend to have my breakfast.  I can hardly wait.

I met a Dutchman down from Canada.  He was riding around on his bike.  He had all sorts of gear; I thought he was going further.  It would take a couple of days.  He took my picture to show his mother.  She is not feeling well.  Pray for her, those of you who do.  She raised herself a fine son.

Would that my own mom could say as much.  She wouldn't if given the chance.  Or probably not.  We may never know.  I still have some work to do.

I met too three hikers with packs.  Men in their sixties, I guess.  They do this sort of thing every year.  This year it's Lake Okeechobee.  They were just about done when I met them.  They went once around in eight days.  They did not appear to be having fun, but I'm not the right one to judge.

They contributed the granola bars.  It was awfully good of them.  It made all the difference.  Now I'm just sad.  If I'd eaten less I'd be mean.  Thanks guys.

Ten miles on I climbed off the dike and back out onto the road.  I was out of water and delighted to find a saloon at the J&S Fish Camp.  Open-walled with a tiki theme.  Run by the lovely Miss Bonnie.  There was no food today.  I filled up on Pepsi cola.  And a "Hot Pocket."  I'm sure it meant well, but biscuits and gravy it's not.

I enjoyed talking to the people there.  It was a real mixed crowd.  There were proper bikers, great fearsome fellows, in addition to the suburban kind.  And retirees and a horseshoer.  He gave me his best advice.  "Learn to eat snake and for your next hundred miles, you won't go hungry at all."

"Not at all," he added for emphasis, and cackled to drive home the point.  He was missing a few front teeth from where a horse kicked him in the face.  Nice guy.  Really.

I talked too to Gale, an unapologetic racist.  He was seventy-two years old.  From Kentucky.  He spewed the most gentlemanly hate speech I have ever heard. 

His wife of forty-five years ran off with a preacher.  You've got to keep your eye on that lot.  Preachers, I mean.  But wives, too.  It's getting so you can't trust anyone.

Nice fellow despite his issues.  I liked him; he laughed at my jokes.  I did not laugh at his; they were inappropriate.  Sill he paid for my lunch.  Which was very kind.  Only in America.  A hater with a heart of gold.

From there I could backtracked to the bridge, and continued to walk by the lake.  But spectacular scenery goes a long way.  I stayed down on the road.  And put in my miles.  At Port Mayaca I came to a bridge, a great tall son-of-a-gun.  It was so steep I thought it was an open drawbridge.  No, it's just one high arch.  Crossing bridges is not my favourite part of Walking Across America.

There was a good wide shoulder but the guardrail was about as high as my knees.  And it was pretty up there; a lot of drivers had their eyes on the view.  I wasn't consciously scared but my heart was pounding by the time I got off the thing.  I had to stop and steady myself.  I sat for almost an hour.

And moved on.  I always do.  Find me now on a sugar plantation.  At least I think it's sugarcane.  Natural history is not my strong suit.  I suppose I can go over and gnaw on a piece, but it looks awfully snaky.  And there are mosquitos coating the outside of my tent.  Cold weather protocol.

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Day Two-Hundred-Forty-Two, Escape From Okeechobee

Twelve score and two, an awfully long time.  I should have been done in two hundred.  But I've dragged my feet; I've laid up here and there.  These numbers are embarrassing me.  I remember the night I typed "Day Twenty."  I was awfully proud of myself.  Twenty whole days in the wilderness.  As many as I had fingers and toes.

And one or two more than I have now.  Walking do wear down your feet.  But I have no doubt that they'll grow back, stronger than ever before.  If less beautiful.  Mountain climbers lose toes all the time.  And when the get home they brag about it.  I'll never wear sandals again.

Not without socks.  That is a privilege that comes to us all in old age.  But small compensation for the sad fact that you are now falling apart.  I'm not quite sure how I got on this track.  It's not at all what I wanted to say.  But it doesn't hurt to let your mind wander.  It may come up poetry.

I got my eight hours, or not too much less.  I did well without a TV.  Or without a remote.  It was too much trouble to lean over and turn it on.  The beauty of TV is that it's effortless.  It makes no demands of you.  It is ruined if you have to do calisthenics before you can have your mind numbed.

I flipped it on in the morning.  Save me.  I was up at seven o'clock.  And still I sat there until check-out time, comfortable on my bed.  There was a pool but I didn't swim.  It did not look wholly clean.  Nor did the shower but I had three of those, the first two to wash off the stink.  And the third just because I could.  Appreciate what comforts you have.

It's nice to be rinsed.  My hair is clean.  Or was; it didn't last long.  Back out in the humidity I got all sticky again.  On a two-mile hike to the laudromat, rather a high-class place.  There are RV'ers here, sophisticated, but without their own washing machines.  So they keep the place cleaner and charge a bit more.  Few good things in life are free.

I finished up there in an hour or two.  I still did not go anywhere.  I hung around town until four o'clock, contemplating my future.  For this reason or that I hadn't been fed, not for some thirty-six hours.  And it had me just a little light-headed.  It was hard to make plans.  I left town on a thirty-mile hike without enough food or water.

Main Street, I think it's called Parrot Road, runs south straight out of town.  And stops when it hits Lake Okeechobee.  There you go left or right.  I went left, that's east, and a mile in at last had the wits to eat.

At a saloon.  I did not catch the name.  I made friends with some old people.  I wish I could have sat and drank beer with them but it was fast getting dark.  So I ate much too much, much too fast, and bolted back out to the road.  I wasn't sure how far I would have to go before I found a place for my tent.

Lake Okeechobee.  I wish I could describe it.  It's not words that fail me here.  I've not seen it myself.  The whole thing is hemmed in by a thirty-foot dike.  Around that runs a canal.  Then a hundred-yard width of trailer parks.  Then the road that I'm on now.  Then more trailer parks and, luckily, a gas station/sandwich shop.

So I'll have food tomorrow if I don't eat it now.  I am a little peckish.  But it may be all I have to sustain me until I get to Canal Point.  And a lot more than I thought I'd get.  I really could have done with more planning.  I've managed to survive at least this long.  I'm too quick to think I always will.

I was still among trailer parks when it got dark.  I wondered where I would sleep.  But that problem always seems to solve itself.  I was not too much concerned.  And sure enough, I found a road leading into the tall tall grass.  Twelve feet tall.  Seriously.  And you think your lawn is bad.

It was like a tunnel, spooky enough.  God knows what's living in there.  I spotted a length of coiled up hose and stopped so fast I almost snapped my neck.  But it eventually opened up.  I found a path leading me into the thick of it.  To an open patch, a boar's nest no doubt, where I set up my tent.

I hope the pigs don't come to evict me.  There are too sportsmen at large.  Who drive monster trucks with a flying bridge, designed just for killing hogs.  They've got a platform twelve feet off the ground.  They go deep into the grass.  And sit up there drinking beer until a pig happens by.  Then they shoot it dead.  My yellow tent makes me invisible back here.  That might be my bad luck.

Happy dreams.

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