We had the puppy with us and not long after we got into the woods he found some deer tracks and put his little beagle nose to the ground and wanted to follow those tracks all over the place. 
There had been a controlled burn in that area recently and after hiking about half a mile in we found the spot the cache was supposed to be but it was nowhere in sight. It must have burned up in the fire because the GPS told me we were in the right spot but we found nothing but ashes. That was ok because I had lots more caches on my list so we hiked back to the car and went in search of the next one. This one was in a different part of the Forest and after hiking a little over a mile we came to another spot that had been burned and of course a little farther down the trail was where the cache was supposed to be. Darn, that's 2 in a row that have been lost in the fire. We did have a lot of fun wandering through the woods but we didn't see much wildlife. The boys are so full of energy that being quiet is not something they do well so any wildlife hears us long before we can see it LOL 
We did see some big cat tracks that must have belonged to a Bobcat. I've never seen one in the wild but the Island King has seen several over the years while he was out hunting. He says they're about the size of a medium dog and that they are really skittish. Of course we didn't see any today and I'm pretty sure that's because we were making a lot of noise. After hiking back to the car we drove on out to Deer Lake State Park. We had a picnic and then followed the boardwalk out to the Gulf. 
The boardwalk is over some of our area's most pristine sand dunes and it is incredibly beautiful. 
There is a geocache hidden along the boardwalk and the neighbor boy found it. It was his first find and he was SO excited. He kept saying that this was the coolest thing he's ever done LOL We walked down to the beach and the water was gorgeous. 
It was emerald green and there were several people out swimming. While it was a nice warm day it's still way too cold for swimming in my opinion and the Oldest Island Boy said "Those people must not be from around here" LOL I guess if you're from up North where it's zero degrees this is perfect swimming weather but we like to wait til at least May. After enjoying the park we decided to look for a few more caches on our way home. We found the last cache right as the sun was setting and the sun was stunning. We were standing on a walking bridge over a coastal lake and could see the sun setting right out over the Gulf and of course the battery on the camera died LOL I knew there wasn't time to go back to the car for the extra battery so we just stood and watched the sun go down. What an incredible way to end the day! Afer the sun set we drove home. The boys and the puppy are exhausted (so am I) but we all agreed this was a wonderful way to spend such a pretty day.Labels: Done