1246. Squeeze the Day! ("Finding the Elusive Golden Blaze along the Orange-Blazed Florida Trail")


This stamp, carved by reggicat of MA, was a special one that we were thrilled to win in the raffle at "All Things County Fair" in September 2024 as part of a beautiful gift basket with "all things lemon" (lemon cookies, lemon tea, lemon peanuts, lemon salt, etc!) We were thinking to plant it near a lemon-related place like the famous limoncello sites of the Amalfi Coast where we had just been the year before, but were not likely to be getting back to, so we figured somewhere in the citrus lands of Florida might do, especially since the carving comes out equally delightful whether stamped in yellow for lemons, orange for oranges or even pink for pink grapefruit - all three of which we stamped in the back of our logbook - so take your pick - they each look great!

We also figured this stamp would be great for any letterboxers out there like us who just love to try to squeeze "one more box" out of a nice juicy "letterboxing day" that involves getting to visit lots of different places over a fairly extensive area during the course of a particular day rather than just getting a bunch of stamps in one place at a stamp gathering or something, and thanks to some prodigious planters, central Florida now seems to be a wonderful place to do just that! Of course, we are making this plant much easier to find than if we simply said that the Golden Blaze you need to find is somewhere along the entire length of the orange-blazed Florida Trail, and you need to figure out exactly where, but we do still want to leave a little bit of the fun and excitement of actually finding it up to you!

So, suffice it to say that this golden blaze is located near a marker that explains its significance, about 25 "trail miles" south of where the Florida Trail crosses route 40, but you can obviously drive much closer to it than that if you wish. Once you locate that historic marker, you should be able to find the golden blaze itself on a pine to the west of the nearby kiosk. If you go behind the kiosk, you might just find a plastic orange under the right back (northeast) corner of that kiosk. So as not to disturb that particular piece of fake citrus, we suggest that you wait until the coast is absolutely clear, then cautiously climb up onto the bench that is on the backside of the kiosk and look up into the left corner of the eaves that are above that plastic orange. Hopefully you won't see anything, but if you reach up to touch the right side of that left corner pillar directly above the crossbeam, you should be able to feel the top of the small black tape-covered pouch that hides this choice rubber piece of citrus, and "peel" it by very very gently sliding it up and out of its almost invisible crevice. Please make sure to slide it back in the same way so it remains carefully hidden from prying eyes!

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