Planning My First Go-Round

Since the Ocala National Forest is an easy and scenic drive for me, I think I may take the Land Yacht on its first off-road adventure Saturday (09-14-24.)

It's been a great month of driving this beast back and forth to work, and then taking it to the next level with a road trip/camping adventure to Key West, but I'm tired of seeing asphalt and people. In another great episode of "things I've read on the forum", someone (sorry I can't give you proper credit) advised to drive in 4H for at least 10 miles once a month or so to keep the drive train lubed, and here we are.

Open for suggestions on good first-timer trails in the ONF.

If you see a white 4Runner SR-5 Premium out and about with Lord Nermal/ RipNDip stickers, be sure to say hi!

 

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Ohhhh Fuuuuuuuudge. This outing will have to be postponed. Woke up this morning with the earache from HELL.

Felt like something's been brewing since the first of the month, ever since my daughter visited and wanted to go to Buc-ee's. Not sure if mixing in that throng of humanity gave me a touch of something, but whatever it is decided to rear its ugly head this morning. Feels like someone hit me on the left side of my face with a shovel.

I cannot for the life of me understand the appeal of Buc-ee's, well, except for maybe the Wall of Jerky. Not a place I'd choose to go if I didn't have to.

 

All that, a trip to the urgent care (thought it might be the flu) - turns out it's allergies. Hopefully the Zyrtec kicks in and I feel better.

 

You better not say stuff like that in Texas. Buc-ee's is a way of life around here. We treat it nicer than Catholic's treat the Vatican. Not only do they have an excellent selection of jerky, but the fudge is soooooooo addictive.

The best thing, and I know this is a minor thing, but the doors on the bathroom stall go all the way down to the floor and they're wider than normal stalls. It feels like you're crapping at home.

 

Yeah, if you lived with 300 people all taking a dump at once.

Here's some more blasphemy for you: the brisket sandwiches suck. Not sure how that passes as BBQ. I'm still pissed I paid almost $10 for that horse meat sandwich.

Buc-ee's only redeeming quality is the Wall of Jerky.

 

How DARE you?!?

JK…definitely seems to be love/hate for people when it comes to Bucee’s.

The 10 miles a month in 4WD thing is in the 4th Gen manual so you might check yours to see exactly what Toyota recommends for your model year.

BTW, did you ever hit the trail?

 

Sorry I didn't answer this sooner! I DID go out into the ONF the weekend - weekday? I seem to remember being off work - Hurricane Helene hit. Sing it with me: "If you're a masochist and you know it, clap your hands!" Explored some dirt roads and the one I was really curious about had one of those annoying metal and/or wooden arms across the path blocking vehicle access. Explored some other roads and found one that looks promising, both for off-roading and some possible backwoods car camping, but was immediately greeted by a deep water obstacle that I wasn't going to challenge since I was by myself. Another road I was going to explore looked like it went deep into a forest of pines. Looked at aerial shots and it appeared to be someone's private property. I wrote to the guy (who lives in Alaska) asking for permission to camp on his property but I never heard back from him. A major bummer because it would have been a great place to camp. I can understand his hesitation because I can't say I'd want some random stranger on my property either, but hey...not all of us go out into the world with bad intentions. I need another situation like I had when I lived in NC, where I happened to come across the owner on his property just as I was trespassing on horseback. We had a long talk and he gave me permission to use his 300 acres to ride. This 300 acres used to be a traprock mine but...oops! Someone hit water and filled up the entire dig site so it turned into a huge lake that someone had the foresight to release a metric shit ton of baby bass into and it became the go-to fishing/swimming hole so long as you didn't get caught. (Got a call from my neighbor once who got snagged trespassing for fishing and had to go bail him out of jail.) Good times!