My day had started somewhat early with a quick walk outside checking the weather and scanning the forecast for the local weather conditions, I had all intentions of spending this afternoon on the water in my canoe. With the wind and possibility of rain I needed a backup plan. For myself spending the afternoon searching for spring fed ponds and Geocaching with a couple of friends sounded all too perfect. I knew of several good spots during the summer I like to visit when the humidity here in Florida is thick enough to sink your teeth into. With several phone calls and a couple of items loaded into my daily driver I was on my way to meet up with several hooligans.

We had made a quick stop for some subs and beverages before we set our sights on our first destination.

With the weather conditions holding somewhere between the scenes of The Wolfman and some of the Twilight movies we were ready to make the best of it. Upon arrival there were several gun shots across the lake from us, Figured it was a local hunter dispatching his hunt, or just wasting some ammo.

The smell of wet pine needles surrounded us and the lake grass was thick and in full blossom we had decided we needed a change of scenery. Several minutes later and we were off on the mission to locate some Geocaches. The main entrance into “big Scrub” (a park road into the Ocala National Forest) was a welcome sight and I had began to divert back to a young boy driving my parents vehicle for the first time with a couple of friends trailing behind me.

We were roughly 8.7 miles from our first Geocache and we were hot on the trail until the trails we were passing beat our Proverbial cat. All things in perspective the trails had looked too good to pass up. We had made a detour and our original mission had disappeared from sight. The lure for adventure had taken over and the cat was dead.

Truth be told this was the first time I had taken my daily driver Nissan Xterra off the beatin path, and honestly I was Intrigued.

Most of the day was spent meandering through the forest exploring trails and navigating the spotty GPS from my smart phone. After awhile we had hit a main service road and came across some guys that had a problem with their rear brakes and hadn’t brought a vehicle jack. I offered our assistance, several minutes later we had found the star adjuster had fallen out and was rattling around in the drum. With the fix completed we were off again at this time my buddy had found a quarry located just around the bend where we spent some time on foot taking photos.

(golfing in Ocala, Who knew ?)

By this time we had spent some 40 miles exploring through Ocala and had one more stop to make.

Department of Forestry had just implemented a controlled burn and it had left the scenery looking like a G rated Mordor. With a small bass brought to hand by my friend and a quick photo op we said our goodbyes and headed homebound.

(the ignition source of the controlled burn)

For those who are interested the Xterra preformed great in its stock configuration, however the  rear suspension was quite soft and I imagine its simply done for ride comfort.

In the end the cache wasn’t found upon the screens of our smart phones or GPS units.
It was found amongst the trees and trails that Twisted through the Ocala National Forest
that left nothing but foot prints in our memories.

Thanks for stopping by ,

-Chris