Look at Mother Nature On the Run

It's not quite as dramatic as the title implies, but while I was headed out for a solo tour of the Munson area in the Apalachicola National Forest (ANF), I came across a cyclist with a yellow extension cord wrapped around his handlebars.  He had no shirt or helmet and was wearing cut off shorts.  He wouldn't meet my gaze nor did he respond to my friendly hello.  I became suspicious.

It was a balmy 97 degrees last Sunday afternoon and the parking lot at the trail head was almost empty.  I ran up on my extension cord friend not long after leaving my truck.  Since I was on a verrrry leisurely ride I was taking the opportunity to look around and groove with nature.  Something that I find hard to do when riding with others.  As the trail passed the first wet weather pond I noticed some garbage on the bank.  I stopped and eased the bike off the trail to get a better look and found that some trees had been cut down and sort of a rough camp set up.  Had I found Mr. Extension Cord's summer home?  Creepy.

I saw the same thing happen to the Ocala National Forest as urbanization surrounded it.  Garbage, parties, meth labs, bums, and all the other effluvia that comes when we make the woods easier to access and people press in from all sides.  In just my life time the Ocala went from being a place where you had to have 4 wheel drive just to get around to being filled up with motor homes.

Anyhoo, right after leaving the camp site I found some old moto trail (again) that the horsey people had been riding, and followed it for an hour.  The moto trail was sandy, bushes and smilax vines scratched my legs, I fell over twice.  But the tunes on my mp3 were good (yea, on Sunday I was that guy) and I found my happy place.  I could smell the heat coming off the wire grass and was content to just poke along.  Before long my water started getting low so I got back on the ribbon of orange and headed for the water fountain next to the paved trail.

After filling up and rinsing the sand and blood off my knees, I took the connector over to the Twilight trail.  When my head started to get hot the wind would blow, the sand crunched under my tires, Neil Young sang, and all was right with the world.  I just kept thinking "if I only had a yellow extension cord this would be a perfect day".