Salvation

The night was wonderful. Cool, clear, and a brillant moon lighting up the landscape.

I didn't waste much time getting back on the trail after the sun rose, however, because civiliation was waiting about 14 miles ahead. Restaurants, supplies, air conditioning, and all things good. And if the timing was just right, a meet-up with Amanda. I expected her to be in the River Ranch area, perhaps by around 3:00 in the afternoon, so that's when I wanted to be there too.

There's not much to report about this section of trail. It meandered a bit, like most trails do, through cow paddies, which I quite expected at this point.

Eventually it came out and followed some dirt roads for several miles, exposed to the sun, but fortunately not too terribly hot. Then ducked back into trees. I passed a very dead cow, decorated with turkey vultures, and at one point lost the trail completely.

I went back to the last orange blaze, and walked a small semi-circle around it looking for the next blaze, but came up empty handed. Then I walked a large semi-circle around it, and came up empty handed again.

Assuming the blazes really weren't on this side of a small canal, I started hunting for blazes on the other side, finally finding a blaze and back on track again.

When the trail came out at a trailhead, I noticed a bright, shiny car parked on the side, thinking to myself, "It's been awhile since I've seen one of those!"

Then I noticed a head behind the steering wheel waving at me. It was Amanda! =)

I happily threw my pack in the car, grabbed a cold drink she had brought in a cooler, and jumped into the car.

She wisked me away to Lake Wales, the largest town anywhere near the trailhead, where we booked ourselves into the local Super 8 and I spent hours catching up on the Internet with the laptop Amanda brought.

I took a shower, changed into clean clothes Amanda also brought, and we went out for a wonderful dinner at a local eatery, whose name slips my mind now.

Life was good.

We started formulating plans for the rest of the week--Amanda would be supporting me for the better part of a week, and we started planning and calculating what to do for the rest of her time in the area.