Day Two-Hundred-Fifty-One, Key Largo

Last night I was camped in mud.  This evening I'm camped on rocks.  It's like that tale of the Three Little Pigs.  Tomorrow I'll camp on spikes.

But I'll be fine; I'm a superman.  Huff and puff on that.  Never in my life have I slept so well as I have huddled in this tent.  I could not tell you why.  It may be the fresh air.  It might be the exercise.  It's often all I can do to type up these notes.  Exhaustion do make a boy tired.

I'm a bit sleepy now but otherwise fine.  Google says I walked 22 miles.  Or more or less, I cannot say.  It has been a while since I checked.  I am quite without Internet service.  I'm having technical problems.  Technically I forgot to pay my bill.  In any case, Samsung sucks.

There's a McDonald's across the street.  I'm in Tavernier, Florida.  They're bound to have Wi-fi.  If they don't, I'll kneel outside someone's condo.  Which is what I did this afternoon.  It made me feel like a spy.

I slept until almost eight o'clock.  I woke up in the mud.  It had not been so bad the night before but it rained a bit in the night.  My tent has a hole in its bottom.  So do most of my friends.  I have never travelled with a ground cloth.  It usually does not matter.  But this time the water came up from below.  It got a little wet.  With the humidity and this Internet thing, I started my day in a grump.

The yacht club next door was members only.  They did have a Pepsi machine.  Taunting me through a wire-topped fence.  They like to stick it to the poor.  But I walked proudly on in the morning steam, through a regular jungle.  Of those rhododenrony-looking trees.  I was going to look them up.  But I can't; you do it.  Do let me know what you find.

Eventually I came to a bridge, my first of many down here.  A great tall thing.  It did have a good shoulder.  I still was not happy up there.  As far as I know it goes over a lake, Lake Surprise; it is part of the sea.  Saltwater or fresh, I cannot really tell.  I'm a half-mile from Plantation Key.  Which is split from Key Largo by what looks like a river.  I guess I could go and taste it.  Or you could, come to think of it.  Do let me know what you find.

There was quite a view from up on the bridge, Everglades to the north.  And what looked like the sea on either side.  I did not really look around.  On bridges my focus is on not getting squarshed, and on not falling over the side.  If I take a bus home I'll get you a picture.  Or Google it; you pay your bills.

Off the bridge I was in the Keys, a bit shaky but happy to be there.  I had a big Coke at a Shell station and made friend with garbage men.  Aaron and David.  They wore yellow vests, very much like my hat.  Only cleaner and not as stinky.  They were duly impressed with my trip.

Another three miles and I stopped and ate.  A burger.  I did not love the place.  Three blocks up I found the Hobo Cafe.  I wish I had eaten there.  I bet they would have fed me for free.  They all would have kissed my ass.  Robert De Niro does not have to pay when he eats at his restaurant.

I still haven't had any Key lime pie.  I am watching my pennies.  My friend Dennis says it is not very good.  He has all sorts of strange beliefs.  But I'm a guest here; it's my duty to try.  A good guest may have two pieces.  And at the end of this long strange trip, I'll have a pitcher of margaritas.

And number of beers.

It was clear where I was once across the bridge.  There were resorts here and there.  And invitations to tourists for glass-bottomed boats and snorkel and skin diving tours.  You can swim with dolphins or parasail.  You can rent motor scooters.  Or buy decorative items fashioned from shells.  Or rent jet skis by the hour.

It all looked pretty fun to me.  I might give parasailing a pass.  Or forego the chance to scuba dive with a sunken statue of Jesus.  But I would very much like to swim with dolphins.  Dolphins are my favorite fish.

You can too rent a bicycle.  There's a bike path next to the road.  Which makes walking very easy indeed.  I expect it stretches all the way to Key West.  Through the trees here and there I could see the ocean.  It is a travel-poster blue.  But I did not try to get any closer.  I'll see the sea soon enough.

There are hunnerts of cops up and down this road.  That's new in history.  It used to be a lawless place.  Then came the War on Drugs.  And 9/11 and other evils.  People used to smoke pot in the streets.  I missed the Bluegrass Festival in Yeehaw Junction.  I'm too late for everything.

No one has bothered to strip search me yet.  No one's locked me in their car.  But I'm sure they are watching me.  This is where they catch everyone.  No escaped prisoner, gone uncaptured, fails to make his way here.  Seriously.  Blame John Grisham.  They got another one just today.

They think they'll be welcomed, their past forgotten.  They think they'll start a new life.  With no worries, just palm trees and pretty girls.  I've entertained such thoughts myself.

The road stretched on with more of the same.  I was never out in the sticks.  But there are patches of jungle where a clever hobo could easily put up his tent.  I heard camping down here would be hard, that the cops write all kinds of tickets.  But I think beginners always camp on the beach.  I'm sticking to my methods.

Which means tonight I'm camping on rocks.  I wish my sleeping pad held air.  But I'm a hundred yards from a McDonald's, and yet I'll sleep undisturbed.  And file this report in the morning.  Remind me to check my spelling.  And to enjoy a fabulous McDonald's breakfast.  I like them; they're like airplane food.  Foul but evocative of travel and exotic places.

Of which this is but one.

"DOLPHINS ARE NOT FISH!"  Melville says they are.  He was a very good writer.

EVERY NOW AND THEN a flotilla of Cuban refugees will turn up on one of these beaches.  I hope I'm there when it happens.  I want to be the one to say, Welcome to America.

THERE WAS A MOVIE called Key Largo, starring Humphry Bogart and Edward G. Robinson.  Whose voice I always tried to approximate whenever I talked to cows.  "Moo, I tell you!  Moo, moo!  Moo!  Moo, I say!"

IF YOU HAVE Japanese acquaintances, do tell them the story of the Three Little Pigs.  "By the hair of my chinny-chin-chin" means different things in different languages.

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Day Two-Hundred-Fifty, Manatee Bay

I started this trip at Puget Sound.  I dipped my toe in the water.  Or I slapped at it with the bottom of my shoe.  I did not want to get my socks wet.  They've been plenty wet since.  Such are the hazards of Walking Across America.

I should have begun at Neah Bay.  I was not on an ocean beach.  But I was determined to start moving east.  It was close enough for me.  And should be for you.  Coastline is coastline.  It is the very same sea. 

Find me now camped on a sliver of land between Long Sound and Manatee Bay.  I've got saltwater on all four sides.  I could declare victory.  I've reached the Atlantic.  Loosely defined, that has always been my destination.

But the journey continues.  I will keep walking until I run out of road.  Which means Key West, a proper island.  Here I am still attached.  Just barely, like a hangnail, a half-dozen miles from Key Largo.

I woke up early after three hours sleep.  I did not wait til check-out time.  Which has been my custom but the place was disgusting.  I needed to breathe some fresh air.  As it was I was still slow getting out of town.  I was there until one or so.  After a breakfast in Florida City.  Subway.  Beggars do not choose.

Florida City, Florida and Homestead are one and the same.  Homestead is the old town with a Main Street.  Florida City has Burger King.  And Walmart and clutter.  Less character, though.  There was a carnival in town.  I was tempted to stop and ask for a job.  I was worried they might give me one.

I can of course see myself as a carney.  I like the travelling life.  But I've got this project to finish first.  That's always been a weakness of mine.  Starting grand schemes and taking them to within a hairsbreadth of completion.  But stopping just short, half afraid, the other half satisfied.

I almost got married once.

Florida City dragged on a bit.  There was more to it than I'd guessed.  But it ended abruptly at The Last Chance Saloon.  I stop at every one of those I see.

There are dozens of Last Chance Saloons.  This one was no disappointment.  Everyone was kind to me.  I was treated to three icy Cokes.  By the tattooed lady behind the bar.  She spoke fondly of banjos.  And so won my heart.  The soda pop just made me like her more.

Indeed it was my very last chance for the next fifteen miles.  I'm on Highway 1.  There's a high fence on both sides and a concrete wall down the middle.  Painted a soothing seafoam color.  It was still like being in prison.  Once you're on 1, you're committed.

But the shoulder was good and the weather was fine.  There is not a great deal out there.  A few bridges over nothing in particular and miles of Everglades.  Fenced in, I guess, for their own protection.  The birds in their looked happy.  Long-legged shorebirds like I've been seeing for weeks, and a goodly number of hawks.

I wish I could tell you just what kind.  Birds are not my specialty.  The buzzards have stopped following me.  Pelicans are my favorite.  But I haven't seen any of them lately.  I hope there are some further south.  They're so endearingly goofy.  I wish I were a pelican.

Some miles in I crossed a river.  Or may have, I was not paying attention.  And the landscape changed.  It had been just damp.  Here there was one or two feet of water.  With shrubbery, not grass, perhaps stout enough to stop your smaller airboats.  They look to me like rhododendrons, but I'm pretty sure I'm wrong.

I didn't really notice when I hit the sea.  There is that wet dog smell.  But no surf.  I watched the sun as it disappeared into Long Bay.

Which I was ready to call a lake.  I've done some studying since.  I'm camped among the rhododendrons by some kind of marina.  Where I hope to get coffee come the dawn.  I don't know how much is there.  I can hear people drinking more than they should.  They're going to need coffee tomorrow.

I HAD THE option of taking a scenic route, known as Card Bay Road.  But it looked kind of lonesome and is famous for saltwater crocodiles.

SUBWAY'S breakfast sandwiches aren't too too bad.  Their coffee is drinkable.

A HOBO I met yesterday had his teeth kicked in.  They stole his money and beer.  This would be a more interesting narrative if things like that happened to me.

GIVEN WHAT I've got to work with, there really is no excuse for you not to Walk Across America. 

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Day 249, More

Last night's effort was a little thin.  I do try to keep you amused.  But I never do my best typing in motels, least of all ones like that.  The Cornholio East, or something like that, in Homestead, Florida.

Worst place I've been on this continent.  I've seen worse in India.  Not very much worse, you understand.  It wasn't cheap, either.  Nice folks in Homestead, be assured, but you might want to sleep somewhere else.

The first place I went had been condemned.  "Unhygienic Conditions," it said.  God knows where they draw that line.  I did not sleep in the bed.  But on it.  On top of my tent.  To protect me from the elements.

I got everything done I needed to.  I got my whiskers trimmed.  I should I guess have scraped them off, but you grow attached to the things.  I patched up my pack to last one more week.  I rinsed off as well as I could.

I did not patch my sleeping pad.  I would have had to use the tub.  And did not what whatever grew there to spread as far as my bed linens.  I did stand in it.  I was not pleased, but I think I will survive.  My feet have suffered many indignities in the course of this adventure.

Find me now headed south.  Next time I check in, it will be from across the sea.  Call the papers.  Tell your friends.  You've got a right to be proud.  Your friend James has Walked Across America.

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Day Two-Hundred-Forty-Nine, Homesteading

A down day in Homestead, Florida.  I got some laundry done.  And got myself rinsed and patched my gear.  I put stitches in my pants.  And enjoyed two square meals and made some friends at Bobbie Jo's Cafe. 

This is my last stop on the continent.  Peace.

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Day Two-Hundred-Forty-Eight, Iakob Erricos Petros

One of my tent poles has cracked.  It hasn't noticed yet.  But I did; I keep an eye on these things.  It is my home after all.  The only one I've got.  It's an ugly little thing.  Yellow.  Its shape does not please.  But I always feel fairly safe in here, even when I am not.

And it has endured some awful mistreatment.  I set fire to it early on.  And have dragged it through all manner of brambles.  I've stumbled and squashed it flat.  But it keeps the rain off, more or less.  It does not let in every mosquito.  You'll see it yourself.  It will be on display, one day in the James museum.

In a glass case, of course.  For your own good.  It does have an awful smell.  Of onions and tomcat and things not discussed.  To me it just smells like home.  My sleeping bag smells even worse.  Or so I'm inclined to imagine.  I can't smell it, whatever it is.  A fellow gets used to these things.

I didn't see any gators today.  I was not really looking.  I've seen enough; they no longer amuse.  There are saltwater crocs down the road.  And after that, what, dinosaurs?  Where do you go from there?  No doubt there'll be something to frighten me.  I was thinking I might get a job.

I woke up early and packed up fast.  I felt just fine where I was.  But there were cars driving by.  I worried someone would see me camped in a swamp.  Few would object, but I do have my pride.  I usually find better spots.  I was covered in mud and bugbites and stink.  I did not feel pretty.

I was plenty hungry.  I've been underfed.  It's what the Greeks call austerity measures.  There are more things in heaven and earth than food to spend money on.  I need a shower and a discount haircut.  I've got to get my beard pruned.  I need moist towlettes and deodorant.  I'm a day's walk from Key Largo.  This, my friends, is my victory lap.  I don't want to look like a bum.

A hobo, sure; that's a point of pride.  But one with some self-respect.  I want to be welcomed in Key West.  I'm hoping I will make some friends.  Which may be harder than I imagined.  It's a much bigger town than I thought.  A proper city of some 25,000 people.  I will be eaten alive. 

My first five miles were fairly rough.  I was still in the jungle.  And this 997 is strewn with garbage, home and industrial.  Dirty.  Humid.  A narrow road.  I had to walk in the gutter.  My pack was collapsing and my back was sore.  I was hungry.

The road opened up some time after that.  I passed a number of farms.  Strawberries, tomatoes and corn.  And what I want to call potatoes.  But that can't be right.  The soil is rocky, but it is soil indeed.  Not everyone here is so well off.  Most of this state's made from sand.

The wind picked up; that helped a bit.  Then came the nurseries.  Exotic plants, I guess you would call them, mangoes and orchids and palms.  The palms were being circumcised, I guess that makes them grow taller.  By a man with a machete standing in the bucket of a front loader.  While his friend drove him from tree to tree.  Someone call OSHA, quick.  But not immigration.  That won't win you friends.  I'm making assumptions here.

You can buy a twenty-foot palm tree for $75.  Delivery is probably extra.  It still seems like one hell of a deal.  I lived well ten years ago.  And had a palm tree in my living room.  It was about three feet high.  And cost at least that much, I'm sure.  When my girlfriend moved out it died.

Six-thousand calories.  I believe that's what I need to be happy.  Yesterday I had a good many less.  It made the walking hard.  But I did at long last get where I was going, a gas station with a Subway.  With which chain I do have my complaints, but they will feed you for five bucks.  I sat there for three hours, recharging and chewing my sandwich slow.

I was in no hurry to get to Homestead.  Tomorrow I'll spend the night.  Indoors.  I need to get rinsed.  I am not feeling my freshest.  I tried to find a truck stop but no joy.  This shower is going to cost.  So I'll check in early and check out late.  I'm determined to get my money's worth.

I did in fact walk all the way to town.  Big place, Homestead, Fla.  So I turned around and walked back out.  My hobo skills kicked in at last.  I'm in the city.  I'm in the woods, camped behind a Lutheran church.  And very much looking forward to my bath.  I'll tell you about it tomorrow.

Hungry.

CHEERS TO Dewayne and Mickey, Christian bikers.  They're down from Alabama.  Riding their Harleys and sleeping rough.  We shared stories of the road.  They gave me a Bible book to read.  I expect I will. 

I HIT A Goodwill for a new shirt and a used pair of shorts.  Nine bucks.  Damn.  The price I pay to look halfway presentable.

PICKING TOMATOES looks like awfully hard work.  Hot.  A lot of bending.  I bet these anti-immigrationists have never picked tomatoes.

I THINK I like Cuban people.  One does hate to generalise.  But the ones I've met have been polite and dignified.  I wish I was a Cuban person.

EVERYONE DOWN here speaks Spanish but me.  I feel a little left out.  I believe I may have to sit down and learn it.  Don't laugh; I'm capable.  I'm a cunning linguist.  I can do anything.  I Walked Across America.

JALAPEÑOS do not agree with me.  When will I ever learn.

I'M HUNGRY.

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Day Two-Hundred-Forty-Seven, Dirty Monkey

I've got a weather app.  It sometimes works.  It used to tell me how cold I would be.  And when it might rain and when it might not.  It is usually wrong about that.  Now, for example, it acknowledges clouds.  It makes no mention of rain.  But it is raining.  I am camped in a swamp.  If it rains any more I am done for. 

Such is life.  Easy come, easy go.  Better men have been swept out to sea.  And eaten by gators and swallowed by fish.  Found dead in their own bathtubs.  What's important here is this weather report.  Right or wrong it means nothing to me.  But with GPS it is localised.  It puts me in the City of Miami.

Or in the county at any rate, and on the far edge of that.  Just off highway 997, just south of the Miccosukee Casino.  A name that invites inappropriate wordplay.  I will control myself.  It's a proud name, no doubt, and Florida is lucky to have any Indians left.

It is thought the name comes from micos sucios, Spanish for "dirty monkeys."  Because they lived in mud huts and because Juan Ponce de León was really kind of a dick.  They were originally part of the Seminole.  They sponsor a NASCAR team.  They have a grand casino and a golf tournament.  They're doing alright for themselves.

Remember Andrew Jackson?  We've discussed him before.  He and Juan Ponce could be twins.  He kicked all the Indians out of Georgia and marched them west on the Trail of Tears.  In violation of United States law, in defiance of the Supreme Court.  Even back then we were a nice country on paper.  Everyone had their rights.

The few Indians who stuck around got stuck with the shittiest land.  Which brings us full circle and I hope explains why I am camped in a swamp.  This whole area is below sea level.  You couldn't raise crops here.  Rice, maybe; but from what I hear, there's a lot more money in gambling.

I had a hard day.  I've said it before, life ain't all sunshine and daisies.  I sticky and stinky and underfed.  It was another long thirsty day.  A lot of it's due to poverty.  A lot more was just bad planning.  Throw in some punishment from our benevolent God and I think you've got the picture.  Did Job get a rash?  I forget.  I wonder if his was where mine is.

I woke up early and went back to sleep.  It's been a rough couple of days.  But I was back on the road at nine or so.  My radio got NPR.  But it conked out before Car Talk came on.  I remember a few weeks back.  Reception was poor; all I could hear were the snorts and a great deal of laughter.  I still listened to the entire show.  And I enjoyed it immensely. 

You never hear too much about Joy, as if it's one of the lesser emotions.  But I think of them all it's my favourite.  Without it Love would just suck.

Two miles took me to a Sunoco station.  I was there for a couple of hours.  I finished typing up yesterday's notes and juiced up my little computer.  I would have liked to buy food but it was really expensive.  I had a Coke and a small breakfast sandwich.  I introduced myself to the man working there so he wouldn't throw me out.

"Write that the Latin people are good."  I can honestly say that they are.

Spanish is the language down here.  Japanese is worth nothing at all.  English, carefully applied, will take you only so far.  I like Spanish.  I think I could learn it.  I have some small knowledge of Latin.  In that I know it exists; that's a good first step.  I was looking at my map.  I'm closer to Costa Rica than I've ever been.  I think I might go there next.

I'll fly, thank you.

I also thought I might walk the length of Japan.  It isn't so very far.  South to north, in the springtime.  They have public baths in each town.  And the people are most hospitable, so long as your Japanese is not too good.  In that case they treat you like they do each other, or according to their mood.

I expected to find cheaper food some ways down.  As it was I did not.  I was trying to avoid Miami.  I avoided the crap out of it.  Nothing against that noble town.  I find pastels most soothing.  But it would have been hard to find places to camp.  That's what took me out here.

To the absolute middle of nowhere at all.  I had a twenty-mile walk.  Through these ubiquitous Everglades.  There was nothing out there at all.  But a narrow strip of road.  People drive fast.  I was hungry and did not have much water.

Mr. Martin saw me and stopped.  He's a gentleman philosopher.  I had met him at a motel in Okeechobee.  It took me ten minutes to remember him.  He gave me a can of RC cola.  In fact, he gave me four.  And so saved my life.  We talked for an hour.  It was nice to see an old friend.

That still left me nine miles to the next town, or at least my next source of water.  It was late; I'd been dawdling.  I had to walk very fast.  Which took some strength.  I had it to give, but I am a lazy man at heart.  And was burning more calories than I'd taken in.  That always makes me cross.

I found a gas station and found a sandwich.  I'm still fairly underfed.  And I had barely enough daylight to find a place for my tent.  Which was a trick, I tell you.  This is the Everglades.  I waded through water up to my shins, upsetting God knows what fauna.  And finally made a dry nest for myself, in the manner of a mountain gorilla.

Suck on that, creationists.  We're not so very far removed.  And it wasn't book-learning or divine inspiration, it was purely animal sense.  Instinct.  Monkey skills.  I've got them and you've got them too.  But mine are a good deal more advanced.

Or retarded, as the case may be.

THE PRETTY lady who made my sandwich did not speak English at all.  And this wasn't some strip mall bodega.  This was a national chain.  There was no suggestion that she should speak English.  She had beautiful eyes.

IN MY WHOLE life I have never been dirtier, stinkier or more bedraggled than I am right now.  That's saying something.

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Day Two-Hundred-Forty-Six, Whee!

Google puts me twenty-five miles from Miami.  I could be there this time tommorrow.  But I'm going to bypass it to the west and continue south to the Keys.  "Seattle to Miami."  That's what it says on my card, and generally it is true.  But I've tacked just a bit on at both ends of this trip.  I went wide around Seattle too.

There was a beautiful sunrise this morning, all pinks and pastel blues.  I was up early and packed up quick.  I was trespassing just a bit.  In a sort of nature preserve.  The world was all my own.  And I was pleased to share it with the birds and the beasts and all things slithery.

But I had no desire to get yelled at.  That's no way to start a hike.  I was up on a dike on a gravel road.  I had not slept very well.  The ground was hard and I was surrounded by frogs.  They'd all come up from the water.  To inspect my tent at all angles and growl at me.  There was a gator too.  And birds making jungle noises, like you hear in the Tarzan films.

I felt strong; my pack was light.  I was quite out of water.  At some point in my sleep I drank up my last two pints.  I was thirsty with thirteen miles to go.  I should have brought more but my pack's hard to carry.  It's held together with duck tape and spit.  And bits of rope I find on the road.  And one or two unbelieving prayers.

It was hard; I was drying up fast.  My tongue was starting to swell.  I couldn't swallow; I was cramping up.  I developed a pain in my chest.  I had no choice but to take it at a gallop, thirteen miles nonstop.  It was not as if I was going to die.  It was just so uncomfortable.  We rarely get really thirsty these days.  It's like not being able to breathe.

And interestingly, do you know what I longed for?  Cold beer or CocaCola?  A mint julep?  Gatorade?  No, I wanted water.  Things simplify themselves in a crisis.  I'm reminded of an interesting fact.  The last words of most pilots before they hit the ground?  "Mama."  That always makes me cry.

Nine miles in I found a fisherman and bummed a bottle of water.  I drank it slow and sat a bit.  I must say it cheered me up.  Thank you, sir, whoever you are.  I'm glad you come prepared.

Four easy miles took me to the Sawgrass Recreation Center.  They offer airboat rides.  Which made me sad because I couldn't afford one.  I need to watch my dimes.  Which I put to good use at the lunch wagon.  I had a sandwich and six cans of Coke.  At a steep discount, unasked for.  It was awfully decent of them.  Good old Chfristian charity.  I must have looked like hell.

Or maybe I looked more genuine than the rest of that crowd, more of the earth, as it were.  It was a much bigger place than I had expected.  There were tourists, busloads of them.  Toting cameras and shopping for gifts.  Posing for pictures and looking so clean.  Frolicking in their silly shorts.  I sat in the shade and ate my sandwich, feeling superior.

I'm not an absolute jerk; the feeling passed.  I did not let it go to my head.  But I have earned  Florida.  I was happier than anyone to be there.  It was a pretty place; I was getting fed.  Of course I looked like a hobo.  I've walked some three or four thousand miles.  I've swallowed a lot of dust.

I eat better than most hoboes.  I'm healthier; I drink much less.  Nevertheless I feel a kinship.  My affinities are with them.  And every one I have met has been proud.  And every one had the right.  So look down your noses.  Lock us up, beat us down.  Kick us out of your stores.  We are brave and strong and free.  We don't take our showers for granted.

I met Mike, Big Mike, I want to call him.  His family runs the place.  "You're the guy walking across America.  Do you want a free airboat ride?" 

I wanted it as badly as I'd wanted water.  I never get to do anything fun.  Don't misunderstand me here.  This whole adventure has been a blast.  But I do miss out on some things.  I don't get to drink beer or hear live music.  I don't take side trips and scenic tours.  I'm always too poor or in too much of a hurry.  This was an abslute thrill.

An airboat, I'll remind you, is a flat-bottomed craft.  It is powered by a propeller.  Which means it can go almost anywhere.  It will float in three inches of water.  Usually you sit up very high, but this was the tourist model.  There were twenty of us.  We all had fun, but the biggest smile was mine.

Big Mike took me up and they gave me a ticket, a band strapped around my wrist.  And a set of ear plugs.  I stood in line.  On the way in they took my picture.  I couldn't afford to buy a print, but I tell you, I looked good.  Bearded and sunburnt and covered in dust.  And happy.  Life is good.

The Everglades, I knew this once, are not a swamp but a river.  They once stretched from Orlando south to the keys, the whole width of Florida.  But developers have been filling them in.  They saved a few thousand square miles.  The water is about two feet deep and flows at one mile/day.

I was the only one by myself.  I wedged in on an aluminum bench.  Which vibrated most interestingly, like a tickle but more satisfying.  If you know what I mean.  It goes a long way toward explaining the popularity of airboat rides.

But it wasn't all there was for me.  It sure gives you a new perspective.  I've been walking past these swamps for days, but it's not a swamp once you get out there.  It's pretty.  The sky is mirrored in the water.  From a low angle it looks like land.  With all the grasses and cattails.  We skimmed right over them all. 

In search of one lonesome gator.  For most tourists that is the high point of the trip.  But I've seen so many in the last few days, I'd have been glad to give him a pass.  He was just sitting there.  That's pretty much what they do.  In your mind's eye you'd have him thrashing about and snapping his jaws at you.  Which I'd have been glad to see from the safety of a boat, but no.  He was just sitting there.

The bigger thrill was being out there where only an airboat can go.  Or a canoe.  Airboats are more fun. We saw an osprey eating a fish.  And learned how to make gauze from cat tail pulp.  We were attacked by boat-tailed grackels.  Clever birds.  They behave like seagulls.  They've got the tourists wrapped around their fingers.  Or talons, as the case may be.  Their favourite food is Cheez-Its.

There was a brief question and answer session.  I wish it had gone on longer.  I had a thousand questions about gators and airboats and the state of the Everglades.  Which have suffered some in the last fifty years.  The last one-hundred, perhaps.  If I were one of those biological types, that is where I'd pursue my studies.

The pilot got on it just a bit on our way back to the dock.  The smaller airboats that people have can go 90 mph.  We didn't come anywhere close to that, but it was still lots of fun.  Especially the turns.  My most sincere thanks to the Sawgrass Recreation Center.

Leaving there could see I-75, known as Alligator Alley.  Which crosses right across the bottom of the state, another insult to the environment.  (As are airboats, I'm all but certain.  I'll compromise here and there.)  I passed under it and continued south, another ten miles of nothing.

But I was fed and watered.  It was not a bad walk.  I stopped when I reached a gas station.  With a biker bar next door.  They were cranking the Jethro Tull.  I sat outside and guzzled root beer and felt very good about life.

Two more miles south I put up my tent.  I still had plenty of daylight.  But it had been a good day.  I'd walked far enough.  I tucked myself deep in the trees.  Figgy-looking something-or-others and evergreens with long wispy needles.  And other trees standing tall and quite dead.  White.  They're all over the place.

I his myself better than I needed to.  Someone pulled a knife at the gas station.  Not on me.  No one was hurt.  But I didn't want to be around anyone who expresses their negative emotions that way.  I've always done well with sarcasm.  I should conduct seminars.

I bought my safety with lumpy ground.  It's hotter than holy blazes.  I'm covered in sticky sweat and bug bites.  Life is good all the same.  Goodnight.

"ARE YOU afraid of gators?" the boat pilot asked me.  There were twenty other people there.  Why pick on me, I wondered.  Yes, I said.  He was satisfied.  He lied and said he was too.

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