It’s a cold and breezy February morning, and cars fly by as Justin Bright cruises down the shoulder of a rural highway on his skateboard.
The St.Petersburg native has been at this for 17 days and 500 miles, and has 500 more to go if he wishes to finish his journey. Constantly pushing, keeping a good pace, he's tucked into what’s known in the skate community as a “speed tuck” in order to travel with the least wind resistance.
“I just kind of camped wherever,” Bright recounts, “just enjoyed my home state and took everything in as the days went by.”
Bright, a former reporter for WUFT, is on a mission: raise money in order to support the conservation effort to protect wildlife in Florida, particularly the wildlife corridor. The Wildlife Corridor is the connection of ecosystems throughout the state in order for wildlife to freely roam without the impact of civilization.
As Bright puts it, “That’s what Florida’s experiencing, the more it grows and balloons, the more green spaces end up getting fragmented, and animals get stuck into islands, which is just not a natural thing.”