"Over the last 10 years, beginning in 1990, we began to look at how to connect our green in Florida," said Debbie Parrish, director of the state Office of Greenways and Trails. "Before man, ecological systems were connected. Species can't just live in one spot."

The state formed committees, conducted studies and developed a statewide greenway plan that included wildlife and hiking, horses and canoeing, she said. Two years ago, the Legislature adopted it, forming a vast network of greenways spider-webbing through this fast-growing state.

"The idea," Parrish said, "is that everyone in the state would have access to it within 15 minutes of home. Ideally, one day you can leave Miami and get off in Pensacola. You might have to change your modes, get off a horse and into a canoe. But you can do it."

The greenway is not far from being connected to Jacksonville.

Parrish said plans have been approved to purchase 43,000 acres, called the Etoniah Creek tract, that would connect with the north end of the greenway at Rodman Reservoir. The tract is in Putnam County and south Clay County. From there, it's not far to Jennings State Forest near Middleburg, and that almost connects to Cecil Field, which is very near the Jacksonville-Baldwin Rail Trail.

"Eventually," Parrish said, "it'd connect it up to Georgia."

But the greenway is still in the process -- early in the process -- of becoming accessible and usable to the public. There are no trails all the way through it, yet.

The areas that get the most use, said retired greenway manager Dave Bowman, are the Rodman Reservoir, a haven for fishermen at the east end of the greenway; Santos Trailhead, a mountain bike park south of Ocala; and the canal at the west end, running from Lake Rousseau out to the gulf.

The Rodman Dam has been the subject of endless controversy, of course. Some people want it torn down to restore the Ocklawaha River to its original path. Others, primarily sports fishermen, want the dam to stay.

The state has decided that the dam will come down, but no funding has been provided and no timetable set for getting rid of it.

Last week, Al Harden was over from Ocala, fishing next to the dam. He had his three poles leaning on the fence, trailing minnows and grass shrimp in the water there.

He's retired and tries to get over once a month, fishing for bluegill and bass. But he had no bites that day.

"But if they're biting, you can have some fun," he said. "If I catch them, fine. If I don't, that's OK, too."

He's read a little on the dam controversy, but said he doesn't know much about it.

"I'd hate to see it go," he said.

There are boat ramps and two campgrounds overlooking the 9,600-acre reservoir.

Rodman Dam backs the Ocklawaha south to about County Road 316, near the small community of Eureka.

The river, which Bowman calls one of the prettiest in the world, is used by canoeists and fishermen. Because of the long drought, right now the river is little more than a wide, clear creek.

There are no trails along the Ocklawaha; greenway land is mostly in a flood plain and Parrish said her office is looking for higher land to buy along the river.

"The Florida Scenic Trail runs near there," Bowman said. "We'll go as far as we can on the greenway, then hook up with it. That's the plan, anyway."

The greenway leaves the rivers east of Ocala and heads southwest across dry land. And there are a few trails there, usually just a mile or two long. In some places, subdivisions have been built to the edges of the greenway. If the canal had gone through, tugboats and barges would have moved along behind those back yards and fences.

Marion County is putting in a park with 4.5 miles of paved paths near County Road 464, but that's unlikely to draw from very far.

Santos Trailhead does, however. It's just west of U.S. 441/27, south of Ocala and near the small town of Belleview. More than 40 miles of mountain bike trails have been cut through greenway land there, drawing cyclists from near and far.

"We see people from all over the state at Santos," said John Howton, a mountain biking regular there from Ocala.

The bike trails draw the biggest crowd, but there are separate trails for horses and hikers there, too. Mountain bikes and horses do not get along. The trails head 10 miles southwest to Interstate 75, where a unique structured in September.

The state calls it the country's first "land bridge," and it takes the trail over I-75. It's covered with dirt, lined with stone planters full of native plantings. The bridge is supposed to be a crossing for wildlife as well as people, though Bowman isn't sure if the animals have found it yet.

There's plenty of evidence that horses use it regularly.

Hiking and horse trails continue on west of the interstate, though biking trails haven't been built there yet. The soil is particularly sandy and tough going for bikes.

But it's in that stretch west of I-75 that work was begun on the canal back in the 1930s. With shovels and mules, camps of workers dug their trenches, some as long as two miles.

Those trenches, 30 feet deep and 300 feet wide, have grown up since then, with a wetter, cooler forest of loblolly and slash pine. The land around them is the usual sandhill habitat of longleaf pine and turkey oak.

A new trailhead on 49th Avenue was dedicated last week, 2.5 miles west of the land bridge.

Celeste Gavin and her Morgan horse, Guinness, are regulars on those trails. She's a retired Connecticut schoolteacher who now lives in Ocala.

"It's the greatest thing that happened to me," Gavin said. "I didn't think I'd have anything to do when I retired."

Now she and Guinness ride the woods, marking new trails, maintaining old ones and meeting other riders.

"We get a lot of people from Orlando, Sarasota, West Palm, Georgia," she said. "I know people who moved from Oregon and Arizona because of the trails."

There's a small gap just before the greenway gets to the town of Dunnellon, but the state is negotiating to get land there. The greenway does own the land where the clear water of the Rainbow River flows into the Withlacoochee River, though. Rainbow Springs State Park is there, too. It used to be a tourist attraction back in the pre-Disney days, but now the state's third-largest spring (500 million gallons a day) is a state park.

Land access to the greenway disappears west of Dunnellon. The Withlacoochee River is backed up at the Inglis Dam, creating Lake Rousseau. The lake is lined with homes and private property, and the state owns none of it.

Parrish said her office is trying to keep the trails going.

"We're working on a connection," Parrish said. "Maybe we'd have to get off greenway, get on the Withlacoochee Trail and take that 42 miles. That's north of the canal. Maybe we would use Goethe State Forest."

Inglis Dam is at the west end of Lake Rousseau, and past that, the canal runs nine miles straight to the gulf and a channel extends another three miles into deep water.

There's a proposal from a group of investors to build a $100 million whitewater park on the west end of the canal, near Inglis. It'd be something for both serious whitewater people and vacationing families, with kayak and raft runs. Of course, elevation would have to be added to that table-top flat land near the gulf.

In the meantime, the state is planning to pave a trail on one side of the canal, from U.S. 19 down to the gulf.

"The neatest thing about this whole thing," Bowman said, "is that this is what a greenway is all about. Building a corridor for wildlife and recreation. Having a space this wide is unusual. Most greenways are railroad beds. It may be the largest greenway in the South."