Aventuras De Viaje

A Walking Dogs Tail

One of the reasons we chose Florida was that both families could bring our dogs, Lily and Mully (short for Mulligan). Last year, we spent 5 weeks on Sanibel Island and fell completely in love with the island. Its charm lay in its 75 miles of bike trails, (this is where Big Red and Walter were brought into the family -our beach bikes – a story for another time), the fact that virtually everyone biked and we certainly did every day, the true, easy-going beach lifestyle Jimmy Buffett sings about, fabulous restaurants, even more, amazing ‘featured-flavor-of-the-day custard fave “The Shack”, world-famous shelling, and its long, dog-friendly beaches. We had two favorite walks, each a little different, where the dogs could literally walk for an hour or more, often off-leash, and it just seemed to set the tone for each day.

We booked the same house in Sanibel for this January. Sadly, as you probably know, Hurricane Ian, one of the strongest hurricanes to hit the West Coast, a Category 4 storm that had winds of 150 mph and a 15 ft storm surge hit late September, and while we watched as much coverage as we could, it was when we saw sections of the Sanibel Causeway Bridge wiped out, that we knew our plans would change. We later found out over 140 people died in the county, which is a whole different level of tragedy than losing your holiday spot of course. But we do miss Sanibel.

Planning was initiated and we eventually settled on the Keys. We knew the beaches wouldn’t be the same quality, but our criteria was short-sleeves at night guaranteed, but also within driving distance so the dogs could attend.

Our first attempt at a trail for the dogs was Curry Hammock State Park, which costs us $6 to get into, no problem right? Except there was no beach, no trails, no shoreline, nothing. $7 for 2 minutes and that includes the drive time. That’s $210/hr. I wanted a refund, but no one else was having it.

Fortunately, across the road a bit (and with free parking) was another trail head to a walk that promised “dog-freindly and heavily shaded” which if you know my vampire proclivities, is perfect. This little 1.5 mile walk juts off a section of the Florida Keys Overseas Heritage Trail, which is over 90 linear miles of pedestrain/bike pathways stretching from Key Largo to Key West, basically running parallel to Hwy 1. We haven’t yet explore the bridges along this route, but they were all already there as part of an old railway built over a 100 years ago.

The trail is through some forest and vegetation that formed on top of what used to be seabed and coral until about 100,000 years ago. Sandstorms from Africa helped bring dirt to the area until veegation could take hold and then over thousands of years of plants growing, dying, over and over, animals coming in, establishing habitats, it is what we see today. This particular path is not for the faint of foot as you are constanting walking over twisted raised roots and amazing coral skeletons from eons ago. It’s amazing when you think about it. If you’ve ever been diving or snorkeling, you’ve seen these beautiful, delicate flowers of the sea, swaying in the current, reaching out like animated bonsai trees, but rather than gathering sunlight, they’re reaching out there little nematocysts, just waiting to sting and stun their prey, from zooplankton to small fish. Clown fish are an example of a fish who love the safety of coral with a mucus coat around their skin that is 3-4 times thicker than typical fish. (Fish feel slimy because of this mucus/slime coat, or epithelial glycoprotein, that protects them from parasites, reduces drag while swimming, and of course helps regulate their osmolality, which is why our fingers wrinkle after a long time swimming and fish never wrinkle despite being underwater all the time.) But I digress, and really, on a walk, that’s the point isn’t it?

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