journal: December 6, 2010
It was cold and windy – we wished for our warm hats and gloves in spite of the sunshine! The hiking trail follows the crest of a “hummock” and is surrounded by a maze of bike trails that crisscross the swamp and manage to cover about five times the length of the footpath in the same one-mile stretch of land. Florida is in a deep drought, so the swamp was dry and we left the trail to explore down where it’s truly swampy in a normal year. We spotted deer tracks, and what looked like the rooting of boars around the base of big trees. Back on the trail, we passed the “weird tree of the year” with growths that looked very much like snails climbing up the trunk (we checked – wood, not snails). Occasionally we’d spot white, very dry-feeling mushrooms pushing up through the pine needles.