I appreciate all the people who read and comment my posts and in recognition of that I like to post at least a few posts each week while I’m hiking. Usually I can do that, but these last few weeks have really tested my ability to write while on trail.

Hiking on crutches has been an interesting experience. I’ve learned a lot about what makes crutching a trail difficult, including when the ground is strewn with palm fronds, or has a rut down the center, which is lower than the sides. I’ve used my upper body more than I ever have on a hike, and learned that in certain conditions I can crutch faster than I usually walk with my backpack, averaging 2 1/2 miles an hour and sometimes reaching three when conditions are right. I’ve also learned that when conditions deteriorate it’s painfully slow crutching along the trail.

My extreme hunger led me to some research indicating that crutching takes about 33% more calories than just plain walking. But ironically, because I don’t have much money to spend, I’m actually eating worse than I ate when I was just walking the trail. To save money, I seldom buy food in the few small places I pass when I’m driving my car each day, but by the time I’m done each day’s crutching I’m usually too tired to fire up my stove and heat up one of my backpacking meals. Rather than cooking, I spend my time figuring out where I can park for the night to sleep in my car, where I can get water and use the bathroom, and what other sections of the trail I can arrange shuttles for. Thus I often end up just eating power bars and snacks.

I did manage to score a few mres from different Trail Angels and while I can’t say they’re delicious, I can say they are somewhat filling. I appreciate the hand warmer like heating element that comes with each meal. This gets hot when wet and allowed me to have a moderately hot meal on two nights without firing up my stove.

I’ve spent countless hours studying the Trail app to figure out how to chunk up the trail so that I can do about 15 miles a day. Add to that challenge of finding people who can shuttle me in all the different parts of the state, and almost all of my free time is spent on the details. This is what’s made it really hard for me to focus much time on writing. So today I decided rather than trying to come up with some ideas for this next post I would just lay it out like it is.

In over 300 miles of crutching the Florida Trail I’ve dealt with only one small blister on one hand. A 24 mile paved road walk in one day left me with a blister on the bottom of my non-broken foot. I discovered that the pool noodles I use to pad the hand pieces of the crutches work great to pad the blister on the bottom of my foot!

By no means is it all difficult. Because I’ve been getting shuttled to where I’m starting each day, I’ve gotten to see a lot more of Florida than I would have if I had done my usual thru hike. I’ve seen the contrast between the way different economic groups live and have been in some interesting remote town stores/bars/gas stations. I’ve seen some beautiful sunrises as I’ve driven from place to place, and while I’ve seen a number of animals on the trail, including opossums, alligators, bobcats and bears, I’ve seen more unusual animals on my drives around. These have included an emu and a peacock. One day I had to stop my car until a peacock stopped showing off in the middle of the road with his beautiful tail fully opened.

Every once in a while, I treat myself to some store-bought food, including a piece of pizza, a chicken leg or a pint of ice cream which easily went down as a single serving. I also ate well when I was being shuttled by Karen Yannick and Carrie Prewitt who made sure to feed me as well as give me rides. And when I had access to the Peace and Justice center in Hampton and the first Baptist Church in Christmas, I ate slightly better since I had an indoor kitchen. In those places heating up a can of beans with a couple eggs or cooking a few ears of corn on the cob I scored at a farm stand were real treats.

I’ve been going through some beautiful forest in the Kissimmee prairie area. I’ve also been crutching on some really difficult plowed up sandy fire breaks. I have the next four days arranged with shuttles, and after that I might have to take a day or two off to rest my weary body and write more in earnest. I apologize for this somewhat pathetic post, but it’s the best I can do right now. As always, thanks for reading.

FYI these blogs come out about a week behind real time. To get more current events and additional photos you can follow me on Instagram @themarybadass

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