Birthday Afternoon

Sunday January 8, 2012
Silver River State Park Site 43

After such a great paddling morning we decided to come back
and have lunch and
CAKE!

Notice that the baker did not put which birthday
and didn’t have room to put anything but the
initials of the birthday boy.  David is a long name
for the non professional.
J 

After lunch it was off for a hike and some geocacheing.
The Mills are  professional geocachers with the right equipment.

Bill had checked out all the geocaches in the park. 
He picked one that was a two stage
but not too hard for us novices.

We set off first on the Swamp Trail.

The first clue was supposed to be at the bridge.
So here we are.

We were looking for a “dog tag”.  Nancy and I both
thought of a military tag on a chain.  We looked
all over, under the benches, on the outside of the
railings.   But it turned up in plain sight below the sign.
It was a DOG’s tag.   DUH!!!

The coordinates on the dog tag sent us to
a spur off of The River Trail.

We’re looking in the scrub for a silver can
(as in Silver River - cute)
Nancy spies it!

So she gets to crawl into the brush to bring it out.
Some reward huh?
What a good sport she is.

We opened it, checked out all the contents.
Bill signed the log.
The photo journalist recorded the event.
But you’ll have to check her BLOG for the picture.
She is on the spot with that camera.

With our mission completed we hiked back
and drove to Bruster's
for a dinner of
ICE CREAM

Nancy got a very cold Blackberry sorbet, Bill got
a Turtle Sundae with his favorite ice cream, vanilla, 
I got chocolate raspberry which David then told me was his choice. 
But David never gets the same thing I get even if that’s what
he wanted.   So he asked the girl behind the window
for their most unique ice cream and she scooped up
something called Jamaica-me-crazy.

Did he like it?

And he was even willing to share since it was
WAYbetter than mine.

the two pictures above are courtesy of the official
birthday photo journalist Nancy Mills.

After ice cream we went back to a
campfire and
MORE CAKE!!

Hey somebody had to eat that sheet
cake and you weren’t here to help.

But sadly both of us were too busy eating cake and enjoying
the company and the fire to remember to take pictures.
But I think the photo journalist has some. 
I just didn’t want to impose on her artistic generosity
and grab those from her too.

So just imagine it.
Gorgeous Florida January night that is imitating May.
Terrific campfire, not too hot, nicely blazing.
4 folks sitting around with plates and forks
and CAKE!!

Looks like he had a mighty fine time on his birthday doesn’t it?