America day 4

We had the intention of renting a car today to go on a hike around Blue Spring state park, but in the end Kaz's Grandma let us borrow her car instead. Whoopie! After devouring about 1/2 pound (kg) of cap'n crunch we were on our way.

On our arrival at Blue Spring state park, I was relieved to see quite a few Americans preparing for runs, bike rides, and walking tours. Phew, not all Americans live such a sedentary lifestyle here. The first thing we did was take a 10 minute boardwalk tour of the manatees (sea cows). They're exactly what I had expected; giant, slow, barely conscious, floating eating machines. Amazingly they lived in complete harmony with the gaters who lived there too. Sadly, periodic thick white scars on their backs meant they didn't live so harmoniously with propeller boats. After that we completed a 10 mile hike which took us through swampland, sand and tall grassy areas. It was a good hike, but completely flat (oh yeah, Florida is about as flat as the Netherlands). Can't wait to start my Alpine hike up north!

On the way back we passed a few shops and I got myself a new pair of sneaks (sneakers) ((shoes)), and about 10 bags of mulch, and food for dinner. We had decided to do Aunt Lori's garden, and cook some dinner as a thank you for housing us.

Before I end this post, I wanna do something weird; I want to talk about Kaz's Grandma. It was tremendously sad to notice that she would spend almost every hour of the day sitting on the couch in the dark watching Fox News on TV. I'm not kidding, probably about 23 hours of the day since she preferred sleeping on the couch where the colors and sound of the TV could wash over her. Apparently this has been a long term habit of hers, built in from decades of being a stay at home mum. She didn't strike me as depressed, but it was depressing to witness. I know this isn't an accurate representation of the average American elderly person, but I think it does indicate how poisonous a sedentary, automated and gender divided culture can be.