Marilyn Whitford and Clyde represented the Army Calvary in full dress for the Palatka Veteran's Day Parade. She and Clyde have become regulars and are well loved by the crowd.
Nov 12, 2008
Nov 3, 2008
Miracle Ride in Eustis
Cathy, KD and Linnelle met at the Lower Wekiva River State Preserve - Fechtel Tract to join the Miracle Ride to benefit The Greater Orlando Children's Miracle Network. Linnelle treated KD and Cathy to a home grown steak dinner Friday night with meat raised on her farm. Her Dad and step Mom came in for the evening to camp and cooked over an open fire. What a treat !!
The campsite area was spacious with a nice bath house for the people, a 10 stall barn and about 10 to 12 paddocks for the horses. Although the campsites are primitive there is plenty of water, with several concrete water troughs filled for the horses. The only real negative was lots and lots of sand spurs. There were several nicely marked short trails, but you could ride for hours and hours by tying into the trails at the neighboring Seminole State Forest. Seemed like the trails were all multiuse for riders, cyclists and hikers with a combination of forest roads and winding single track trails through the woods.
We saw lots of wildlife including turkey, deer and sandhill cranes. Luckily we didn't see any bears but we saw loads of sign on the trail. Cathy and KD stayed again Saturday night, but Linnelle had to head home to start moving into her new home. Because the drive from Jacksonville took 2 hrs 45 minutes, it's not somewhere we'll go on a regular basis, but was well worth the drive and certainly a place that we would go again.
The ride was very well organized with breakfast by IHOP and lunch provided bySonny's on Saturday. They even had a lovely pit stop in the middle of the ride with water, apples and carrots for the horses and snacks and drinks for the riders. We chose to ride with the slower group so we wound up taking a slightly shorter trail so that we would all meet at the rest stop together. There were prizes for the most money collected and several raffle items. KD even won some free Seminole Feed ! We heard there were about 160 riders although the organizers said the attendance was about half of normal.
We saw lots of wildlife including turkey, deer and sandhill cranes. Luckily we didn't see any bears but we saw loads of sign on the trail. Cathy and KD stayed again Saturday night, but Linnelle had to head home to start moving into her new home. Because the drive from Jacksonville took 2 hrs 45 minutes, it's not somewhere we'll go on a regular basis, but was well worth the drive and certainly a place that we would go again.
View more photos HERE.
