Alex Outdoors

Happiness is………….hiking with friends. ♦♦♦ We set out on a sunny Sunday morning to hike a six mile trail at  Hillsborough River State Park , about 30 minutes northeast of Tampa. It's a popular, easy hiking trail that we could finish in under three hours. At 10 a.m., with the sun brightly shining into our excited faces, we stepped onto the trail. I had planned this trip, and according to my map we should have come across a restroom about 0.6 miles into our hike – something we were looking forward to after we’d all had a cup of coffee (or two) in the morning.  Unfortunately we didn’t know that the facility was behind a left turn and not visible from the trail as I had presumed, so we had little choice but to hold it. We were off to a great start! First photo op: the suspension bridge. Sturdy as it looks, it wobbled and wiggled under our feet as our group of six traversed over the river. The path turned off into the forest and ...

Hi! I'm Alex and I love spending time outdoors. You'll see in my blog posts that most of my time spent outdoors revolves around hiking, but that's not all I do. You can find me doing most things that everyone else enjoys as well: gardening, riding my bicycle, SUP or kayaking, lounging on the beach, or strolling through a local park after work. Whatever it is - as long as I can spend time outside I'm doing it. Unless it rains - then all bets are off. My inner sloth will win on most rainy days.  My love for the outdoors goes back all the way to my childhood; my family used to be a bunch of hikers and campers but I'll admit that I "outgrew" my love for camping once they chose a camping trailer over the rustic backcountry tent that I loved so much. In my mid thirties I switched to long distance running, which I loved DEARLY. Unfortunately, my hips and back did not and I re-discovered my love for hiking through a local chapter of the Florida Trail Association...