End of the Road

It was bound to happen.  I feared it every day since the heavy rains that stopped me at Tallahassee and again at Chipley.  It was the talk in every country store.  Which roads are flooded?  Which bridges were damaged and closed?  It’s not something you call a number and learn.  No website lists the closures on the small country roads; your only information is word of mouth.  The county will close a bridge without notifying anybody in the form of detour signs.  You have seen my pictures of flooded roads for three days now, but none of them affected my travel because I either learned of closures from locals or I was lucky.  Today I was not lucky. 

When I came to this road closure and saw the river flowing over it and the bridge in bad shape in the distance, I was twenty miles out and apparently at a dead end.  I was discussing the situation with man who lives nearby and had come to see how high the water was.  “How deep do you think it is,” I asked.  He said about two feet.  “I can wade across then,” I said hopefully.  He said the water’s pretty cold.  I tested it with my hand and it was.  The air was about 45 degrees.

While we stood there at the edge of the known world, a pickup came from the other direction and started into the water.  I watched it inch along as water came up to near the tops of its tires.  I knew I had to try.  And you know that I made it when I say I’m in Pensacola writing about it.  My feet were cold, but I had dry socks to change into. 

Ever since I saw the white sand at Daytona Beach, I have seen it every day across Florida.  Here it is where rainwater moved it.  If you dig six inches into the forest soil, you hit white sand.  I must learn why it has not decomposed into soil over the thousands of years of forestation.

The pine forest extends as far as I can see from this and other high places.  Most of it is tree farms, planted and harvested after some twenty years.  Some is wild forest. 

An appropriately labeled wine at the end of a long day while relaxing in Pensacola.