Florida Hiking Trails Month

As the Pensacola News Journal reports, Florida Governor Charlie Crist February designated February as Florida Hiking Trails Month.  I love hiking, but I do not get many opportunities these days.  However, with the governor's encouragement, Wendy and I may take a walk in the woods here soon.  A number of sylvan retreats lie within a short drive, including PJC-Milton's fabulous disc golf course.  Of course, it would be very fitting to actually hike to a good hiking spot, but not from our urban setting.  The Florida Trail Association is hosting a number of events statewide.  They even have an annual conference!  Are you required to walk?

On walking

"Then the walks for miles around us were excellent, and we all became great walkers, for walking we found to be good.  Not merely stepping from shop to shop, or from neighbor to neighbor, but stretching away out into the country, to the freshest fields, the shadiest woods, the highest ridges, and the greenest lawns.  We found that however sullen the imagination may have been among its griefs at home, here it cheered up and smiled.  However listless the limbs may have been by steady toil, here they were braced up, and the lagging gait became buoyant again.  However stubborn the memory may be in presenting that only which was agonizing, and insisting on that which cannot be retrieved, on walking among the glowing fields it ceases to regard the former, and forgets the latter.  Indeed, we all came to esteem the mere breathing of the fresh wind upon the commonest highway to be rest and comfort, which must be felt to be believed."

- Edmund Morris, Ten Acres Enough (1864)