Magnets #'s 78 - 95

Back from a long two-week road trip vacation and you know I loaded up on magnets along the way! Magnets #'s 78-81 are from Savannah, GA; #82 is from Charleston, SC; #83 is from the Great Smoky Mountains National Park; #'s 84-86 from Chattanooga, TN; #'s 87-88 from Townsend, TN; #'s 89-90 from Mammoth Cave National Park; #'s 91-92 from Mobile, AL; #93 from Florida Caverns State Park; and #'s 94-95 are from St. George Island, FL.

Be sure to check out the Refrigerator Magnet Challenge at the top!

Check it out on Facebook here.

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State Park Videos

I came across some videos I had made for trips to various state parks and environmental areas. First off is a small one for the Tibet-Butler Nature Preserve:

Next up is my camping weekend I took back in April at Moss Park outside of Orlando:

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Veterans Park in Saint Cloud, FL

From time to time I do get outside of my apartment on an off day and do some urban exploring. This time it was mostly because of an app I use called Ingress. I will write more about this app (and all the other ones I use) at a later time, but it is basically a GPS based, live action version of the game Risk. So anyway, I wanted to accomplish something today and one of the missions in Ingress involves Veterans Park in Saint Cloud.

I have had a few excursions before that were relaxing, weird, or just flat out disappointing. This time though, I got more than I bargained for.

For starters, I thought that this was your average veterans park because it had military vehicles and such. Even a helicopter:

However, once I got to looking around a little bit more I found some very interesting things.

Lake Louisa State Park

So I had a few days off last week and decided to get out of the apartment for a change. I decided to check out another state park here in Florida, Lake Louisa. I was a little wary after being greatly disappointed before in what the sunshine state has to offer, but I figured at worst I would get some fresh air away from tourists. I chose Lake Louisa because I had actually been there before, it was pretty close by to where I was, and it was pretty cheap to get in ($5 per car). It is also a fairly large area with a beach, native and communal camping, and also equestrian trails.

I only explored the beach area and one of the hiking trails off to the side because it has been brutally hot down here so early in the year. I took a few pics and turned it into a little video. Nothing major, but I hope to incorporate more videos into my blog (and actually use my YouTube account for a change). Here it is. Enjoy.

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How to be Disappointed in a Florida State Park

So me, the girls, and the roomie had some extra time to kill on a road trip the other day, and feeling adventurous decided to check out the first item of interest we happen to come across. Well not too far down the road we see one of those brown signs for state parks. It read Madira Bickel Mound State Archaeological Site. As soon as I read the "archaeology" part I was in!

I was so excited I even checked in:

The Monument of States (But Mostly America)

So awhile back, me and my roomie Kerra were searching through websites trying to find odd or unique "tourist" attractions that we could go to for little or no money. Kind of like exploring the local landscape away from the amusement parks in the area. Well we found one basically in our back yard. Not 15 minutes away, in downtown Kissimmee of all places, is what's called the Monument of States.