Amelia Island

Florida – Saturday, February 23

I started the day off with a nearly 6 1/2 mile walk on The Black Creek Trail right near the motel. It was a beautiful day for walking. My donations for Florida were done, and I only had a little more walking to do, and I wanted to finish it up near the ocean again. So I headed for Amelia Island, right at the very northeast corner of Florida. It was pretty driving across the bridges and causeways to get there. I stopped in a wonderful old beach town called Fernandina Beach. Lots of people were out and about – I think there had been a chili cook-off, and lots of people were out shopping. Tula and I got out to walk through town, and all of a sudden I heard someone calling Tula’s name – and I couldn’t imagine who knew Tula on Amelia Island! It turned out to be Toni’s roommate, who had headed up that way with a friend, and Tula was happy to see her. After walking all through town and some of the side streets, I headed for the beach for the final bit of Florida walking, and there were a lot of shells so I had to gather up a few of them.

Florida was a divided state – 2 days of the journey before the Pacific territories, and 5 afterward, plus a few days to get acclimated to the correct time zone after the islands. In the end, I got all 56 miles of walking done, and made all 7 donations – Manna Food Pantry, St. Joseph College Teaching Zoo, Warrior Institute, Bread of the Mighty Food Bank, Heart of Putnam Service Center, Green Cove Food Pantry, and St. Francis House. Then I was looking forward to getting in the car and putting on some miles toward State #23!