Road Trip

Pond Water

Mud HenWe drove a whopping 76 miles today, to Winter Springs and back and we finally ran into the Florida we love to hate, 6 lanes of heavy traffic interrupted by traffic lights every 1/4 mile. We did find an alternative route back that involved a toll road (best two bucks we spent today) and a two lane back road. The trip over was to have a quick visit with the fellow who lived across the street from us in Aiken. Oliver was the neighborhood historian as he lived there from the beginning and made friends with everyone he met. Unfortunately a couple of years ago his family moved him down here to be close to them when he and his wife began to show their advanced age. He enjoyed our visit and we enjoyed brightening his day.

Did minimal geocaching today, striking out on the one that is actually only 350 feet from our room at the Lakeside Inn, but we did find the one that was in a park a short walk away.

This evening we walked into downtown Mt. Dora for dinner. Last night’s dinner at the dining room at the Inn was fantastic, but we were looking for something a little lighter. Donna wanted ravioli so we walked up the 5 blocks to a pizza place thinking that they might have something Italian as well. They did. but no ravioli, so we backed back down the hill looking for likely suspects. After dismissing a couple we ended up at the Frog & Monkey Pub. No ravioli, but they did have a small flat bread pizza that was the perfect size for us to split. Donna got a bottled water and I got some Pond Water – Guinness & Root Beer. Don’t laugh, it is actually pretty good.

Started up, went down, went up, down again, up again, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 493

Faded Florida

Florida TrailWe are spending the next two nights at the Lakeside Inn in Mt Dora, FL and while the place is nice it would probably have been in its prime several decades ago.

Today it took us only 147 miles to go the 136 Google told us it would. We stopped several times to do some geocaching, finding 7 of 8, and walking along several trails of the Ocala National Forest.

Started up, went down, went up, back down, back up, down again, up again, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 489

Church On Sunday

Emperor Goes To ChurchThere is a sign on US17 in South Newport, GA that proclaims “The Smallest Church in America.” With our love of Roadside Americana we would have stopped to look at it even if there hadn’t been a cache nearby. Donna went inside and read a sign that said you can have your wedding here, it had better be a small party as it would be a tight squeeze with just preacher, bride, groom, best man and maid of honor. At 10′ x 15′ it is pretty small and I’d have a hard time fitting the Miata inside, but someone has found even a couple more churches littler – Smallest Churches in America.

We didn’t do a lot of extra driving today, Google says it is 197 miles from Pooler, GA to Lake City, FLORIDA and we only took 244 to get here. It was raining when the day started and for most of the trip it varied from drizzle to downpour until we entered the Sunshine State. Then true to it’s nickname the skies cleared and within a few miles we had the top down. Found 7 geocaches today, including our first one in Florida, DNF’d only one and that was another Florida first.

Started up, went down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 483

100,000 UFOs

100 GrandJust shy of Bowman, the Emperor, Donna and I split a candy bar in honor of his latest mileage achievement.

From Aiken, SC to Pooler, GA it is 136 miles as the Google flies, but we traveled 288. Along the way we visited an honest to God (pun intended) Abbey with real monks and stuff to look at 47 different nativity scenes in media that varied from rolled newspaper to stainless steel. We geocached in 3 different counties, finding 5 and DNFing one. We had Japanese for lunch, American for dinner and we are spending the night in a hotel that doesn’t have ice machines.

Tomorrow we cross into the other world where you can’t get sweet tea to drink, but you can get a paperweight made of a baby alligator head encased in lucite, the glorious Sunshine State, Florida.

Started up, went down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 481

How Long Does It Take You To Drive 514 Miles?

Over the bridge and through the swamp to Donna’s sister’s house we go. It’ll take us 4-1/2 days. No, we are not riding the tandem. Five hundred and fourteen miles is the most direct route down I-95, which we hate and avoid like the H1N1 virus, so we will spend most of the trip on two-lane back roads and beating back thorny bushes looking for Army surplus ammo cans full of Happy Meal toys.

The route back home will be 582 miles, half Florida Turnpike, half Georgia state routes and it will take us about 14 hours.

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 479

Belton And Back

Although we swore we were going to be staying home this weekend because we will be on the move the next two, we couldn’t stand it. We had completed the Alphabet Soup – South Carolina Style Challenge a couple months ago by grabbing 26 caches within the state’s border, each one beginning with a different letter of the alphabet, we hadn’t done the final stage in Belton. That was today’s destination.

We started by doing the bread crumb series of caches which start in North Augusta and end in Greenwood (or vice versa.) At each cache you get part of a set of coordinates and after doing all 6 you end up with the whereabouts of 2 different caches, one in each of the end point cities. Seeing as we were heading north, when we got to Greenwood we plugged in our bonus cache coords and headed off for it. When we pulled into the park where it was located the place was jammed with cars and people soccer balls. Turned around and left, to come back another day.

We also had a few others to look for on the way up and way back besides our goal cache in Belton. We finished the day with 10 caches found, 2 counties checked off, one more DeLorme page complete and one DNF.

Unfortunately the DNF was for the one cache we really wanted, Alphabet Soup. I know I really shouldn’t wear shorts when caching, but I’m willing to put up with a few random scratches for comfort, so I risk it. Hunting for this cache I really regretted it. Here is the log I left on the cache page:

It was easier finding the 26 letters of the alphabet caches than it was finding this one.

Walking along next to a stream when the arrow of the GPSr points 40′ into the the brush perpendicular to the trail. After about 5 feet in I knew I was not coming out of this unscathed, there were pointy thorns aplenty tangled everywhere. I got within 25′ of GZ and couldn’t get to it for the brambles. Backed up a few feet and attacked at another angle. Different briars stopped me, still about 25′ away.

Struggled back to the trail looking for another way in. Spotted something promising about 15 feet further along. Only a few steps in and already it was major pokeville. Dodge. Weave. Duck. GZ is 25′ way. Dang it. I’ve already been stuck several times, so I barge along parallel to the trail and get myself locked in real good in a tangle of stickers. Check the GPSr, yep, 25′ away. Losing a little more skin and blood I forge through the stickers in that direction.

I stop when I get to a point where there is an inch of water on the ground. The arrow on the GPSr is pointing back the way I came and you can guess as to how far away it said I was…twenty-five feet.

My wife, who had given up long ago because of the briers, talked me out of the sticker bushes before I passed out from blood loss and we mumbled and grumbled our way back to the car. I am not going to look good in shorts for several weeks…

If we ever come back for this one I’m bringing a DR Brush Mower!

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 475

Is That A Water Tower In Your Pocket?

Water Tower
Or are you just glad to see me?

We took a “little” trip to do some geocaching today. After going 0 for 2 in Hampton County last weekend on the way home from HHI, there was one more left that we wanted to try and it was only 72 miles away (as the crow flies.) We warmed up with a series of 4 ammo cans in a park in Jackson, SC. Then we drove through the bomb plant to get the other half of a multi that we had gotten Stage 1 of last Sunday. We ducked into to Georgia on US 301 to visit the country’s oldest operating Welcome Center (dedicated January 1962) and the grab nearby cache. On the return trip back into SC I took a picture of my state’s Welcome Center. It was closed in 2000.

The drive down was on really back roads passing through only a couple towns and they had populations of less than 3 digits. We made it to the spot where our goal was, at a boat ramp on the Savannah River called Stokes Bluff Landing and we might not have found the cache if we didn’t read the clue. We decided to loop into Georgia and come back on the west side of the river and pass through Augusta before coming home, but when we hit US 301 we turned right. Passed that GA Welcome Center again and retraced our route back.

About 200 miles of driving with the top down on a beautiful fall day. We were 11 of 12 in finding caches for the day and it wasn’t until I got home and logged them online that I realized we really blew it by missing that one, our total cache finds stands now at 249…

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 470