The Wandering Disciple

A bright red cardinal splashes a bit of color against the background of the green foliage at the Manasota Scrub Preserve. Like most birds, the male is the more colorful of the species. The male northern Cardinal displays a bright red color while the female is a browner with a orange beak. (Photo: June 13, 2015)

A gopher tortoise feeds on the grass along the trail at the Manasota Scrub Preserve.  Gopher Tortoise love the scrub habitats throughout Florida and can be found grazing in the grass or hanging out in the burrows.  (Photo: June 13, 2015)

Venice, Florida:  My wife recently read an article that spotlighted the hobby of Geocaching.  I have several friends that enjoy it, but I have never tried or really had much interest in it.  But after reading the article, we decided to give it a try. We downloaded an app for the Iphone and set out on our way to try and find a cache.  To get out feet wet, we searched for easy ones nearby our house. The first one we punched in was called "Uncle Salty Don't Live Here No Mo" and was located within the Manasota Scrub Preserve.  We hit the trails and tried to find our first cache.  We traveled down the park trails and came to within 100 feet of the the cache but ran out of trail.  My son and I began hiking through the thick scrubby brush and it didn't seem like we were making any headway.  After tearing ourselves up on the saw palmettos and the jaggers, we decided to call it quits. I was really discouraged after our first attempt.  But my w...