You can take the GRITS out of Florida, but you can't take Florida out of the GRITS!

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Crazy Caching in Weekend in Lakeland

This weekend, my BFF (OMG, did I just actually say "BFF"???), "Penny" aka Lj, came down from Pennsylvania for a caching run on Lakeland. Friday evening, she picked me up at work and we headed off for a "girl's only" weekend. We stopped at Sonny's in Clewiston for dinner and got up to my place in Lake Placid a couple hours later. Geesh, was it COLD that night!!! And there is no heat there, either! I barely slept all night, shaking and shivering while Lj slept in the bunkbed wearing shorts and a t-shirt. I guess if you live in PA, temps in the low 30's are quite comfortable???

Well, the next day, we drove into Sebring and picked up our good friend (and fellow blogger), Susan. The first stop was Spook Hill in Lake Wales. Neither of them had ever been there and since there is supposed to be a cache there...

That's Susan posing in front of the sign that tells the legend of Spook Hill. It's pretty cool eventhough I'm sure it's some kind of optical illusion or something...you pull your car up to a line in the road, put it in neutral and it rolls UPHILL all by itself. Honest, it does!


Leaving Lake Wales, we headed towards Lakeland, stopping in Bartow to grab a few caches along the Fraser Trail. This trail goes 7.5 miles from Bartow to Lakeland with lots of caches along the way. It was a beautiful cool day for walking!

The first grab was a cache in the woods behind this covered bridge.


This was a hunt for another cache further down the trail. We actually made it harder than it was, but that's something I think alot of cachers tend to do now and then...





We cached past 11pm that night...we were all so tired I don't think it mattered that the Imperial Swan hotel wasn't all it was cracked up to be. I know I could've slept on a cement bench and been confortable that night!
The next day it was off to the Circle B Bar Reserve for an event and alot more caching. The Reserve is a beautiful place and I'd like to go back and see it in the wet season when the marshes are more marshier.
I finally got to meet a couple of cachers I've wanted to meet for a long time...Yuzawa Kat and Burgi Dad. A fun couple and we tagged along with them to grab the caches around a big loop in the park that ended up going along a piece of the Lake Hancock shoreline.


I need to find out the story behind those earrings...


In the center, you can see a large gator swimming. There were quite a few gators trolling back and forth right off shore. We only saw a couple that were close. Pretty neat stuff!


And we spotted this osprey eating a small fish.


The hostess of the event at the reserve was the lovely, Jersey Girl (aka BeeDancer in Blogland). She is such a blast and I wish we could've hung out together longer. She was happy I brought her the famous "Spirit of Florida" hiking stick Travel Bug...Happy Birthday, Beth!!!!!!

After the event, a someone in the gang invited us to join them for dinner. We ended up at Sonny's (again!) since Jimbo's was closed. It was a great ending to a really fun day.


Monday we headed home, grabbing a few more caches here and there. We accomplished the infamous "Easy Series" in Lakeland, too...at night! Eventhough Lj was royally pissed that we conned her into going to an event, I think she had a good time. I'm pretty sure Sue did and I KNOW I did! I think we got darn near close to 100 caches that weekend. WooHoo!!!
Now to start logging them all.....ugh....










5 comments:

Sandcastle Momma said...

That looks like SO much fun!
I can't imagine finding that many caches in one weekend. And you saw so many interesting places as well. What a great way to spend the weekend - good friends and good caches!

SwampAngel65 said...

I'm serious...one of these days I'm going to make a run to Destin and you and me are gonna have to do some caching together!

Unknown said...

It looks like a fun event! Beautiful day!!! Spook hill looks pretty cool!

Anonymous said...

Wow - that looks like so much fun! And I miss BeeDancer's posts (I haven't checked but assume she's still on a break). I'm glad she's doing well. TGIF to you!

marcandeliana said...

You were definitely in need of a good cache run. Nice work!