Scott invited me to go on a surprise adventure for Thanksgiving. And given his tendency to not want to go out much, I was more than happy to accept. Little did I know when he asked, that it would mean me being blindfolded as we drove there!
Now, I generally have a good sense of direction, and the fact that the warm sun was shining in the car certainly helped me in my trying to guess what way we were going. Scott made the mistake of asking me if I knew where we were, and apparently I was pretty much spot on in the beginning of our trip. (Well, he did say that I was about a block off, but that's not bad for a blindfolded person!) I finally was thrown off when I was expecting a turn off to the right, but we continued to go straight for quite some time. Then we began to loop around and go through an area that obviously had roads over our road, and we changed elevations several times and I got very confused and couldn't figure out where we were. I finally confessed my total "lostness" to Scott and commented that with all the traveling north and then south and then north and then south, that for all I knew we would end up at Moss Park, which is just a few miles from our house.
After driving for almost an hour, we finally arrived at our destination and I could finally take the blindfold off. And lo and behold, while we weren't at Moss Park, we were at
Split Oak Forest, a nature preserve that has a series of nature trails that can actually be accessed via Moss Park or by driving just a few miles south from our house (instead of north). Scott told me later that he was blown away by my navigational skills. :-) He also told me that he got a little desperate because I was so right about where we were and so he resorted to driving through the airport several times (which explained the curves and elevation changes!)
The ironic thing about how well I knew where we were when I was blindfolded is that if it was up to me while we were there, we would have gotten lost and probably would have wandered around for days. (The trails are jsut a few miles long apiece, and form a series of loops, almost like a snowman. And, yes, I do have a great imagination!
http://www.floridaconservation.org/recreation/split_oak/split_oak_map1.pdf)
And, yes, we did have turkey while we were out, thanks to Trader Joe's turkey jerkey! (And when we got home, we had an omelette for dinner with turkey bacon as well)
It was a perfect day for a walk with temperatures in the low 70s and very little humidity. The skies were a beautiful blue and all was peaceful. Here are a few of the things we saw that I deemed photo-worthy.
My beloved
I love the rough textures of the pine trees!
There is probably a more serious scientific name for this stuff, but Scott and I both called it popcorn moss. It was on the ground under the pines.
These pretty yellow wildflowers were prevelant along the trails as well. I love the way the background came out
Who knew that there are cactus in Florida? These little guys are actually all over the place here
Florida Fall colors
Thank you, Scott, for coming up with such a fun excursion for us. And for helping us get home in one piece as well!
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