[at-l] Catching up

[ATnavi@aol.com (ATnavi@aol.com)]

Since I'm on the road and in digest mode, I'm only now picking up on the 
threads on fundraising and civility. Ryan, smart move! Glad to see a positive 
tone to the list again.

23 hikes down, 26 to go to complete "50 Hikes in North Florida." I'm 
surprised at how  few lengthy trails there are in this part of the state, 
save the Florida Trail ... but then, these are mostly rural, poor counties 
with not a lot of people and not a lot of interest in the outdoors outside of 
hunting and fishing. Still, I've stumbled across some real gems, and lots of 
family-friendly short hikes. Anyone who visits the Ocala National Forest 
shouldn't miss the Lake George Trail at Silver Glen Springs. Beautiful walk 
along the lake (which also happens to be the St. John's River), a sweeping 
5-mile 'gator-filled, bass jumpin' expanse of water that you'd swear was less 
than a mile wide. Despite the Florida State Forest's hiking recommendations 
in Goethe State Forest (near Dunnellon) for their Trailwalker program, the 
best trails are at the Apex Trailhead, where you wander through various 
generations of longleaf pine forests. I saw a Sherman's fox squirrel, a 
red-headed woodpecker, and think I saw a red-cockaded woodpecker as well. 
Plenty of deer, too. And would you believe a hike on a windswept barrier 
island in the Gulf, complete with ghost town and cemetery? Much fun. This 
book of hikes doesn't include the Panhandle, the Suwannee River is pretty 
much the cutoff point going west.

Am now headed to Trailfest...see y'all there...and put me in for a $50 
"civility" pledge for ATC, eh?

Cheers, Navigator