It became readily apparent on the Florida Trail that dry is relevant. When wading all day in water over my knees, even a stretch of ground with only an inch of water felt relatively dry. On the other hand, ground that had minimal standing water but was full of sole sucking mud definitely did not feel dry. Harder packed mud on the few tree islands where the Florida trail clears spots for camping were deemed dry in a way they would not be on most other US trails. Having a picnic table or bench to sit on out of the dampness was a luxury, even if we knew our tents would be moist in the morning.

This has me thinking of so many other things that are relative. On the CDT and Arizona trail I drank water I would never had ingested at home. Algae infested water or brown ponds full of cow excrement were better than going thirsty in the desert. In Florida I have been drinking sulphur smelling water, which while bad by Vermont standards, is better than much of the water on the southern CDT.

Some say walking through the swamps on the Florida Trail is the hardest walking of any US trail. It was certainly tiring and slow, but especially because I went through in a low water year, it was not as hard for me as the lions head bushwack on the PNT, which I did after hiking 6 miles to get to it. And in some ways, I found walking 19 flat miles along a canal in the hot sun in Florida harder than swamp walking, even if it did go faster. The swamp was full of changes at every step, captivating my attention, while the canal walk is so similar mile after mile that the trail app mentions when there is a “curve in the dike” as a novelty. I’m not saying there was nothing interesting along the canal walk, such as watching one of the over 100 alligators seen that day jump up and grab a bird out of a low hanging tree. I am saying that difficult is relative and I found it just as hard walking in the exposed sun along the canal as it was walking in the ever changing swamp, especially on my newly healed broken feet.

While the mosquitoes in Florida are not as bad as some I experienced on the AT in New Jersey, parts of the Ice Age Trail in Wisconsin, or hikes I have done in Utah, the itchy bites I have gotten on this trail rival even the worse black fly bites I got one late spring in Ontario. And while 80° in Florida isn’t as hot as when it hit triple digits on the Pacific Northwest Trail, the humidity, lack of shade, and the fact that I had just come from wintery Vermont to the warmth of Florida made it feel just as hot.

While I live at 1400 feet of elevation in Vt, on the Florida trail I consider 15 feet above sea level to be high since it gets me out of the swamps. And flat is not flat when pulling up out of mud or getting a foot caught in a solution hole under the water. And just as dry is not always dry, one swamp is not the same as another. I find the Florida swamp very different than that I saw on the Natches Trace Trail.

As I ponder relativity I remind myself that what seems difficult to me might not seem difficult to someone else and vice versa. I know that our life experiences, especially traumatic ones, impact how difficult something may be. As a result, I work hard not to judge other people’s reactions, understanding that everything in the world is relative to where we’ve come from, what we’ve experienced, and our genetic make up.

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