The Florida Explorer

In our quest to preserve and make available as many Florida writings as possible, here’s a public domain piece from Florida Enchantments, dated 1908.

In our quest to preserve and make available as many Florida writings as possible, here’s a public domain article from Florida Enchantments, dated 1908.

In our quest to preserve and make available as many Florida writings as possible, here’s a public domain article from Florida Enchantments, dated 1908.

In our quest to preserve and make available as many Florida writings as possible, here’s a public domain article from Florida Enchantments, dated 1908.

Recently, one of my favorite manliness blogs published a piece entitled Car Camping Is The Worst. Huh? The article went on to outline how terrible car camping is and why nobody should ever do it. Let’s right this terrible wrong.

In our quest to preserve and make available as many Florida writings as possible, here’s a public domain article from Florida Enchantments, dated 1908.

Years ago we camped at Oscar Scherer because we couldn’t get into the Myakka River campground (which was flooded). I returned here with the kiddos to get our stamp and to get reacquainted with the park, plus 3/4 of my kids never visited here.

I was pleasantly surprised by this little known state park, situated on the Gulf. No white sandy beaches here! Instead it was filled with springs, mangroves and hiking trails.

Everybody needs a quest in their life, mine is to visit all 175 Florida State Parks. This has been a goal of mine since the first time I set foot in Hillsborough River State Park (my first park) and realized that these places still have the old magic.

Myakka River State Park is one of the biggest (37,000 acres), oldest (established February 18, 1941), and best (see article below) Florida State Parks to visit and camp at.

We must have been insane to camp here during the middle of the summer. The campgrounds were flooded, the no-see-ums were horrendous and we slept terrible, but still…

Since I obtained the state park passport book I’ve been revisiting a lot of state parks I’ve been to in the past in order to collect the stamp and to enjoy the park once again.

The First Citrus Bank is offering $100 bonus when opening a new checking account and this is one of the easiest bonuses to earn that I’ve seen. This is an easy $100 to add to your FL exploring fund.

Every year cardholders for Bank of America, Merrill Lynch and U.S. Trust get free access to a selection of free museums on the first full weekend of every month. Just provide your credit or debit card along with a photo ID. Check ahead to confirm dates / hours. Let’s take a look.

The University Press of Florida is offering free “quarantine reads” in which 10 of their titles, in eBook format, are free for download through April 30! The books look solid and I’ve already downloaded all the FL related ones.

This month was fairly productive in my reading — I knocked out two more Carl Hiaasen books, and covered some ground in my goal to read 52 books this year. I’m about two books behind and I hope to make up those two books in April and be on pace for 52 books. We shall see!

In our quest to preserve and make available as many Florida writings as possible, here’s a public domain piece from Outing magazine dated 1891.

In our quest to preserve and make available as many Florida writings as possible, here’s a public domain piece from Outing magazine dated 1890.

I’m calling this The Ultimate Florida Quest…but really it’s just goals that I’m setting for myself to keep me on track and I’m hoping that it will inspire others to get out there to live their best lives. At the time of this writing I’m 35 years old. I’m not quite to the halfway point of my life (hopefully!), but I am getting there, and I still have a lot that I want to accomplish…so I figured I should write out what I want to do and to get going.