Susanne's Adventure Journal

32.3 FT miles As I woke up this morning, I heard Rambler packing up while I was still trying to wake myself up. He left before I even got out of my tent. When I did eventually get everything together, I crossed the nearby creek and started heading through the rest of the WMA. There isn't much to say about it, as it was similar to the other non-roadwalk sections I have done lately. The goal first thing this morning was to walk the 3.6 miles to the border of Eglin Airforce Base. I  reached the road crossing to the base fairly quickly and entered. I had been angry, annoyed, or generally not happy about things most of this last week, so I had been looking forward to this section. Everyone who went through it before me had good things to say about it. The trail was nice, flat, and shaded. I was enjoying its ease when I got spat back out onto the road. Apparently the trail isn't continuous through the base. I grumbled and headed the extra mile or two to the next entry po...

24.7 FT miles I just can't get a break at night, even at motels. Last night I crashed a little on the early side, since I was so exhausted from how hard I pushed my body. I was in and out of my room yesterday evening and happened to pass a group of people staying a few doors down from me. There was a man that greeted me. I politely greeted him back the first time. The second time, they were talking about partying and as I walked past he said something like, “I want to party with her.” I ignored this and kept walking. He irritably yelled out,  “Yo!” I ignored this as well and went into my room. At 2:20 am, I had a knock at my door. I was disoriented from being fast asleep and yelled out, “Yeah?” When I realized it was a knock at the door, I  got up to look out the peephole. It was the dude. As I was looking out, he turned to my door and, again, irritably yelled, “Yo!” That was a nope. I made sure my deadbolt was fastened and backed away. There were people shouting ...

8.3 FT miles I was in a little bit of a panic to get up this morning. I knew I had a limited amount of time to get to the post office in Ebro, or I was out of luck picking up my package until Monday morning. That is a delay of over 2.5 days in a town that pretty much just has a dog track and hotel. Only having slept about two hours, I packed up my tent and looked around. I was extra glad that I stopped where I had, since the trail went through wetland immediately after where I had set up my tent. I didn't even see that last night. The trail in that section would have been pretty confusing in the dark as well. It is morning already? View from my tentsite. Somehow I didn't see the wetland a couple feet away from my tent when I set up last night. I headed across the wetland and followed some powerlines, keeping as good of a pace as I could. I knew my body was tired from how hard I pushed it. I was running into a problem, both last night and this morning, wher...

41.1 FT miles Ugh. This was a day. The realization about just what I had to do to make it to Ebro in time to pick up my package was stressful, so I didn't exactly go to sleep soundly. So, when I frighteningly close coyote called to its pack just before 1 am, I woke up. After a quick Google search about what to do if you meet an aggressive coyote,  I packed up my belongings and left the church. I was originally going to give myself an hour or two more to sleep,  but I was up anyway and had a long way to go. I basically had a day and a half to go about 50 miles. That is pretty daunting. Walking 274 at night was actually a pleasant experience, especially when compared to the day. During the day I had the sun, the humidity, the heat radiating off the asphalt, and all those cars whizzing by. At night, it was cool. Cars only came by occasionally and most of the time I had the pavement all to myself. It was just me and the stars, and there were a lot of stars.  I wa...

21.5 FT miles I started off the day by missing my alarm. I still has a lot of prep, organizing, and uploading to do, so this was not a good start. I got everything done as quickly as I could, then checked out of the hotel. It was a little before 9 am. Pedestrian walkway on the road out of Bristol. I took SR 20 to Blountstown, where I joined a greenway that used to be a railroad. There was a railroad themed park as well as an old rail car in the area. I thought I would be on this for a while, until the trail spilled back into the highway. Seen on the greenway through Blountstown.  Railway themed playground along the greenway in Blountstown . I was on a series of highways or busy roads for a long time. It was incredibly hot. I was moving very slow because of the heat and because I was in a foul mood still from recent events. None of this was a good combination and I ended up missing my turn a couple times. Finally, around 2:30 pm, I reached my one natur...

15.4 FT miles Yesterday took more out of me, both physically and emotionally, than I had imagined. After I had taken my shower, I couldn't really stay awake. I must have fallen asleep before 7 pm. As a result, I woke up just before 1 am. I was on edge because of the awful time I had yesterday and could not go back to sleep despite my best efforts. Even though I wasn't asleep, I still got up later than I originally planned. Go figure. I packed up everything, filled up with water, and headed down the road to CR 12. I was taking the forest road and not the trail to CR 12 because the camp hosts had warned that the trail north of the campground was very flooded. I already had enough of an adventure yesterday. I was in an incredibly bad mood. I had a lack of sleep and I was still angry about being evacuated and having to cut short my continuous steps so close to the end of the trail. I had people suggest that I could go back and pick it up. However, I would have to wait at ...