by Adele Woodyard
Sunny days and temperatures in the 70s is the siren call to get outdoors. Have a bike? Hop on it and hit one the many trails Florida has laid out from the Panhandle to the Keys. Being a foot soldier myself I didn’t realize how far one could go by pedal, until I looked beyond the Pinellas Trail that stretches from Tarpon Springs to St. Petersburg. Not that I’ve walked those 40 odd miles. But even a stroll along the heavily shrubbed and shaded path down the street from where I live, offers a brief respite from civilization. You can listen to the birds, smell flowers, maybe come upon a wild rabbit before you reach the shops, cars and cafes in Tarpon’s historic district. It was enough to run a Search on Florida bike trails. What I found was almost enough to make me buy a bike.
A number of these trails around the nation started out as railroad corridors—in fact the Pinellas Trail was once the Orange Belt line. On Florida’s Nature Coast State Trail you cross the Suwannee River near Old Town on a railroad bridge. I remember seeing it from a houseboat. The first designated state trail follows the abandoned Tallahassee-St. Marks Railroad, circa 1837. The 20 mile line not only connected the Capital with the Gulf port of St. Marks but served the state for 147 years, making it the longest one in operation At the juncture of the St. Marks River and Wakulla River, bikers on the Tallahassee-St. Marks Historic Railroad State Trail can visit the San Marcos de Apalache State Historic Site.
In the Panhandle the Timpoochee Trail parallels scenic Hwy 30-A along the Emerald Coast’s green waters and white sand beaches of South Walton. Prefer woods to beaches? Dutch and Fay and Crooked Creek are off-road trails through the Pine Log State Forest, where there’s a campsite.
One of the shortest trails, at 3.5 miles, lies in Orange County, between Orlando and Winter Park, while the longest, Cross Florida Greenway, spans the state. Instead of abandoned railroad beds, it’s 110 miles follows the former Cross Florida Barge Canal from the Gulf of Mexico to the St. John’s River.
An unusual trail is the one atop the 100 foot wide Herbert Hoover Dike that circles the vast 730 square mile Lake Okeechobee. 62 miles of the Scenic Trail are paved, while 48 more are not. The second largest freshwater lake in the lower 48 states is so shallow, it’s hard to believe a dike was needed. Until you learn at least 2500 people are said to have died in 1928, when a hurricane breached the old dike. Two years earlier the storm surge took approximately 300 lives. Eventually the Corps. of Engineers constructed a series of channels, gates and levees that reduced the danger, and opened a waterway between Fort Myers and Stuart in 1937.
Pedal your way from one end of Florida to the other? Right now the Florida Keys Overseas Heritage Trail is upgrading 60 miles of existing bike paths and designing 40 more in its plan to reach Key West. If gas keeps going up, it might be worth a try.
For information on these and other Florida trails: 888-735-2872; http://www.visitflorida.com http://www.floridagreenwaysandtrails.com
And before your vacation, look for my new book on http://www.palmprintpress.com
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