Florida Trail: Day 34
Feb 9, 2022
Mile: 277.5 to 295.4 (17.9 miles)
Start: Budget Inn, St. Cloud, FL via Doc Partin Ranch Rd & Canoe Creek Rd
Finish: Crown Motel, Kissimmee, FL via Kissimmee Lakefront Park
Shannon and I hung out in the Budget Inn and enjoyed a slow morning because we are only going to do 12 or 18 miles today. We caught up on the latest episode of The Book of Boba Fett (a.k.a. the baby Yoda show) before packing up and heading out. We caught an Uber back to where we got off the trail and finished the terrible road walk only having 5 or 6 miles left until we reached a sidewalk. The Circle K convenience store was our only hope and we made it there a little bit before lunchtime, high-fiving each other as we knew the rest of the day was going to be smooth sailing with sidewalks and very few places where we’d be forced to jump off the road to dodge trucks and zooming vehicles.
Shortly after the Circle K convenience store we came across a shopping plaza with McDonald’s and a grocery store called Publix. Shannon said he had to go use the bathroom so he started towards McDonald’s. When I looked at the time and with it so close to lunch, I suggested why don’t we get some food from the grocery store which will probably give us less of a stomach ache than McDonald’s. Shannon agreed, heading to the grocery store bathroom and then scooped up some sushi for us which was awesome. We sat outside the grocery store next to a bike rack eating our sushi and drinking iced tea. A lady came by from the nearby hair salon and told us “¡Buen provecho!” which from my Spanish podcast lessons means bon appétit or have a good meal! I’m learning woohoo!!!
When it was my turn to use the bathroom, a couple of firefighters ended up chatting with Shannon outside the grocery store and asked him all about the Florida Trail. Shannon was surprised that the firefighters even knew about the Florida Trail and shared some info with the guy who said he’s always wanted to hike it. It was cool to see other people in the area know about the Florida Trail especially since so many people had no idea it literally went past their doorstep.
We left the grocery store and headed out following sidewalks through the city limits of Saint Cloud walking through different neighborhoods and gated communities with funny names like “Keystone Pointe” and “The Villagio” to make it seem like you were living somewhere fancy but in reality all the neighborhoods looked exactly the same. I think the naming was more to help residents remember which cookie cutter neighborhood that they lived in and maybe to help boost real estate prices. Shannon said he really liked walking through the neighborhoods because there’s so much to see from the different pets, pools and landscaping and spying over the fence to see who had what in their backyards. There’s some really cool fenced in backyards with floor-to-ceiling screened in porches with pools or large trees and plants growing amongst indoor hammocks. It was a neat little concept because I’m sure the mosquitoes are really bad in the summer and this screened in porch would allow you to hang out after dark with minimal insect issues.
It was fun looking in the murky retention ponds and spotting what we thought might be alligators. From far away we caught a glimpse of a 7- or 8-foot-long mama gator with her tail curled up defensively as she faced the water keeping an eye on her 2-foot-long babies that were busy swimming in the pond and sun tanning themselves on the banks of the water. One of our Uber drivers told us that there’s a local initiative that if you’re in the city and see an alligator that’s longer than 5 feet, you can report it and someone will relocate it out of the city to who knows where. The locals didn’t think much of this because there’s so many alligators that even if you remove the big ones there’s still going to be small ones that grow up to be big ones so what are you really doing? Sounded like a big waste of money but the big alligators are likely more of a risk to eating your fluffy Pomeranian or pedigree cat so I guess I could see it.
The tough part about the trail road walking and going through towns is that there are few places to use the bathroom that weren’t someone’s yard. The businesses on this stretch of trail were few and far between and so we had to be strategic. We stopped at a nice park with shaded picnic tables talking to Shannon’s sister Diana and her husband Tyler and their dog Hyzer. We quickly used the bathroom, topped off our water bottles and then headed out down into the residential areas where we came across school kids walking home and tried our best not to be too scary with our backpacks and hiking poles. Talk about stranger danger seeing us!
As we crossed the road to stay on the sidewalks, we got a surprise escort across the road by a lovely crossing guard who pressed the crosswalk button, held up a stop sign, blew her whistle and let us go by. I think we made her day and we definitely made her laugh as we said we were a bit on the older side for her typical clientele (aka the elementary school nearby). The trail turned into residential neighborhoods with lots of nice houses bordering beautiful lakes filled with alligator flag and lilies. The large lakeside houses were nicely manicured with enormous monstera plants and pink and orange tropical waxy leaved bushes. It was cool looking at the houses but also not so cool because I had to pee again and the next bathrooms along the trail were 3 miles ahead. A gas station that had been marked on the trail was closed and so we powered on, quickly walking past suburbanite couples and moms in yoga pants getting their afternoon exercise.
Soon the trail veered off the main highway and we came across this little rest area with benches and a little view of Lake Tohopekaliga behind it. Nobody was coming and the roadway was far hidden behind some trees so we used the backwoods bushes. Then it was just another mile and a half to the Kissimmee Lakefront Park where we had planned to catch a ride share car to our hotel for the evening. There aren’t many tent camping options on this next section of trail around Orlando so you have to get a little creative. It was a lovely park and people were very friendly saying hi to us and talking to us. It’s a big Latino community with very fun and colorful people that we came across. One guy let us pet his dachshund terrier mix who had one blue and one brown eye. The little dog was small but spunky sporting a doggy sized Superman shirt and his name was Jor-El which is Superman’s dad‘s name.
Bass fisherman on their boats cast out into the stillwater looking for lunkers, aka the big monster bass known to be found in Florida and Georgia. The sun was sinking down at the far edge of the lake illuminating the lighthouse and fishing docks. Signs were posted everywhere along the waterfront warning park goers of alligators and poisonous snakes in the area. We kept our eyes out for gators but they seemed to be pretty shy with all the people fishing from the docks, walking on the land and puttering around on their boats. But we did see a lot of were swamp chickens, or gallinules, but not the pretty purple kind that we had seen on our airboat tour ride on the Miccosukee Reservation. The swamp hens were strutting across the water lilies and swimming across the open water and they’re usually pretty cautious birds so to see them walking around on the grass and the lilies without too much worry seemed to be an indication that the gators weren’t a problem.
We spotted a marsh rabbit chowing down on swamp grasses, its brown brindle fur and long hind legs tucked under it allowing it to swim across stretches of water between the swamp plants. We sat on a bench watching the sun go down as we waited for an Uber driver. He picked us up driving past the Orlando airport and dropped us off at a hotel that had looked promising online but was pretty old-fashioned on the inside with an angry lady who eyed us suspiciously as we came in with our backpacks. We ordered some delicious food with gluten-free empanadas, chimichurri steak with salad rice beans and sweet carmelized plantanos maduros and Shannon had pulled pork with yucca fritas, rice, beans and salad.
At the hotel we did our laundry for the first time in over a week and from the smell of it, very much needed. We had done some impromptu sink laundry at the River Ranch Resort but it’s not the same thing. With our clothes clean from the laundry machine we finished watching a western movie The Power of the Dog with Benedict Cumberbatch, Kirsten Dunst and Jesse Plemons that had supposedly just received a bunch of Oscar nominations. It’s a very strange movie and super meta and when it finished we were kind of like “what the heck just happened?” I guess we’re not film critics and had to look up on the Internet what the point of the movie was.
Then it was bedtime and we both passed out again like little slobs looking at her phone and trying to figure out what the next few days had in store for us. It was going to be a tricky next section because we go through lots of towns with long road walks where you can’t camp or really find water or even a place to sit down. We’re also hoping to watch the Super Bowl because my alternative husband Snoop Dogg is playing in it and I need to support him virtually. I also talked to my Nana earlier in the day and she’s been having a rough week. We’ll be staying with her quasi-adopted BFF Pat who is going to let us stay with her next week. It was nice to talk to some familiar faces and we settled in for the night still not certain on what the next few days would bring.
