When I got to Highway 60, I had wanted to cross over and continue on. My map showed the road/trail/railroad grade straight as an arrow for at least 25 additional miles. It would have been much better than going on Highway 60 to 441. But it was not going to happened. I guess the Lord had other things in store for me. As it was, the extension of the Peavine Trail was blocked by a gate with a sign declaring...in fact, demanding:
NO ENTRY, POSTED
Some rancher must have owned all of this land. Just when I was beginning to like the Peavine Trail. After all,it did have the convenience of no cars.
I packed up and had to face the inevitable, on to Highway 441 heading due south. I was sorry that so much of Florida was fenced. That is why today it is a blessing that the Florida Trail is developed. I would have liked one that day. There was lots of traffic for this two-lane road, both big trucks and cars……
I was walking on the left, facing traffic, like one is supposed to for safety’s sake. A group of young people in a car came towards me from the south and threw up the peace sign. I returned it, and lo-and-behold they stopped, turned around, came back, stopped, got out and crossed over. There were three of them, two boys and a girl. Naturally my attention was first turned toward the female. She was dressed in tight blue jeans and a tie-died shirt. She was the most talkative.
“Boy, you look great! I mean it! Real boss!”
I didn’t know what to do at first. They looked like mild hippie types. No long hair. The bigger boy was barefooted, decent haircut, with a long-sleeved white shirt and blue jeans. The younger boy had a crazy hat and wanted to swap his love button for one of the blue jay feathers I had in my hat. We consummated the trade.
“Let’s jam!” she says.
The older boy crossed over to the car and got her guitar, a twelve string, no less! Here we are, a beautiful, long-legged girl strumming a twelve string guitar, all sitting along Highway 441, out in the middle of nowhere, along the side of this busy two-lane highway (cars and trucks blasting by, both ways) , in the grass, in the sun! What a jam! She was a gifted singer, really knew her folk songs of the day. We kept this up for about half an hour. After the singing, we exchanged addresses, talked some, and then they were gone. A high point of my day.
I never would have been able to do that in the backcountry on the trail, I thought to myself, What an experience! I just never knew what was coming next!
About the Author: After getting out of the Army, Bob Kranich backpacked from the Georgia border to Key West in a 40 day adventure walk across Florida. His recently published book A Walk Across Florida is available from his website or Amazon.com
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