Life After 50 Hikes is good! Selecting whichever trail I want from hundreds of possibilities, hitting the road and scouting out new locations, finding interesting places along the way... and apparantly forgetting everything I learned as a hiker during my first 50 hikes.
This past weekend Mom and Tabatha joined me for a Saturday hike. I chose
Lake Louisa State Park, which I had seen on the way to another Clermont hike, Crooked River Preserve, last year with Lisa and Trevor. I figured we'd stop at
Showcase of Citrus afterwards for ice cream, and I would be able to sneak in a visit to the
Lakeridge Winery to satisfy my craving for pure Muscadine grape juice. I told them we'd be hiking in the open, no forest, so they could wear shorts.
Lake Louisa State Park is a beautiful place, boasting a variety of terrains criss-crossed with miles of both marked and unmarked trails. It also has plenty of forest.
We started our hike at 11 AM, parking near Dixie Lake and crossing the street to one of many trailheads we saw along the paved road. I left the bottled water in the cooler in the car. The temperature was already in the high-80's. We stepped into the cool forest, without bug spray. I had an air horn for the bears, but I didn't bring trekking poles to fend off the wild boars. I was wearing jeans, but everyone else was in shorts. I didn't turn on my GPS tracking, and proceeded to wind us in and out of trails with little care for a linear track. And the only snack in my bag was a single protein bar.
I'm sure you'll be surprised to hear that 30 minutes later we were hot, thirsty, swatting away mosquitoes and standing 10 feet from a coiled snake that I had almost stepped on while paying more attention to the recent rooting of wild boars than the path my feet were walking along. What, that doesn't sound like fun to you? Honestly - that's what I love. Not the not being prepared part - I usually pride myself on being prepared (and I did have my first aid kit, multi-function tool and pen and paper in my pack). But I love the excitement of the unknown. I don't allow a whole lot of unknown in my day-to-day life, but I can't stop it out there in the wild. The whole wild is somehow out of my control, and in a complete reversal of my very nature, I love it. I love that around the next bend there could be a beautiful meadow or an interestingly shaped tree or a piece of history that has survived salt and sand and hurricane-force winds to greet me on this day or an alligator who may or may not be waiting to take a bite out of my leg. I don't particularly love the spiders, but I respect their right to spin their webs (out of my intended path, of course).
In all it was a particularly satisfying day. I survived the snake, we tracked wild boar, we did not run into any bear, we hiked 4 miles that was mostly in the shade, and nobody passed out. Admission to the park was only $5 and the bathrooms were clean with showers available because of the camping facilities offered. Picnic tables and grills, a canoe launch, and many more miles of trails that we didn't cover, all make this place ideal for a return visit. We looked at the rental cabins and contemplated a family vacation next summer.
After leaving the park we did drop by the
winery for my grape juice, and by La Fiesta Mexicana for a nice lunch/dinner to fill our stomachs. We topped the day off with a stop at
Webb's Candy Shop, where we bought some chocolate and I had the chance to taste some desert wines made in St. Pete. Yum!
