Yearling Trail

Today we took Logan to do his 5 mile hike for scouts.
Logan and Dad plotted out our path on the map with his compass. We had to stop @ different points and find the direction we were heading and quiz him about if we had no map or trail markers how would he find his way back.
We hiked the Yearling Trail in the Ocala Forrest. This is the area that Majorie Rawlings stayed with the Long Family and wrote her book, "The Yearling," about based on her experiences there. It's about a 6 mile hike with many points of interest.
We got to see the homesites of the early settlers in that area. The homes are overgrown with brush but some things still remain.
The massive sink hole where they gathered water was very very steep with only a small stream running through it. Though we did not venture down that very steep embankment.We stood at the top taking pictures and resting a bit.
Next was the cattle dip. This has been there almost 200 years. Hard to believe this was a farm at one time.
It is now overgrown with thick underbrush and scrub.The only thing that was not was the Long Cemetry. It was very clean and brush free. There were some intersting graves dating back to the early 1800's. There was a conferate soldier's grave as well. Place upon the graves were coins...of different values.We did some research with Jane and found out that this is a military tradition. The higher the coin value, the higher the rank. This tradition dates back all the way back to ancient Greece. But interesting the same. We spend a good half hour in this graveyard, talking about the coins, graves and history we were standing around. We also paid our respect!
It was very interesting and we took pictures of each grave.