Excerpts from A Walk Across Florida by Bob Kranich
I continued walking along the Tamiami Trail and came to a man working on his car engine in a roadside park. The next thing I knew I was sitting down at a picnic table with his entire family, wife and three young children, just talking. They gave me some water because they said they had a lot with them. They were hauling the water to their house because their well had been condemned. It continually amazed me just how much people would help and be just down-right friendly.
I looked around and decided I would spend the night there at the roadside. I worked up a real crazy method to tie my hammock to the two end posts of a cast concrete picnic shelter. I was hanging way up in the air over the picnic table. That evening the mosquitoes were the worst that they had ever been. Another thanks to my mosquito net hat. It was getting hot in my sleeping bag when I slept at night, but I couldn’t sleep outside of it because the mosquitoes would carry me off!
In the morning I decided to get an early start. I could see by the passing cars that there were a lot of weekend travelers and pleasure-seekers on the road. I came to a family and some of their friends who were fishing in the canal.
We got to talking for quite a long time. The one lady insisted that I was getting paid to take this trip and that she would see me pretty soon on TV! It went something like this:
A very large lady and the most vocal of the group, “I know that you aren’t just doing this for the fun, Nooo Sir...re. I’m going to see you on TV.”
“No mam, I’m just hiking for the fun of it.”
Ha...Ha...Ho…Ho, I’ll bet so… How much are they paying you?”
“You are going to be on TV, I know I’m right, I’ll bet I’m right!” They all said, “Yea, Yea.”
“Did they tell you what station you will be on? What time?”
“M’am, I’ve got to go, but honestly, I’m just a hiker on a trip.”
“Well bye and good luck, we will be looking for you on TV.”
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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