A long story short: we drove to the Withlacoochee River looking for the Withlacoochee Trail. According to the map, it ran right alongside the river. What we found, however, was that this particular W. Trail was not the Withlacoochee State Trail we knew about, but a ROAD called Withlacoochee Trail. Oh well, these are some of the common issues when you're always in a new neighborhood.
So what we did was backtracked a few miles and stopped at the Ross Prairie State Forest that we drove past. And this is where we had our great run! A 2.5 mile loop through pines, oaks, and spotted-something-or-others. The path was cushioned with leaves, pine needles and spanish moss. We had to duck under limbs and jump over downed trees. But it was flat and easy. Andy made me go first to catch all of the spider webs...but, I left the high ones for him. I got used to the single strands going over the path quickly enough, but there was one that was so big I could hear it's sticky tendrils break as I ran through it. That required a quick spider-check to make sure a 3" Golden Orb spider or something worse wasn't crawling on me. Shortly thereafter my "sneaker came untied" and it was Andy's turn to catch webs. About a mile later, after another big web and Andy's sneaker came untied, I was back in the lead. We finished off our run with a spin through the campground here. If they offered WIFI we could've saved $15/night.
The Ross Prairie SF is on the Cross Florida Greenway Trail, which runs from Palatka to the Gulf. There are hiking, mtn biking, and equestrian trails all along this Greenway. Thanks to our friend, John, at Kayuba for mentioning this to us. John mountain bikes at the Santos Trailhead quite frequently. We're going to try to get over there in the morning.
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