Welcome to my blog. If you’re new to the site, I write about all kinds of things from dating to dogs (not dating dogs, let me be clear) to music and TV and many other things. This particular post is the first one in a series of posts about a mini-tour camping around central Florida.
This little adventure launches from Tallahassee (my home base), and takes me to a couple of state parks in the Ocala National Forest, RV parks near Daytona Beach and Orlando, and even a few overnight stays in random parking lots (don’t worry, business owners were fully aware)!
So much will be going on during this 3-week adventure but before I even reach my first campout, I have to stop in Gainesville to catch up with the friend I’ve had for the longest. He and I met a thousand years ago in middle school at a little church in Miami, Florida.
This friend of mine (I sometimes call him Timber), along with his brother, started a coffee shop in Gainesville and their hard work has paid off, as now they have multiple locations and dozens of employees. It’s Gainesville’s best coffeeshop, Opus Coffee, so you better do a taste test to find out why those pesky Gators loves this coffee (sorry, my immature loyalty to Florida State is showing). But college rivalries aside, I have a feeling you will become a fan, too (of the coffee, not the Gators, I hope).
I actually don’t drink coffee (I know, I’m so unsophisticated), but I stopped in anyway to see my friend at that location pictured above. It’s where they do all their roasting, unlike me – I do all my roasting on the internet.
Anyway, next door to their roasting headquarters is a place called Satch Squared and we took a chance on their vegan waffles.
Yeah, those breakfast waffles did not disappoint (thanks for the recommendation, Timber)! While we were trying to savor every bite, we also had to talk, so he and I caught up on each other’s lives. He has always been able to make me laugh with just a few words or a gesture, and that holds true today. What a good dude!
So this particular Opus Coffee location serves their customers from an old Airstream. How cool is that? There’s also lots of space to hang with your besties (as the kids say, I think?).
More photos from this pit stop are just a scroll away (scroll down, silly), but I must go onward now to my first camping location – Juniper Springs State Park in the Ocala National Forest.
Check back soon for a rundown of my time there. What did I see that blew my mind? Did my dogs poop in someone else’s camping area? Was I forced to take cold showers? Answers, along with some photos of the gorgeous location, coming soon!
-Out of the Wilderness
Out of the Wilderness 