The 7 Hour Adventure.

I started this over on Expedition Portal and I thought some of you guys may enjoy it as well.

The reason it's called the 7 Hour Adventure is sometimes that all the time I can scrape together. The guys on Expedition Portal seem to mostly post grand excursions through mountain and desert that last weeks and months. Those would be great, but sometimes you just can't set aside the time or money for those kind of trips.

Everyone can do a day trip somewhere interesting. These trips are going to be mostly off road trips in coastal South Carolina. A lot of them will be in the Francis Marion National Forest.

Today's trip sent me back into the Francis Marion National Forest. I had one planned destination to check out a camping spot for next weekend and from there I was going to play it by ear.

I left the house about 8:30 am and back home by 3:30. First stop of the day was a fishing hole / camping spot, where I caught absolutely nothing. True to form, if I can see them, I can't catch them. I guess the planets weren't aligned. I had planned to camp there next weekend but in my wanderings, I found something better.

Next up was just a slow cruise through the forest. You know, stop and smell the flowers kind of thing.

Once again I forgot an important piece of camera equipment (SD Card), so you will have to live with cellphone pictures.

What I'm driving for those that don't already know.

Then I happened across this place.

It's hard to tell how big these mounds are from the pictures. I'm guessing they are 40-50 feet tall. That's a lot of dirt to move by hand.

Post break, more to come.

When I came out of Battery Warren, there was a narrow two track right across from the turn. It wasn't marked prohibiting vehicle travel, so I took it. I spent the rest of the afternoon exploring down that track. There were several stops to remove dead fall and a lot of creeping along enjoying the view. I wish I had remembered the take more pictures. There were more little stands of Bald Cypress than I have ever seen. Trees from 3" tall to 100s of feet.

Buried down that track was the camping spot I didn't even know I was looking for.

It's not a huge pond, but it is a pretty one. I'm pretty sure I could spend hours sitting in a chair, just staring at the water and listening to the birds. I've already got the spot for the tent and the chair picked out.

Now for the required vehicle pictures.

The roads were crazy dusty today. Naturally it started raining as I was headed home.

Notice anything about the picture of the back of the Samurai. I didn't when I took the shot. I did when I got home and was rinsing the dust off.

No telling how long it had been unstrapped. It's a miracle it didn't end up as a fiery spot in the middle of the road or worse, through someone's windshield. That will have a lock nut and cotter pin before the Samurai leaves the yard next weekend.

Until next time.

Go see something.

That is a very cool spot. Have fun next weekend.

Awesome post. I have to get out in the woods on my atv soon.

Very nice! I need to bring my kids on an adventure like this.

In reply to The_Jed: I usually have my younger boys with me. This morning I couldn't drag them out of the house. My 11yo gets bored and wanted to stay home, the 14yo usually enjoys it but he had a beach trip scheduled with his friends. The 26yo loves it, but he's got a wife that isn't quite as understanding as mine. I'll add to this thread as I make more trips. Here are the rest of them. http://www.expeditionportal.com/forum/threads/123924-The-7-Hour-Adventure-Slow-Internet-Warning!-Many-Pictures I may have posted some of the first trips in the Samurai build thread.

Beautiful pictures!

I'd love to outfit my Scoob for some expeditions but I'd probably be better off starting with something 4wd that can handle big tires.

Expedition Portal is a lovely place to kill a few hours!

When I saw this thread I knew it was going to be that cool little car of yours. I love the idea of a thread where we all post our one-day adventures in the wilderness but I'm shopping for a different means of getting there. Someone find me one of these ('01 -> '04) in decent shape under 50k miles and $4.5k so I can pretend to be Ewan McGregor when I do voice-over for my own rides.

In reply to Giant Purple Snorklewacker:

I test road a 1978 Honda 750 when I was 19. I decided then and there that if I ever bought a motorcycle I would kill myself. I don't think I've outgrown that phase yet. Those are very tempting but I think I'll stick with 4 wheels.

You need to step over to advrider.com and check out the Mobius Trip. You'll be buying a bike tomorrow. Let me provide the link. You might want to set aside a day or two to read it.

Anyone else that wants to share their rides/trips/pictures in here is welcome to do so. I'd love to see them.

Advrider.com is a very addictive website. You can spend mucho time entrenched in ride reports and wonder where your day went!

This is awesome, great idea! I would go read Exped. Portal, but it's time for bed. Another day, perhaps.

I've killed many hours over on ExpedPort. It is where I get all the ideas for my Willys MB trailer, that I never seem to get around to actually doing...

Great trip, great photos!

The tread pattern on your wheels was giving me fits. I was looking at the outside treads and thinking they looked like they were going backwards, and then I saw the inside treads which are going the other way. It makes sense, but I'm used to directional street tires, so it threw me for a loop.

there is also the trip that someone did a few years ago about 6000 miles on a duelsport bike following around the country and a couple of other trips he did also along the way with the same boke. it was very cool reading back then need to go back and read his other trips.

What kind of tires are those?

Irok NDs. I've been very happy with them so far.

Thanks, I may put a set of those on my TJ. They are almost as cheap a retreads I like the look. How are they on snow any idea?

In reply to xd:

No clue. It hasn't snowed around here in years.

Today the kids and I left the Samurai at home and truly went off road.

I didn't take a bunch of pictures, but I did shoot a couple.

Napoleone and my middle son on stump watch. In was an area I wasn't familiar with so stump watch was important. I still managed to hit one.

I'm pretty sure this is an old railroad bridge. It was in line with what looked like an old causeway. The only other option is this was a spillway for a old dam. An hours research on Google turned up nothing.

In the top of this tree was an osprey sitting with her chicks.

Maddy helping with the stump watch.

There were literately hundreds of acres of lily pads and flowers. No close ups and the pictures I did take didn't turn out very good. Still pretty and the smell of flowers was everywhere.

Some of the lily pads had to be 16" in diameter. They were the largest I have ever seen. We also saw 4 alligators. No pictures of them. As soon as they heard the boat they were gone. We'll be coming back with the canoes.

It only took six hours... but we kayaked 7 miles of the Susquehanna river from Tunkhannock to Falls Pa. today. It was a beautiful day to be out on the water. We spotted two eagles hunting over an island (called eagles nest island so pretty good odds on a sighting!).

The weather report for today was partly cloudy in the morning and T-storms in the afternoon. We hit the water about 9am, pulled the boat about 1pm and about the time we cleaned it up it started raining. Beautiful morning outdoors, followed by a lazy, rainy, afternoon. It doesn't get much better than that.

what camera did you use, very clear photos

Most of these were taken with a Samsung Galaxy Note 2. My other cameras of choice are a Nikon Coolpix P500 and a GoPro Hero 3.

Adventure time again.

Today was another get the hell out of the house day. Most of the family has a stomach bug that I certainly don't want, so I packed my E36 M3, loaded the kayak on top of the Samurai, left the wife a float plan, checked the batteries in the Spot, and hit the road. I even took the scenic route there and back.

Total time, 9 hours. Distance, 130 driving, about 3 on the water.

The plan was to paddle part of the Wambaw Creek Trail. It's a creek that drains a large portion of the national forest into the Santee River. Link.

Berkeley County (yes that's the actual name) has over 1000 miles of blue trails. I'm going to try to get to all of them. First stop was Still Boat Landing. For some reason I didn't shoot a picture of it. It's basically a wide spot in a road with a unimproved ramp. I launched the kayak and paddled against the current until I got tired of paddling.

I thought for sure I would be alone out there. Then I hear voices, loud voices. Here's a hint people, if you are shouting at each other, you disturb the entire forest. One of them even asked me if I had seen any wildlife.

Idiots.

By 1:00pm the temps were starting climb so I headed for the house. It was a fun day. I'm going to have to go back towing the Samurai behind the truck and run the entire creek. Should be fun.

Edit: All the pictures were take with a Nikon AW-120 waterproof camera.

Here is a short, poorly made video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWbtso7Xd1I&feature=youtu.be

https://www.youtube.com/embed/MWbtso7Xd1I