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.