Day 5. Southern Exposure. Horsing around in Ocala, FL.

We spent the day on and off a motor coach touring the horse farms of Ocala. Horse Capital in FL? Never dreamed of such a thing. There are more horses per capita in the Ocala area than any other place in the world. What first brought the horse industry to the area was the silenium in the soil. Silenium is important for strong bone growth, and apparently it was an important factor of why interest in horses grew here. In 1978 a horse named Affirmed won the Triple Crown, and it was bred and raised in the Ocala area. That ignited the horse flame for this area.

We spent time at one farm where we had a tour of the farm and neighborhood on horse drawn wagons and then finished off with a barbecue lunch. It was chicken and ribs, no horse. This is a famous thoroughbred horse area but they do have Percheron's doing the heavy pulling.

We then visited the Silver Springs Nature Park where we rode a glass bottom boat. Fascinating! This is the headwaters of a river that is fed by deep underwater springs. The deepest was 70 feet, and the water was so clear it looked like you could reach out and touch the bottom.

Day 4 was our second travel day. It was 214.2 miles if you followed the travel log. For us it was about 12 miles longer since we made a wrong turn at one point, and you just don't do a u-turn in the middle of the road. Driving generally went well. There was little traffic, the roads for the most part had wide, paved shoulders, and there were few areas of strip malls and traffic lights. There were only two sphincter-clutching moments. One was crossing a temporary bridge in a road construction area. Unfortunately, I met about the only semi I saw on the road for most of the day. Only the road grime on both rigs separated us as we passed each other. The other sphincter-clutcher was getting back on the route after making the wrong turn. We had to drive 12 miles on a narrow county road with no shoulders, and I met the other 6 semis on that road. I felt like the Blue Angels pilots keeping the blood in their heads as they made maneuvers by clutching all their muscles to keep themselves from blacking out.

Today, Day 6 we head for Tampa and the Strawberry Festival. It is only 81.7 miles mostly along I-75 and strawberry shortcake awaits us at the end.