Week 82: Auburndale, Florida

The school named after my grandfather

For the first and only time, I took a little detour this week on my walk to Miami and visited Auburndale, Florida, my father's home town. I was going to walk within five miles of Auburndale anyway, just by chance, and Google Maps says I only added one mile to my walk by making the detour.

When I was young, a trip to Florida from Ohio, or later from California, was a big undertaking, but we made our way to Auburndale every few years during the summer. It was always warm there, even at night, even while it was raining. Gram and Grampy lived on a lake, and we swam and walked on the dirt roads and played with my cousins who lived a couple of houses away.

My grandfather, Jere L. Stambaugh, Sr., was an important man in Auburndale. Although I cannot tell you the precise reasons why, I suspect that if you look into some of the improvements made to the city over the decades he lived there - things like building roads and schools, for example - he probably had a hand in getting them started.

I do remember a story of a prominent politician talking about how, in the small towns across Florida, there was always one person in each town -probably one man in those days - who you wanted to talk to if you wanted to reach out to the people of that town, and in Auburndale, that man was my grandfather.

Another story I remember was a time that Grampy had a question about some local issue, and he decided that he would just call his senator and talk to him about it.

So they decided to name the local middle school after my grandfather, but they wanted to wait until after he died. But Grampy lived to age 95, so before he died, the local politicians decided to stop waiting, and they dedicated the school while he was still alive.

Grampy was born in 1892 and died in 1987, well before the Internet and Wikipedia, so if you search for him now you might think that all his life amounted to was having a school named after him. There were reasons, though, that they gave the school his name.

I am over halfway across Florida now, with only 39 days left to Miami. Somewhere during the week I gained a day, so now I am on pace to get there by June 8.

Week 81: Richland, Florida

Universal Studios, Orlando

This week, for the first time in April, I caught up to 11,000 steps per day average for the month. I started the month slowly, but I have stayed less than 10,000 steps off the pace, and I have taken long walks in the morning lately to try to catch up. Also, I walked farther than usual with Joel on Friday, and that got me back on pace.

The weather is getting warmer, so I expect to walk at a better rate going forward. I am seeing comments in my community posts that this is one of the coldest Aprils in memory, so it is not just my imagination that the weather has been lousy, but now the short-term forecast is showing 60s and even 70s, so the walking should be good.

I am not quite halfway across Florida, but I should hit that mark on Tuesday. 47 days to go. 

 

Week 80: Inverness, Florida

Everglades National Park

It is beginning to feel like I am making some progress across Florida, as I am 200 miles in now, still north of Tampa on the Gulf Coast and Orlando on the eastern side of the state. I will pass between the two big cities and go through Lakeland, which is about halfway from the Georgia border to Miami, in a week and a half. Lakeland is a few miles from my dad's home town, so a bit of a landmark.

My calculations say I have 54 days left, which still puts me in Miami on June 9.

Sixteen days into April, I am still behind pace for the month. The weather is not helping much. This morning I took Arlo out, but it was raining, so we cut the walk short, and I am a few hundred short of 10,000 steps as of now, let alone the 11,000 I am supposed to average. The forecast for the next ten days includes nine days of rain - or more precisely 2 days of rain, one day of thunderstorms, and six days of showers. Showers around here means it will rain and stop and rain and stop and rain some more. When the forecast says rain, that means it will start raining and not quit for a long time. I don't even know what to expect for thunderstorms; we don't get those much. Not great walking conditions for now.

I saw a big group of mushrooms on my walk yesterday, ones I had not seen before. Morels should be here soon. Maybe all this rain will produce a bumper crop.

Week 79: Gulf Hammock, Florida

Key Biscayne Beach, near Miami

The Wikipedia page about Gulf Hammock includes a picture of the intersection of two roads - Highway 98, which we are following, and County Road 326 - but no buildings. No mention of any population. A post about an image from the place (an abandoned schoolhouse) says that it's a ghost town, and that seems right.

I am one third of the way across Florida, but my progress feels slow. I have only walked over 11,000 steps one day this month, and I am barely averaging 10,000 per day in April due to a slow start the first two days, so I need to catch up 9,000 steps. Still, six days ago I had 68 days to go, and now I have 62 left, so I kept pace this week. I need to learn to balance walking, and the rest of my life, with bridge, but also I am less excited about keeping up the pace as I get near the end. I think that at some point it became less of a quest and more finishing up the inevitable. Maybe when I get closer, I will want to finish with some big days.

Week 78: Cross City, Florida

Cape Canaveral

Even Florida, which is slightly smaller than Washington State but with three times the population, mostly consists of small towns and areas between small towns. Cross City, Florida has a population of less than 2,500, and the route we are taking goes through the middle of the state, away from the big population centers on the two coasts, until we get very close to Miami.

We are in countdown mode now. This is week 78, and I should be done by week 88, in 68 days in fact, if all goes according to schedule.

Not everything went according to schedule this week, as I slept poorly Thursday night and woke up tired and out of sorts Friday and only walked 4,000 steps. I was still tired Saturday and came up short, then had a thing to do Sunday night and missed again. I have always known that this sort of thing could happen - illness or injury or other activities - but thanks to Covid isolation and good fortune, my walking has not been interrupted much.

Today, Monday, I will get over 10,000 steps again.

Despite the last few days, for the month of March I averaged over 11,600 steps per day. In any good week, I can get an extra 10,000 steps or so in by walking to bridge plus walking with Joel, so that makes up for an occasional bad day if needed. Also the weather is slowly getting warmer, and Arlo and I can take longer walks more often.

10 weeks to go, 68 days, 750,000 steps, 375 miles. Keep pushing, let's get this done.