2024-04-23 29 -82

Location

An empty lot or someone's front yard in Marion Oaks, Marion County, Florida

Participants

• Improv
• a drag-along

Plans

Use my car to go to the point after running errands with a friend

Expedition

I picked up my friend and we ran their errands. With the two must dos done, we could spend the rest of the time playing. I set my map to bicycle travel to keep us on the smaller roads. Unfortunately, bike travel in rural areas does not correspond to roads, so I had to re-set it for auto travel. We backtracked on FL Hwy 44 to catch Sumter County 475 and headed north. That area has changed a lot in the last five years since I was up that way. We passed Don Garlits, then turned left to head toward the sub-division. The street map showed the hashpoint in an empty lot but the satellite view showed a house being built. We found it with no trouble and no one was home. I wandered around in their yard until I found the point in their driveway. The sun was so bright that I had a hard time seeing my phone screen. I managed to get a screen capture of the map with me on the point but my selfie is just the house and tree behind me.

We got back on the road and decided to try to find a junk yard with the taillight for a car. The first one we tried only did trucks. We called the others and no one had what we needed. We headed back south on US Hwy 301. Since we were going to be in Oxford anyway, I decided to try to find my great-grandfather's gravesite. I've been there before but there has been so much constructions I had trouble finding the cemetery. Once we got there, I parked at the correct entrance but turned right instead of left and walked the length of the graveyard in the wrong direction. We turned around and headed back, finally finding the gravesite less that 50 ft from where we were parked.

Back on the road again, we turned left on Florida State Road 44 heading toward Leesburg. As we passed where the Wildwood Habitat for Humanity Thrift Store used to be, I mentioned that they had changed to a different charity. That led to discussing the Leesburg branch. Since we still had time, we decided to go by there to check their status. They are still Habitat and were open, so we parked and went in. We found a pair of extra-large lazy Boys for a really good price, so those will be picked up tomorrow. When we got to his house, I spent a few minutes with his dog, then I came on home.

Photos

• 

  on the point