Saturday, February 1, 2003
We broke camp rather early in the morning to head north to the Hillsborough River State Park northeast of Tampa and decided to detour into St. Petersburg to take the Volksmarch there. The road to St. Petersburg crossed Tampa Bay on a long causeway and high, very graceful looking bridge. Since I was driving, I enjoyed it (Monika does not like driving across tall bridges!).

The St. Petersburg walk started off by leading us to the waterfront for an inlet that ultimately lead to Tampa Bay. We followed the waterfront for a long time, admiring the houses on either side of the inlet. We also watched the pelicans soar just above the water and occasionally make a splashy dive for fish. This segment ended in historic old St. Petersburg where we passed the huge but very pretty Vinoy Renaissance Resort on the way to a long pier. For an extra 3 kilometers credit, we walked to the end of the pier that had a small food court and a couple of boutiques. We had a great view of a regatta of small sailboats from the pier and I wanted to have lunch on the tables outside but we couldn’t find anything but deep-fried food or pizza, so we gave up and walked back into the historic district. Cutting back across the historic district we returned to the start/finish by zigzagging thru residential areas near the waterfront. The variety of house styles and architectures kept us entertained altho our feet were getting tired and we happy to climb into the truck and drive off for lunch at the end.

We arrived at Hillsborough River State Park and set up camp in time to take a shower during the late afternoon, which is the warmest part of the day. It may not seem like much a difference, but we found that the afternoon temperatures in the 60s or 70s made taking a shower much more pleasant than trying it in the morning with temperatures usually in the 40s. The same goes for cooking meals—we find it is pleasant in the 60s or 70s, bearable in the 40s or 50s, and unpleasant if the temperatures fall below that. Eating meal with gloves is awkward and without the gloves your hands get numb, which also interferes with eating. Also the food gets cold almighty quickly with temperatures in the 30s, especially if the wind is blowing. Warming fires will help this situation, but only to an extent, and if the wood is green or sappy the fire will add a lot of smoke that is also unpleasant. I cut and chopped a lot of wood, and we had very nice evening fire to keep us warm until we got into the tent with Mr. Heater and our sleeping bags.