Loxahatchee River Battlefield Park

This park used to be called Riverbend Park. Laurie's family has used it many time for biking, canoeing and kayaking. The other day when we drove down to Ft. Lauderdale, Laurie noticed the name change, and wondered what that was all about. Today we went back down there to check it out. It was especially nice because all five of us went. There's a nice new road, and several caches. It was a great drive and we enjoyed the whole day immensely. It turns out that the name was changed to Battlefield Park because it was the site of two battles in January of 1838 during the Seminole War.

Loxahatchee River Battlefield Park ENTRANCE: 9060 Indiantown Road, Jupiter, Florida 33478 CLASS: historical/regional ACREAGE: 64 acres HOURS: seven days a week (including holidays); sunrise - sunset LOCATION OF Second Seminole War Battles Powell's Battle - January 15, 1838 Jesup's Battle - January 24, 1838 Loxahatchee National Wild and Scenic River

Buddha's Tree
 Found it 01/10/2012

 A visit to the park with the sharkies today. We parked and "bushwhacked" to the cache. Although, in Florida, can you call it a bushwhack when you don't get your hat knocked off, your legs ripped by saw palmetto's, and your socks covered with various burrs and other hitchhikers? When we arrived at GZ, (with proper reverence I assure you) as a northerner, I had to have explained to me the propensity of the Florida version of the ficus to assassinate the tree which provides it shelter as a child. At home in Michigan, the fig is much better behaved. (Of course it doesn't live as long). Since we didn't really expect to do any caching today, (and when we do, down here, ammo cans are a rarity) we didn't have our stash bag with us. Signed log, left nothing and took only oranges,(That's another thing we don't gather up north) and hopefully, not a dose of poison ivy. Thanks for one of our favorite Florida caches.

 Cachers Box
 Found it 01/09/2012
 We came down today with the sharkie crew to check out the improvements which have been made since our last visit a couple of years ago. We are impressed and vow to return for at least another canoeing expedition. We weren't thinking about caching when we left home but the smart phone said it was here so the dumb guy tagged along and found it. Thanks for the excuse to get out of the car and enjoy the sunshine. BTW, there is a neat osprey nest just above GZ. He yelled at us but when we refused to leave, he did because he didn't want his picture on Facebook.

 Since we were near Jupiter, we went to lunch at this great place that Laurie had heard about but had never been to. It's called Guanabanas, and it's an open-air, tiki/chikee kind of a place with great service and very good food. We felt very "Florida" having lunch there :)  It's the kind of a place you want to go back to.  I think that next Christmas we should plan for the whole family to come here!  It is really special and different.

Old Photo

My nephew Dan posted this picture on Facebook. It's my brother Jim and me at a reunion a couple of years ago. I really like this photo - I hadn't seen it before!