Out of Our Rut Blog Welcome Page

Welcome to the Out of Our Rut blog landing page.

Who we are:

We are a couple of former engineers that lived and worked in the Rochester New York area for over 30 years. When we were laid off from two different companies, one day apart, we took that as a sign to change things up. We had built a beautiful home on 50 acres and loved the place, but with plenty of time on our hands, we began to travel more and realized that when we were on the road for weeks on end, we didn't really miss all the “stuff” we had back home. Plus the work involved with maintaining our home and property seemed to be the only reason we would head back home. That prompted us to get out of our rut and sell 95% of our possessions and our home and move into our 38 foot motorhome and travel the country full time starting in June of 2016.

Chris and Jack Hiking in Washington State

At Pullout Along Rugged Oregon Coast

Our mission:

To explore the country with a strong bias towards outdoor activities. Our passions are hiking and geocaching with some mountain biking on the side. I am an avid photographer. I guess working at Eastman Kodak for 32 years had an influence in that. And while we live in a motorhome and stay in many campgrounds, we really are not campers. We seldom have campfires and don't have a corn hole game. We rarely stay at a campground for its amenities. We pick a place that is near where we want to explore. We think of it more like our home happens to have wheels and can move around. Our desire in these travels is to slow the pace. We didn't want to see if we could get to all the National Parks as quickly as possible. We like to keep a travel day to less than 200 miles and if the place warrants, stay for a week or more.

At Geocaching Headquarters in Seattle for #10,000

The blog:

For friends and family (as well as us) to keep track of what we have been up to, we have created this blog. It chronicles where we've been and what we've done as we wander around the country. Each stop along the way will, at minimum, get mentioned in the blog. Some longer stops in areas we enjoyed may get multiple blog posts in order to give that stop it's due. Generally the blog has lots of photographs as I find it difficult to eliminate photos I like. The blog will talk about the campground to some extent, but it shouldn't be considered a campground review. We seldom seem to exhaust the things we want to explore before we exhaust ourselves and need to move on. That means we may completely skip some activities or places in an area that others may consider essential. We look at that as a reason to come back in the future.

Pretty Sunset in Quartzite Arizona

At the Window in Big Bend National Park

This landing page:

The problem with just about any blog is that fact it is chronological. This is fine since that is how the events occurred in real life. But since our blog is so much about a given location, it can be difficult for somebody to find a specific blog post for a given location. I even find it a challenge to remember when we happened to be at a given location if I wanted to look something up. For instance, if someone asked about Twin Falls Idaho. I know we stayed there but it might take me awhile to figure out that we were there in June of 2017 to get them to the right post. If I could only look at a map of all the places we have stayed and have an easy way to get to the relevant blog post.

Since I already use Google My Maps to keep track of our locations, I have created a special map that has all of our stops since going full time. None of the routes are included in the map since that just seems to clutter it up and don't really add value. By clicking the link below the map, an interactive map with all of our stops will open in another window. It is then possible to move around the map and zoom in an area of interest. Clicking on any pin on the map will pop up the name of the location along with a link to the blog post(s) associated with that stop. Since I am nearly always 2 to 4 weeks behind in the blog, some of the most recent map points may not have a link to a blog, but they will in time. The GREEN pins are locations that happen to include one of our annual or yearly reviews.

So if you want to see what we found to explore in a given area, this should provide a much easier way to find the blog post.

Click HERE to open interactive Google map

Early 2026 in Titusville

Map of this blog's locations click this link to open the map

With the holiday over, most of the snowbirds that stay at The Great Outdoors (TGO) have returned and the place is near full capacity and there are lots of people out and about. This resort has a bunch of activities just about every day and some special evening events every couple weeks like comedians and various musical groups that perform at the large “manor” that can accommodate a few hundred people.  We aren’t big into those types of things but Chris has been attending various exercise programs about 4 mornings a week.

I’ve been going for bike rides within TGO to get some exercise since we don’t tend to hike as much in Florida. I had tried riding the nature trails which are covered in crushed stone and in nice shape. But the trails are just over 2.5 miles long, a fair number of people walk the trails and it is open to golf carts so there is some traffic. Plus, technically, the speed limit on the trails is 7.5 MPH and I prefer to ride faster than that and typically try to ride 10 miles so I must ride the same trail over and over. There are around 12 miles of two lane roads within TGO and while there isn’t a dedicated bike lane, there usually isn’t a lot of car traffic most times of the day since golf carts are the norm for the residents. There is a 15 MPH speed limit on the resort roads so that reduces the hazards a bit. TGO has a “courtesy patrol” that drives the streets and uses radar to measure speed and they are quite strict about speeding. Many days I will see someone pulled over by the TGO cops receiving their $50 ticket. I try to complete my 10 miles in 50 minutes - a 12 MPH average pace. At times I may get above the speed limit, but as of yet I haven’t gotten a ticket while on my ride! So far this season, I’ve made it out 60 times and I doubt I have ridden the exact same route for any ride.

One day we head about 25 miles south of TGO to a store at the south end of Merritt Island. It was just a few blocks from a Veterans Memorial Park. They have displays outside, a museum and some hiking trails. There is an Adventure Lab and a geocache on the grounds. We walked around the grounds to check out the various displays from the armed services and completed the lab cache. When we went to head into the museum, the sign on the door said it was closed even though the listed hours for today showed it should be open. I suspect that it is volunteer run, and something came up with the person scheduled to be here today. Disappointing but we figure we’ll just head over to do the couple miles of trails and some of the geocaches along them.  But as we approached the start of the trail, there was a construction barrier and sign stating the trails are closed during some large maintenance project. This trip wasn’t panning out like we had wanted.

Tank at Veterans Memorial Park

Corsair Jet

Helicopter

Globe

We checked out the geocaching map and found there was an another park just a few miles south of here. We head to Rotary Park of Merritt Island. We found a couple of geocaches but it’s a very small park with only a few trails worth walking. I doubt we even managed to get in a mile walk - that’s how it goes some days.

One of the other features of TGO is the nature center. I’ve mentioned this in a previous post and how they have some nice displays inside. But one other thing the nature center does is to bring in various speakers to give presentations. This season they have six weekly talks on Wednesday nights. This season we’ve learned about bird migration, alligators, eagles, bats, and  sandhill cranes. The bat speaker had actually brought along a bat and had it in her jacket pocket for the hourlong talk. When she was done, she pulled the little guy out and let us get a closer view. One talk on Florida panthers and bears didn’t turn out as planned. The speaker was a Native American, that had dressed in his tribe’s traditional clothing. While his speech was unique telling traditional stories from his tribe, it left most of the crowd disappointed since we really didn’t learn anything about the advertised topic.

Tosohatchee Wildlife Management Area is a 30,000 acre parcel run by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. It has 60 miles of trails and several dozen geocaches hidden. It sounded like the type of place we would enjoy. Given the entrance to the park is less than 10 crow miles from our lot at TGO, it seems like we should have spent a great deal of time hiking at Toso. But for whatever reason, we haven’t gone there in the 320 nights we have stayed at TGO in a little over 2 years time. We try to make up for lost time by visiting Toso twice in three days. I had looked at one of the puzzle caches the night before we visited but it seemed to be a rather obscure one that didn’t seem to have an obvious solution. The puzzle does tell us that the cache will be located exactly 1.339 miles from the posted coordinates but the angle is only provided if you solve the puzzle. The other fact is that the final location is just off of a well maintained trail. I felt that would be enough information to make some educated guesses where the cache may be. I went into a mapping tool on the computer and drew a circle with the proper radius and saw it intersected trails less than 10 times. I made what I believed to be educated guesses and added the pins to my Garmin GPSr. Saturday morning we head into the park. At the entrance is a pullout with the maps and information about the park. A $3 per car fee is needed and there are just envelopes that you need to put cash in while placing the receipt on your dash.

Our first stop is at a plaque honoring 7 service members that were killed on a training flight back in 1943. From here, we had a half mile walk to my first guess. One other clue was the final was at the base of a large oak tree. As we approached ground zero, we saw only one oak tree with all the others nearby being palms. We did a quick search and decided this guess was wrong. Back to the car to our next possibility. There is a youth camp and parking for a trailhead that leads to the Florida Trail. My second guess was more promising since this trail would definitely qualify as a well maintained trail. It was a 1 mile walk to the waypoint. It is definitely a pretty walk in the woods.

Florida Trail This Way

"Angel Bridge" Along Trail

We got to my calculated waypoint and found this section of woods has predominantly oak trees. This was both good and bad. Good because I felt this had to be the spot; bad because there were dozens of possible trees to check out and since there is a fairly amount of possible error in my calculations, we spend 20 minutes circling the woods on both sides of the trail. By now we were getting hungry but our lunch was back in the car. We reluctantly declared this spot to be another bad guess. There is one other cache in the area a quarter mile north on the Florida Trail. Fortunately we found this one quickly and made it back to the car to eat.

After lunch, we drove to one last possible spot. There is a road that follows a bunch of power lines and we park at a trailhead for the White Trail. It was not quite 3/4 to ground zero. It was another pretty walk but alas, there were only a few oak trees and no obvious cache. By the time we got back to the car, we had put in a very disjointed 5 mile hike and were feeling a bit frustrated. That night we drove home and concentrated on figuring out the puzzle instead of coming up with other possibilities. Fortunately we persevered and came up with a solution to the puzzle. Better yet, there is a geochecker that allows us to confirm our calculations are correct. It turns out that it is located along the Florida Trail but in a completely different portion of the park.

Since we knew we would head back to Toso to find this puzzle cache, we formulated a better hike with several other geocaches creating a bit of loop. One of the other puzzle caches in this area sounded interesting. The owner provided two waypoints and says the cache is hidden somewhere along a line between these two points. The problem is these points are 0.9 miles apart and are not along a trail. The only other hint is that the container is hidden near a “kewl” stump of an oak tree. That’s not a lot of information to go on even if we are looking for an ammo can in the woods. We aren’t adverse to bushwhacking but we know that following an imaginary straight line could be a challenge. Trees, thick brush and wet areas might force us to deviate a bit from the line and getting back on to is could be a problem as it can be disorienting. To improve our chances, I created intermediate waypoints for both my Garmin and Chris’ phone. This should at least give us a fighting chance.

Two days later, we head back to Toso and start our hike. We drive to the trailhead parking area along the power line road. There was a work crew cutting back some of the trees along the edge of the woods. It a cool looking machine, with an extendable boom and large circular saw blade on the end. The body of the machine has a large engine, huge tires and is articulated. It looks like it would be challenging to get this thing stuck.

Nice Tree Trimmer

Circular Saw Blade

We start on the Florida Trail and found our solved puzzle first. It’s amazing how much easier it is to find a hidden container in the woods when you’re looking in the correct place! Now we can start the next adventure - trying to find another ammo can hidden along the imaginary line. We head off trail into the woods and start our search. Having the intermediate waypoints definitely helped us stay on course. Any time we saw an oak tree, we would evaluate whether or not it was “cool”. We were never more than a quarter mile from the Florida trail but it felt like we were in the middle of nowhere. At one point we came upon another intersecting trail and saw if we side tracked, we could go find another geocache. With that one easily found, we head back to our imaginary line to continue our quest. We eventually found an oak tree that we felt had to be the one in question. The hint says the cache is 60 feet from the tree on the line. We concentrated for 15 minutes looking all over the place before I finally spotted the well hidden ammo can!

Bridge Over Channel

Wide Trail

With our two puzzle caches out of the way, we could look at the trail map and where other geocaches are to formulate a strategy to get a few more caches and create a bit of a loop. The trail we followed was more of a forest service road and was fine for most of the half mile we were on it, but then we hit a swampy area. It was hard to say how deep the muck was, but we were unwilling to find out. We saw on our maps there was a hiking trail 100 feet to the north. With a bit more bushwhacking, we found this trail and it was nice and dry - bypassing our swamp. We finally made it to the trail leading to the south and the location of the next cache we wanted to find. This area has some fairly open terrain but we needed to look in a more brushy area. As we were searching for the container, we heard a low grumbling snort. Chris and I were not within eyesight of each other, but we were sure this wasn’t the sound either of us would typically make. Ten seconds later I hear Chris yell “pig”! She had seen the wild hog but by the time I made it out to the clearing to try to get a picture, it was long gone. We found the cache and continued on.

Chris Navigates Through Muck

When we found an east/west trail, we follow it knowing it should get us back to the Florida Trail. We found a place to sit and eat the PB&J sandwiches we had with us. While eating, we saw another geocache on our map - there’s always “just one more cache” in us. It was out of the way, not on a trail, near a creek so likely a wet area and would probably add another mile or so to the hike. Doesn’t sound like a good candidate but then I noticed that it has been well over 5 years since the last cacher found it. We enjoy finding these “lonely” caches so we decide to give it a try. We follow a trail until we decide we need to cut into the woods and do even more bushwhacking. Initially the ground was dry and the woods fairly open so it was easy going but as we got closer to the creek, the ground became damp, then wet. Fortunately it has been a rather dry winter, so it never became too wet. We found the cache. It was kind of rusty but was able to force it open. The wire that had been attached to it and a tree to keep it from floating away in the wet season had completely rusted through. Not having the needed tools to repair it, I wedged it into the crook of a tree hoping it would stay put since it likely hadn’t moved since 2020 when the last human was here.

Rusty Old Geocache

We make it back over to the Florida Trail and head north to the car. By the time we got back, we had hiked 5.7 miles - a good portion of that distance was bushwhacking but it was still a rewarding hike. The tree trimming crew was done for the day, but the machine was parked next to us so I could get a closer look at it.

Power Line Road

Tree Trimmer Resting

A few days later, we have an appointment way down in Vero Beach. It’s about an 80 mile drive. We could have handled it in Orlando which is much closer but we hate the traffic in Orlando so much that we opt to head south. The appointment isn’t until 3 PM so we come up with a plan to make a day of the drive. We head out mid morning with plans to have lunch at a restaurant called Chive in downtown Vero Beach. After a nice lunch, we head over to Riverside Park. We have some time to kill so we do a 3 mile walk around the park finding a few geocaches. We make it to our meeting and take care of our business without much difficulty.

Large Banyan Tree

It was late afternoon by now and we had a bit of a drive back to Titusville. Since we were right next to Highway A1A, we decide to at least do the first part of the drive north along this scenic route instead of taking I-95 the whole way. We made it to Barrier Island Center in Melbourne Beach a little before it closed. This facility is dedicated to sea turtle education - educating people about sea turtles, not educating sea turtles! We wander around some inside but could tell they were looking to close up for the day so we didn’t get a chance to see everything. There are some walking trail on both side of A1A but this parking lot is also locked at 5 PM so we repositioned the car just down the road to check out the trails. It was less than a mile walk and we were unable to find the geocache that was supposedly hidden here but it was a nice way to stretch the legs a bit before the 60 mile drive back home.

Barrier Island Center

As January comes to an end and February rolls in, so did the cold weather. We had 3 nights that got to freezing or below. One night was all the way down to 24 degrees and was below freezing for 11 hours and only got to the mid forties during the day. This cold stretch is quite unusual for this part of Florida and people were trying to cover all sort of plants that aren’t used to prolonged cold temperatures. I was even forced to disconnect out fresh water hose and drip our outside faucets to keep them from freezing. When the cold snap ended, there were a great many plants and trees that didn’t look happy. News reports told everyone to hold off on pruning off what looked dead in case there was some life remaining. We had covered some of our plants the best we could but a few of them weren’t looking good.

Dripping Faucet with Ice Forming Below

A week into February, we head over to Orlando Wetlands. When we were here in November, it was too early in the season for most of the birds to have returned. We were wondering if there were more birds now, or if the recent cold snap had kept them away.

Wood Stork

Anhinga Drying Wings

One of Many Ponds at Orlando Wetlands

It was a beautiful afternoon to walk around the park and enjoy the animals and views.

Glossy Ibis

Beautiful Green Heron on the Prowl

Purple Gallinule

There were many more birds here this time. It looks like the roseate spoonbills have returned as well. Some of the trees where they typically roost to rear their young were damaged by some storm last summer so it will be interesting to see where they decide to setup their nests this year. There were several gators either floating in the ponds or just on the shore sunning themselves.

Spoonbills Clustered Together

Alligator

Closeup of Anhinga

As we headed back to the boardwalk to return to the car, we spotted a few blue-winged teals. These ducks have colorful wings but unless they are flying or preening, the coloration isn’t visible. The males do have a striking white stripe on their heads.

Female and Male Blue-Winged Teal

Teal and It's Reflection

Feeding Time

The next day is Saturday and there is a big geocaching event in Wickham Park just north of Melbourne. This will be the 19th year the event has been held. We haven’t made it here in prior years but we made sure to put it on our calendar this year. Several hundred people are to attend. The park is almost 400 acres and has over 10 miles of trails or walking paths. There are also nearly 50 geocaches hidden in the park. There is quite the crowd when we arrive but since the park is so large, there are multiple other groups having parties so we have to park down the road from the shelter the event is being held.

19th Annual Picnic in the Park Event

There is a campground in the park. We had considered coming down with the motorhome and spending a couple nights so we would be close to all the activities but none of the campsites were available for the weekend of the event. They also have a youth camping area where some people were setting up tents or dry camping without services but it wasn’t clear that the area could handle a rig our size so we opted to just make it a day trip and drive down. There was some sort of remote controlled sailboat event taking place nearby which was neat to watch. The boats were fairly big - around 3 feet or so. Each has a pair of large sails and the only thing that can be controlled is the angle of the boom. There are a series of buoys in the lake and the goal of the captains standing on the edge of the pond it to navigate around the buoys fastest presumably without hitting other boats.

RC Sailboat Race

Hawk in Field

Closeup of Sailboats

We didn’t recognize other cachers but we headed out on some of the trails to find a few of the caches in the park. Geocachers tend to be a friendly bunch and with this many of us in one location, we are bound to run into others during our walk. The first guy we met was from up north but visiting his brother that lives in the area. We chat with him and he joined us as we went from cache to cache. There are numerous creative caches hidden here and it was clear somebody owns a 3-D printer because a great many of the containers had been printed. As we continued on, we ran into a few more cachers and at one point, I heard a voice I recognized from back up in Rochester New York. Sure enough, my ears were correct. Harold comes down to Florida in the winters and made the trip from his spot to this event.

Sandy Trail at Wickham Park

3-D Printed Cache

We chat for a bit before he and his other friend heads in another direction since he’s found the ones we are moving towards. Later in the afternoon, we head back to the shelter to eat the lunch we had brought along and run into Harold again. It’s good to run into someone we know from our old hometown. We stick around to be part of the group photo. We only found 10 of the caches so there were many more to find but we decide to head back after a fun day with fellow geocachers.

Group Photo at Event

Staying in Titusville, rocket launches are pretty frequent so we have gotten a bit jaded about watching every single one. But there was one launch that was to head up in mid February that we were really interested in. Artemis 2 is the first manned mission to the moon in over 50 years. They had rolled out the spacecraft to the launchpad and were performing a series of tests to determine if they were ready to launch. We knew that it should be visible from the road into Canaveral National Seashore. There are multiple pullouts along the road that we have stopped at back in the spring of 2024. You aren’t real close - about 2 miles from this launchpad - but we should be able to see the rocket. While the road into the seashore is open, all of the pullouts have barricades preventing visitors from pulling in to get a better view. We were tempted to just stop in the road to get some pictures until we saw one of the visitors that had done just that get approached by law enforcement. I guess they really have tight security. As we make the turn to head up the road parallel to the beach, even the first few beach parking lots are closed. The first one that is open is 2.5 miles from the pad. You can see Artemis 2 but even with a good telephoto lens, the pictures aren’t great. It will turn out there is a problem during one of the tests so it is rolled back into the VAB (Vehicle Assembly Building) for repairs and won't launch until April.

Artemis 2 on Launch Pad

We walk up the boardwalk over the dunes to check out the beach. It was a somewhat cool Thursday afternoon so it wasn’t very crowded. When we headed back to the car to return home, I had Chris drive so I could sit in the back seat and take photos out the window. The pictures still aren’t great but at least it was a slightly better angle to see the rocket and tower.

Beach View at National Seashore

Turkey Vulture Shows Off Wingspan

Another View of Artemis 2 While Driving By

We head out of the National Seashore but stop along the way to check out Oak & Palm Hammock Trails which is part of the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge. These two different trails start out from the same parking area. Oak Hammock is 2/3 mile long while Palm Hammock is about 2 miles. We go for the longer one first.

Entrance to Trails

There were only a couple other cars so we only saw a few people. Less than a quarter mile in, we need to cross some railroad tracks. These apparently run into Cape Canaveral but based on the surface rust, they haven’t seen train traffic recently. There were orange trees sporadically along the trail. It’s not clear if there used to be an orchard here of if these are just randomly growing here.

Railroad Tracks into Kennedy Space Center

Wild Oranges

We got to the 3/4 mile mark just before there was to some sort of loop but the trail was closed. We ran into another couple and the guy had crossed the barrier in an attempt to see why it was closed. We turn back and run into an armadillo that was rooting around the ground. We head over to the other trail and find this one is open. Combined, we got in a walk just under 2 miles long.

Armadillo

Boardwalk Along Trail

Back in March of 2023, we had purchased a hotspot from the Calyx Institute. It comes with a T-Mobile SIM card and offers unlimited, unthrottled data. We had been looking to get something other than using our iPhones as hotspots so we gave it a try. The initial cost was $750 per year and included the hotspot. In subsequent years, we only have to pay $500 per year for the service. It has worked quite well and often gives us several hundred Mbps download speeds. There have only been a few locations that it hasn’t worked well and in those places even our Verizon connection wasn’t great. We were coming up on our renewal and Chris noticed that they now offer the same service but permit the SIM to be used in routers other than what they provide. So instead of renewing our current service and hotspot, we purchased a much better router on Amazon and switched to the new service. The new SIM arrived a few days after the router and it is working fine. We’ve been stationary here in Titusville where we already have excellent cable modem internet service, so we haven’t put the new one to the test yet, but given the multiple antennas the new router has, I’m optimistic we will pull in the cell signal even better.

Old and New Hotspots

Another walk we did was in a park on the north side of Titusville that we haven’t visited before. Chain of Lakes Park is a 92 acre park right along the Indian River. There is a walking path around the perimeter of three ponds in the park and there are even a dozen or so geocaches. We head one morning to check it out. We randomly decide to head clockwise around the ponds.

Small Pier at Chain of Lakes Park

Large Clumps of Water Hyacinth Float By

Most of the walking path is paved and in full sun but there are some sections that are dirt and in wooded areas. Midway on the eastern side of the ponds is a rather tall observation tower. From this vantage point we get a nice view of the park and the river including the drawbridge for train traffic a mile away.

Wooded Section of Trail

Tall Tower

View Over Indian River and Train Bridge

Chain of Lakes Park View

We continue to the south and circle around the bottom of the ponds. It was a nice park and not too crowded on this Wednesday morning. We managed to find all 8 of the caches along our 2.7 mile walk.

Egret

View of Tower Across Pond