We spent several days holed up in a motel in Bristol, FL. Jude's new boots came in the mail (hers were disintigrating in Apalachicola). We also bought a bunch of food and sent maildrops to several towns in Alabama, since we didn't know if there would be stores for resupply.

We headed north from Bristol and stayed in Torreya State Park one night. This was the first real hill we saw in Florida. It was exciting. We raced as fast as we could to the stateline and made it there in a few days. *

The Florida/Alabama state line! Florida was finished! It was soooo cold we were wearing everything we had. Our packs were practically empty. *

We roadwalked through southern and central Alabama.

Alabama was beautiful.

We saw a variety of sights: farms, suburbs, small cities.

Mostly we tried to stay out of populated areas. We used our Gazetteer to try to find rural roads with wooded areas alongside them and streams to get water from.

We camped by the side of the roads at night. Many times we were lucky enough to find pine stands that we could hide ourselves in.

A few times we camped in more developed areas. That was no fun. One night we were hiding behind rolled hay bales between three houses. The local dogs barked at us all night. We left before dawn. One night we flat out asked a guy if we could camp on his lawn. Christopher and his mom turned out to be true trail angels. Fate lead us right to them!

For much of Alabama we were stalked by the "Thump....thump...thump....SHREIK!" monster. This was a mysterious creature we heard outside our tent at night. It was scared away by dogs. We think it might have been a panther.

Despite our rural route, we found tons of resupply possibilities wherever there were crossroads. We also stumbled upon some fabulous BarBQ.

Many crossroads turned out to have stores that had closed decades ago. When we found open stores, the people we met were sooooo hospitable. Everyone was friendly and helpful and we had many cups of coffee and sandwiches given to us for free. Alabama was the best state we have ever hiked through, and we didn't even have a trail for most of it.

There is an Alabama Trail being constructed now, but we opted to create our own route for a variety of reasons. We were happy with our decision and had a great time in Alabama.

This was Buster.

We named him that. He lived next to the road and liked to have his nose scratched.

Grape Ape (our hero) and his mom Iris took us home before we began the Pinhotti trail. Grape Ape even picked us up midway through Pinhotti when the whether turned bad.

We spent a few nights with Grape Ape and Iris. We read (Harry Potter), lounged, and got to talk to Rusted Root (Grape Ape's brother) on the phone. *

The last 100 Alabama miles were in Pinhoti Park. Ahh...real hiking again. *

Pinhotti gave us a taste of the Appalachians before the Appalachian Trail. Oh yeah, this is what climbing mountains feels like!

Pinhotti was beautiful.