February 19
End: Scott Road
Miles: 26.4
Total: 1090.2
Ed and Jackie were very good to me. I took a shower and lay in a bed for the third time this year. In the morning we went to McDonald’s, where I attempted to learn how to show Ed how to use his Pandigital, which is an Android media tablet.
We then went to church at Lake Mystic Baptist, which is where both of them grew up attending. Hearing the history of the area was incredible. Jackie’s brother was born in Vilas, which used to be a small town. I can’t imagine life in this area eighty years ago.
Church was nice, and I couldn’t believe that one person gave me twenty dollars and another forty! I think at least one of those people must have thought that I was homeless. Afterwards a group of us went to Apalachee Restaurant in Bristol. The buffet was mainly fried chicken for me, and I thought that was just fine. I also got to pig out on pudding.
Finally it was time for me to hit the trail, or in this case, road. Ed and Jackie dropped me off, and I went and found the bike path leading out to the road. I handled the road walk pretty well, and was passing through the group of houses called Chipola in no time.
Darkness fell and I was still walking westward, trying to finish off the road walk. I got some warm gear on and broke out a glow stick, which was marginally effective. I couldn’t tell if drivers in North Florida were just not as adept as their Central Floridian colleagues, but one man stopped to tell me that my glow stick wasn’t bright enough, so perhaps that was the problem.
After a long walk into the night, I crossed the US highway and was ready to rest. I opted to pitch my tarp just off Scott Road rather than try to finish off the last few miles of the road walk.