Highway 41

Amanda and I, several years ago, once drove down Highway 41. Today, I would walk it on foot.

The walk, for the most part, was fairly easy, with wide shoulders to walk on or--for much of the way--an option to walk on a berm on the far side of the canal parallel the road.

I considered backtracking to the gas station at the intersection with highway 997 to resupply water, snacks, and use the phone, but finally decided not to after reading that such items were available a short ways ahead.

Oh, if I could go back and do things over....

My first stop was Coopertown, population of 0008. Yes, you read that correctly--anywhere the population was listed, it always included three extra zeros at the beginning, as if the eight citizens had grander plans in mind and wanted to make sure their signs could handle the population explosion to come.

I stopped at the picnic tables, took off my shoes, and laid down. A few minutes later, a couple of Kentucky pulled up, asking about airboat tours. I hadn't planned on doing an airboat tour myself--I'd done that with Amanda a couple of years before, but it only cost $19, paid at the end of the 40-or-so minute trip. The guy joked that if you didn't come back, you didn't have to pay. What could go wrong?

I decided to go. Sitting around a boat while the scenery went by? Now THAT sounded like fun! It would only take an hour out of my day, which is how long I probably would have laid around doing nothing anyhow.

Two others showed up shortly before the boat left, a couple from Austria, and the five of us got a nine-mile tour of the everglades.

The airboat rides are a classic tourist trap, but they are FUN. They speed down mere trickles of water at high velocities, seemingly to break the laws of physics, but the boats can travel through as little as four inches of water. I also saw my first alligators since my arrival in Florida, though apparently everyone will see alligators on airboats rides. Our guide took us to several gator holes, depressions that gators dig to stay cool during the dry season, and we could see the fish and turtles swimming in the water.

The everglades, as our guide explained it, is just a gianticly wide river more than 50 miles across but rarely more than a few inches deep. The water travels at about 100 feet per day.

I quizzed the guide on how this environment compared to the Big Cypress area, my gut telling me that I'd be walking directly through this sort of environment soon, and that's pretty much what he told me--except that there would also be cypress trees. Oh, joy. =)

The guide also told us that several movies and TV shows were filmed there, including Key Largo, Gentle Ben, the first episode of CSI: Miami, and a bunch of others I quickly forgot.

At the end of the tour, I asked if there was a spiget I could fill up my water with, and the tour guide got me two small water bottles. "You don't want to drink the tap water here."

Perhaps not, I thought, but I bet I'd want to more than the water directly from the everglades, which while pretty, did not look at all appetizing.

I emptied the two water bottles into my Platypus, thanked him, and headed out again. The phone, promised in my guidebook, was a bust. There were no public phones nearby.

I choose to walk along the road rather than the canal because the left side of the road was still in shade. I wouldn't get the view from the canal, and I'd have to listen to the traffic, but shade trumps all.

I stopped at every airboat ride along the way. I didn't ride in anymore airboats--once was quite enough, but I inquired about pubic phones for use (most of the time, they recommended the gas station at the intersection of highway 997 and highway 41--thanks, but I'm not walking back there!

I considered buying a cold soda, but at $2 for a 20 ounce bottle, felt it was a ripoff.

I became rather discouraged at finding water, phones, and rest at the stops. At times, groups of turkey vultures flew overhead, and I wondered if they knew something I didn't.

A memorial for the victims of ValueJet flight 592 was set up on the far side of the canal, a series of concrete columns laid out in a triangular shape, and I felt drawn to it. I crossed over the canal on lock structure 333, and set my pack down--no sense carrying it over to the memorial just to carry it back.

The plaque with all of the victim's names had flowers, baseball caps, coins, and other miscellaneous items spread out around them, and I felt so sad. It's a simple memorial as memorials go, but there were just so many names. The plane crashed out there, somewhere in the Everglades, and I remembered reading about it when it happened, and how difficult it was for rescuers and investigators to get to the crash site. The memorial was in the shape of a giant triangle, with the plaque at one of the points, as if it were pointing to the location. I don't know for sure if that's the case, but that was the impression I got.

I didn't know anyone from that doomed flight, but I did notice two people named Carpenter died on it which made it seem more personal.

I took out a penny from my pocket and dropped it on the plaque, to add to the other coins there, said a small prayer for them, and walked back to the lock structure and resumed the walk.

These people will always be remembered for how they died, rather than how they lived--a terrible waste.

I didn't walk much further--I stopped at a boat launch, tired of walking, and threw out my ground sheet and took a nap. There was no shade anymore, so I opened my umbrella, wrapping the loop around the end around my wrist to make sure it wouldn't blow away in the wind, and went to sleep.

I still had miles to do, however, and my guidebook mentioned a motel available up ahead in the Miccosukee Indian reservation. Not a casino like the last one, I might add, and that a phone would be available. That's where I wanted to go for the night.

Darkness decended, and I continued the hike by headlamp, finally reaching the Miccosukee village.

I stopped at a restaurant for dinner, and the staff was very efficient and accomodating, but the food was boring.

Just beyond, I stopped at the General Store, the last good store for supplies for the next 71 miles according to my guidebook, when the checker asked about my hike and where I planned to stay the night.

When I mentioned the motel up ahead, she told me it had closed.

Damn.

It would be another night in the woods for me, then. And there was no phone in town--no updates on my blog this day.

I slept in a small nook just outside of town, using broken branches to mask my campsite, but didn't sleep well between the traffic on Highway 41 and the mosquitoes along the canal.