Florida Trail: Day 21
January 27, 2022
Mile: 81.7 to 99.8 (18.1 miles)
Start: Two Palms dumpy campsite next to gator ditch and sugarcane field
Finish: South Bay RV Resort, South Bay, FL
This morning we woke to the mosquito alarm clock followed by birds once the sun started to rise. The tent site was kind of miserable and there was no way we were going to get water from the ditch between the sugar cane field and us because of pesticides and alligators. We were excited to get out of here to walk the 18 miles into the tiny blip of a town called South Bay on the southeast side of Lake Okeechobee. At the South Bay campground would be the first time we’d be able to shower and wash our clothes for the first time in a week and the amount of dirt on our legs was pretty nasty.
We packed up our bags mostly inside the tent and then braved the mosquito outdoors which turned out to be not too bad and we were out on the trail by 7:40am. As I put on my knock-off brand Crocs this morning, I noticed a slug in one of my shoes that I carefully flicked off into the grass. I’ve accidentally put on hiking boots before that had slugs in them and that is probably one of the grosser experiences of my life smushing the sticky blobs of mucus and guts underfoot and then having to scoop them out after the fact. We both checked our shoes for slugs which were thankfully slug free and found a whole bunch of the sticky bugs on our tent. We decided to call these guys “peanut slugs“ because they were light brown, lumpy with tiny black flecks that looked just like peanuts except that they had antennae and were slimy. After picking off about 5 or 6 peanut slugs from our tent, we were fairly sure that we didn’t have any tagging along for a free ride.
Last night we had seen someone’s spotlight on the trail which we assumed was maybe a car on the canal road but no car ever drove by us. The light turned out to be the headlamp of another thru-hiker named Pacman who had also started down in Key West. He had found a nice flat spot on the corner of one of the canals which was much nicer than the 2 Palms campsite we had stayed at and was actually mowed. We talked briefly for a bit and told him about how our journeys had been going and asked him about his. Sounded like he had a bad experience on the Seminole Res because he also didn’t know you couldn’t camp there but hey I guess it happens.
He said he only had 15% of his phone’s battery left on his phone and he was going to try to get to Clewiston, a city on the west side of Lake Okeechobee, to pick up packages. We looked at him quizzically because we thought people supposedly knew that the whole western side of Lake Okeechobee is under construction and you can’t hike on it this year. It says it on the Florida Trail website and all over the navigation app comments about the closure. Our new thru-hiking colleague was floored by the information that the west side of the lake was closed to hiking. We didn’t understand how if you have the app with the entire trail ahead of you don’t look ahead and plan to your next destination, even the next day. The other thru-hiker we’d met had also not known but this was her first thru-hiking experience and she barely knew how to use the app. Pacman had thru-hiked the 2,200-mile-long Appalachian Trail last year and I would’ve assumed he’d have mastered using the FarOut app to look ahead at where he was going. He didn’t know what he was going to do now and with only 15% battery left on his phone, no back-up battery pack and no paper maps. Even after 6 months of using the app on the AT he didn’t understand that the navigation app needed cell service to ping your check-in location and when you don’t have cell service it doesn’t work. I guess his family back home were freaking out a little bit and he was all mad. If he did a little research he would’ve known that – your phone unfortunately is not a Personal Locator Beacon.
Anyways we didn’t want to linger because we thought he might ask us for stuff since he seemed to have interesting priorities so we said goodbye politely and turned right to follow one of the giant Florida Trail signs posted on one of the canals. He asked us where we were going and we said that this is the Florida Trail according to the big sign right in front of us. Pac-Man was pretty surprised and told us he was about to hike a completely different direction. He was also trying to dry out his tent which in Florida you just have to accept that it’s never going to dry or you’ll never get any miles done. I think he might have needed a wake up call so we waved goodbye and left.
The trail skirted around large sugarcane fields and although we could’ve easily cut across the fields, it was Big Sugar’s private property so we had to do a big U-shaped walking around in thick, barely mowed grass, plants and brush. We scared up a couple of deer which was cool to watch as they bounded away and then disappeared into the sugarcane rows. I almost stepped on a dusky pygmy rattlesnake which luckily I had seen about 10 feet or so right before we walked over it. It was a little scary since it was a fairly young snake with maybe only 3 or 4 rattles on its tail which I think means it’s maybe 1 or 2 years old. The young snakes you have to especially watch out for because if they bite you they’ll unload all their venom instead of just a little bit like the more experienced snakes. We just looked at the rattlesnake curiously and it didn’t shake its tail or assume the striking pose and we were on our way.
The morning was kind of boring with us just trying to make miles through the knee-high brush alongside sugarcane fields in various stages of growth. We stopped to look at a beach ball sized turtle who was digging holes in the canal so she could lay her eggs. After passing by the mama turtle, we stopped at a hidden water cache provided by local Trail Angels which was truly spectacular since we really didn’t wanna drink the poisoned canal water. Neither of us wanted to stick around too long at the water cache so that Pac-Man who was behind us would catch up because we weren’t too sure what his deal was. He said he tried to help one of the girl hikers through the swamp and had waited for her for half the day hiking slowly before she said didn’t want to hike with him. I could see it both ways – him worrying about this girl who was pretty unprepared and her being creeped out by this random guy trying to hike with her in a swamp.
All along the canal with the sun heating up we kept scaring basking alligators who would belly flop into the water. I listened to a podcast about how the fashionable emerald green color of dresses and wallpaper in the Victorian Era were actually killing people because the green color came from arsenic. It was an interesting story and after what seemed like a long time we spilled out of a canal and ran into a couple guys fishing for chub and bait fish and we congratulated them on some of their catch which was flopping quite vigorously in the grass behind them. They were very nice and said good luck and told us to stay safe on our hike.
We trod down the packed dirt road with the sun coming out in full strength and the heat bearing down on us. There was a nice breeze rolling off the lake which kept us from overheating. On either side of us huge plumes of smoke rose high into the sky from the fields of sugarcane being burned. Every 5 or 10 minutes helicopters would pass over us to watch the fields and make sure the fire didn’t get out of control. We talked to a couple in a truck along the roadway who congratulated us on going at a strong pace and gave us some great motivational speech to help us reach John Stretch Park which was the first route decision on the Florida Trail. The Florida Trail isn’t always a straight line – it’s kind of got a figure 8 in the middle of it where you have to choose a direction to circle around Lake Okeechobee in the south and then again pick a direction around Orlando and Disney World. The choice we had today was whether to head east or west around Lake Okeechobee. This
lake is now the second largest freshwater lake whose borders were entirely encompassed within the US. The name of the lake comes from Hitchiti words meaning “big water” and despite the enormous size of the lake being 730+ sq.mi., its deepest point is only 12 feet. The lake had been surrounded by muddy levees since being settled by European Americans but over the years they’d been built up higher and stronger as hurricanes caused water levels to surge and catastrophically flood the surrounding land. We’d already decided that we’d have to hike east around Lake Okeechobee since almost the entire levee was being rebuilt on the western half of the lake and hiking that side would require lots of road walking.
As we approached our first route decision point at John Stretch Park, we passed by a derelict Post Office, fallow farmland, banana trees with green clusters of bananas hanging and about a thousand portapotties in storage. We had heard that the area around Lake Okeechobee was economically depressed much like Appalachia and had heard from locals not to expect too much in terms of resupply. We hopped across the busy highway to John Stretch Park where the landscaping was neatly manicured, the lawn pristine with groundkeepers swarming the area, emptying trash cans, cleaning up and taking care of the park. Construction was going at full bore at the top of the dam and we were wondering even if we headed east if the bike path had reopened or if we would be turned around by construction workers. At first glance this seemed like the fanciest park we’ve been to the whole trail, probably ever actually, and it seemed just from this park alone that the local economy was doing just fine.
We parked our tired feet on the benches of a shaded picnic table and sat down for a minute to collect our thoughts. Each of us took turns filling up water from the bathroom while one stayed behind to watch so our bags wouldn’t get stolen. I cooked up a coconut rice, beans and bananas meal as I stretched and aired out my feet which were pretty messed up from all the dirt and dust. As we lined up our snacks on the table that would get us through the rest of the day, an older couple swung by to chat. Habitual Hiker and his wife Umbrella Lady were accomplished thru-hikers who had, amongst other amazing long distance feats of endurance, have hiked the 2,200-mile-long Appalachian Trail 4 or 5 times and had met on their first AT thru-hike early on in North Carolina. They were super cool and said that they’ve hiked all over the world and now their bodies hate them. These days they do 5 to 7 miles a day, currently working on completing the Florida Trail. The two drive down from Virginia for 3 weeks out of the month and go back up for 1 week to check on their house and for Umbrella Lady to have chemotherapy treatment. They are complete badasses and I couldn’t even imagine walking around the block after having chemotherapy let alone hiking the Florida Trail piece by piece. They said it’s really fun and they’ve done a good amount of the Florida Trail and we’re trying to finish it up in the next couple years. We loved their positive outlook on life and hoped we could be like them when we grew up!
We ate lunch and said goodbye to Habitual Hiker and Umbrella Lady who headed out to shower and relax for the afternoon. After lunch was finished and our bellies were filled, Shannon and I packed up our lunch trash and threw on our backpacks. The trail had large “Keep Out!” and “No Trespassing” signs with orange construction fencing barring the way. Comments in our navigation app suggested that recently people had no trouble jumping over these impediments and continuing east where construction had finished. During lunch we had spotted a couple of cyclists up at the top of the canal and we were fairly confident that we wouldn’t get stopped and turned around by construction workers or police. We may or may not have jumped the fences and signage in lieu of having to road walk a dangerous 8-10 miles on the busy 4 lane highway. I don’t think we’ve ever had to do so much trespassing on any National Trail or hiking trail ever like we had been faced with on the Florida Trail.
As we walked up to the top of the levee (wow elevation omg!) a construction truck drove towards us but the construction worker didn’t seem to pay us any mind or care that we were cutting through. With feigned confidence, we pretended like we owned the place passing huge bulldozers, front-end loaders and loads of construction workers. Luckily the construction had finished on the west side of the trail which was a freshly paved bike path and we snuck on the trail just fine. The few hikers who we’d met earlier this week hoping to go west around Lake Okeechobee were definitely going to have some issues as the trail that way currently was broken up pavement, construction vehicles and gravel.
The top of the levee had no shade and so we melted under the humidity and the stark blue skies with the sun beating down on us relentlessly. We only had 5 or so miles to go to Southbay RV Resort (aka our little oasis after a week of not showering) and I popped in a true crime podcast on the way where the episode was about a murder in the town next to where I grew up. Down below in Lake Okeechobee, bass fishing boats roared in the channel formed between the jungle islands and the levee. Large alligators could be seen basking in the sun and swimming and tons of herons, ibis and vultures swooned and dived around the water. My murder podcast episode ended exactly when my phone started picking up the Wi-Fi network of the RV resort. Perfect timing to SSDGM (Stay Sexy and Don’t Get Murdered)!
We shuffled carefully down the steep levee hill after having spent the afternoon listening to the roar of the four-lane highway to the right, the ruckus of people honking and the deep whine of the engine brakes being applied around corners. It was nice to be away from all that noise as it echoed straight up from the valley and felt like it was being driven right up to the top of the levee walls blasting us with sound as we were walking. The lady in the campground office told us to just go set up at one of the RV sites as they usually don’t do tent camping and they’d settle up with us tomorrow morning. The RV Camp apparently makes exceptions for tent campers or those hiking and biking “the big O” which is going all the way around Lake Okeechobee. Somehow Florida Trail hikers are included in this which is nice because we could definitely use a good hot shower and some laundry. The campground lady knew what was up and she set us up in a site right next to the bathroom with electricity and water so we didn’t have to walk far. It’s all we could ever ask for!
We wanted to do laundry but didn’t have quarters or laundry detergent so we made the trek to the gas station to pick up some laundry detergent. On our way out of camp, the lady at the check-in office gave us $10 worth of quarters and so we could give the rest back tomorrow when we checked out. At the gas station there was a taco place attached to it so we chowed down and freshly made guacamole and chips and tacos with barbacoa, lengua, el pastor and pollo. Our bellies were super full and we brought a couple snacks with us as we didn’t think we needed much for resupply as we shuffled back to camp with big taco bellies.
As the sun started to set, even in the clipped grass the mosquitoes started to come out and all we wanted to do was go jump in our tents and sleep to get some relief but we still had to do laundry and shower. Shannon started laundry as we each jumped into rain pants and rain jacket and then into the shower. We’re glad we’re at an RV campground because it seems like most people have their own showers and bathrooms in their RVs so we didn’t see a single person in the bathrooms tonight despite there being about 50+ RVs. I was able to take a 20 minute long shower, rinsing off scabs from being cut by brush, the mosquito blood, swamp water, mud and all that junk. It was heavenly.
At the picnic table next to our tent we sat waiting for the laundry to be done and then planned on hitting the hay. A couple at the RV next door chatted with us for a little while and they had said they came down to stay for a month at this campground but were complaining about how there is nothing to do in the area. Why would you pay almost $1,000 to stay at this RV park for a month without doing any research on what’s going on in the area? A simple google search could’ve told you that. From our brief experience in the area it seemed that if you didn’t love fishing or breathing in burning fields of sugarcane then you’re probably not going to have a good time. But you do have the construction on the levees which is good entertainment if you like trucks and are also 3 years old. Basically there’s not a lot in the area going on except literally watching concrete dry.
Anyways, back to our neighbors who sounded like they weren’t too thrilled with being in this area. The couple was from way up north in Michigan and were also complaining that it was going to be freezing temperatures in the 30s this weekend in Florida. I was kind of excited for the cool weather after feeling pretty drained from the direct heat radiating off the dark cement bike path circling the Okeechobee dam. Plus when it’s cold out the snakes and alligators don’t like to do anything which would be nice for us. The lady also complained about the internet service being terrible at the RV resort which was true that the camp seriously needed to upgrade their WiFi service. Maybe they should pick something else to do next winter besides coming here?
As I was checking on the forecasted cold weather coming up in the next few days, I saw a story on how in South Florida you need to watch for falling iguanas from the trees. I guess up north you get snow when it is cold but in Florida it snows 3-foot-long reptiles. The story sounded like clickbait to me but it could also be valid. Iguanas are invasive creatures from warmer countries where it doesn’t get that cold so when the temperatures drop, the iguanas bodies are stunned and they seize up, falling like giant spiky green bricks from the trees. With all the falling iguanas it sounded like we were going to need an umbrella or maybe even a helmet to survive the next cold snap!
The RV camp had tons of rules here and was much more strict and not as fun as the Sigsbee Navy Base Campground we stayed at down in Key West. We were okay with all the rules as we were pretty exhausted and just wanted to sleep. You weren’t allowed to put trash in the bathroom trash and or you’d get kicked out of the campground so I walked 10 minutes to dump our trash in the dumpster. The trek took me past electric color changing lights on somebody’s RV and “Donald Trump is God” flags on another of the RVs. I wondered to myself why people were here and what type of person stays at this RV park next to Lake Okeechobee. You could also see into some of the RVs and hear that almost everyone was blasting cable television just like they probably did back up north. For some reason it weirded me out that everyone was just doing the same exact thing that they would probably be doing back home – watching hours of cable TV commercials. Why weren’t they out partying or sightseeing or hanging outside their RV with a little nightcap and friends? Was it because they couldn’t figure out streaming services or how to watch TV without ads? Was this park so strict that you weren’t allowed to have fun and enjoy the warm weather? It seemed kind of a waste of time and money to stay here for weeks or months at a time to have crappy internet, watch cable TV commercials and not enjoy the warm weather with new friends but I don’t know these people’s stories. Maybe they were scared of us thru-hikers and had locked their doors to protect themselves from our body odor.
By the time our laundry was done it was 8:30pm which was very late for us. We were exhausted from the sunny exposed canal and levee walks today. Under the bright lights of the RVs and sounds of generators we fell asleep, glad to be somewhat clean again. Tomorrow would be more more miles and more fun!
