Destination: I don't know.

This is one of my best pals, Kieran Walsh. We have a history of going on random, wild trips together. So when he called me and asked if I wanted to head up to the historic Dade Battlefield, I couldn't refuse. "See you at 6am" he said. On a Saturday? Ouch.

Before the battlefield, Kieran took us to this junkyard in Inverness. Why the owner dude bought a missle, I'm not sure. In the back of the place was a motorcycle graveyard. Kieran was like a kid in a candy store. Fortunately, the stuff was over priced or I would have been helping Kieran load some of this crap into his pickup.

A mine. No expalanation. But if I owned a junkyard, I would have bought two of these.

This natural cathederal is on the way out of Inverness. Finding roads in rural Florida with arching Grandfather oaks is a real treat. We don't see this enough.

We got lost because both Kieran and I have a terrible sense of direction. After leaving Inverness, we ended up 20 miles south, somewhere close to Dade City. On a rural route, Kieran spotted some cages down in a ravine. We stopped, snooped around outside of some barbed wire gate and got close enough to snap some shots of what we saw. First, some testy baboons. These things were not stoked to be in a cage.

Next to the baboons was a black panther--the first one I have seen. Another animal not pleased to be caged--the poor thing was walking in circles.
After snooping around for a bit, we checked out about a dozen white-tailed deer, a black bear, and some Spider Monkeys. We were drawn to a deep bellowing noise coming from somewhere in the back. After about 15 minutes, some guy rolls up in a car to ask what we were doing--he thought we were trying to jump the fence. Satisfied with our explanation, he told us that the place was a private animal rescue that had just opened about five months ago. . . and the bellowing was from a lion.

Although we never made it to the battlefield, missles, mines, rednecks, and exotic animals were a much better substitute.

I want to thank Kieran for driving and always being down for random adventures. Many more to come...

-He said