What is your Trail Name?
Jan 20th, 2023
Okeechobee, Florida
A photo of me pitching my tent with my noble steed in the foreground. Notice how I am in the middle of the woods, far from civilization.
A coincidental meeting with a stranger lead me to assume a new identity.
I survived to see another night. My second day of riding was a bit less exciting than the first. I was mostly on quiet roads and spent a considerable amount of time hugging the Eastern shore of Lake Okeechobee near the center of the state. I found a sizeable chunk of public land via web search that I intended to camp at for the evening. In order to get there, I had to hop off the Lake Okeechobee scenic trail and meander my way along a few canal systems and a series of dirt roads. It was nearing dusk by the time I arrived. Confidently, I pitched my tent as shown in the photo above, and began to settle in for the night.
One thing that I might share in common with many others, is that I despise crawling into bed at night while covered in filth. While bike packing, this is difficult to avoid. Throughout the day, you become covered in dirt, bike grease, sweat, bugs, sunscreen, and more. The idea of sliding into my sleeping bag in this condition made my stomach churn. So, I devised a brilliant plan that surprisingly worked very well. Something that quickly became one of my non-negotiable resupply items was baby wipes. That way, at the end of the day where no shower was present, I could wipe all the sludge off of my skin that had accumulated throughout the many hours of riding. At the very least, I could go to bed mostly clean.
In the company of others, I would spare them the unholy sight of seeing me strip down to nothing while carefully running a baby wipe over every inch of my body, by doing so in the privacy of my tent. Since my current campsite appeared to be in the middle of nowhere without a soul to be seen, I decided that I would grant myself the luxury of taking a standing “shower”. There I was in the middle of the woods standing as naked as one could possibly be (that’s actually a lie, I was still wearing my sandals). Why not? I was all alone with no chance of someone seeing me.
With that thought, I glanced up from my business and happened to notice a brash-looking fellow about 40 yards from me, making direct eye contact and walking in my direction! I scrambled to find any article of clothing within reach. My initial thought was that I had mistakenly wandered onto his property and he was coming over to tell me to get lost. To my surprise, he walked past me without saying a word and began pitching a tent a few yards deeper into the woods. He was there to camp!
“W-what’s your name?” I asked, trying to brush past the awkward first interaction.
“Grits,” he said shortly.
“That’s an interesting name,” I replied.
“Well, it’s my trail name. What’s yours?”
A trail name is an alias that is often used by someone when they are hiking. Most commonly, they are used by individuals that are “thru-hiking”, or walking the entire length of a long-distance trail system such as the Appalachian Trail. The name is usually given to you by other hikers, and it oftentimes will have a funny story that goes with it. Grits was given his name because he would go far out of his way to ensure that he had grits with breakfast every morning, without failure, while hiking.
“I don’t have a trail name,” I said to him.
“Well, you’re on a trail, so you need one,” he said back. Unbeknownst to me, I decided to pitch my tent near on top of something called the Florida Trail. This trail begins at Big Cypress Preserve in Ochopee, Florida. From there it meanders some 1500 miles before ending in Pensacola Beach. Grits had been hiking for almost a month by the time I had seen him, but that’s not the crazy part. The crazy part is that he was 78 years old!
After talking for nearly 30 minutes about what we were both up to, I finally asked “What should my trail name be?” He made a face and put his hand to his chin as he pondered for a moment.
“Easy!” he finally blurted out. “Your trail name is Calhoun!” I liked it. Apparently, there was a Hollywood actor before my time named Rory Calhoun. There was just one problem… There wasn’t a story! I was just being given a name based on the fact that I shared a first name with someone famous. When I mentioned this to Grits, he quickly replied through his thick southern accent “You were standing butt naked in the middle of the woods doing god knows what. Then, with your drawers nowhere to be seen, a stranger approached you and gave you a new identity. If that ain’t a good enough story to go with your trail name, I don’t know what is!”
With that, we both went to bed. He was gone before I woke up in the morning. Sometimes, I wonder if I had dreamt the whole thing.
