Roamer Earns her first Badge of Honor: Ocala National Forest in FL

I have been diligently building my jeep, Roamer, for some offroading.  I had originally signed up with Sarasota / Bradenton Jeep club at Hardrock for Saturday, July 14.  Due to a private event, this was canceled.  I had the day planned for 4wheeling so I started searching for another option.

Kingdom Offroad - For the Win!

Thanks to Josh and Jason @ Kingdom Offroad for extending an invite to his event.  This was a trip to Ocala National forest and even better a Badge of Honor Trail.  We had some logistical things to work through on our side but Grandma to the rescue and we were covered.  Some things are just meant to be and this worked out.

We all met near home.  It was pretty exciting as we got to meet several new folks.  We caravaned together and stopped at a gas station near the trailhead and added another jeep to the mix.

We had a total of 6 jeeps on the run from a stock 2 door Jeep JK to several modified rigs.

Josh introduced me to the Avenza Maps App which I downloaded and tracked our path through the forest.

The trail and generally very easy but it was truly beautiful and it had a few fun mud holes.

One of the mud holes we found had a couple deep ruts in the water under it and it was a little too much for this Rubicon.

We attempted a Kinetic roper recovery which didn't work.  I think the spinning of his wheels dug him in which we couldn't pull him out this way.  In the end I for to use my newly installed SmittyBuilt XRC Gen 3 12k winch.  This worked perfectly and we quickly had him out.

If you have not yet done this trail I believe it's well worth the time and any jeep, meaning box stock jeeps,  can finish this trail. Thanks to Josh, Jason, Barbara, Craig, and Tito for making this a fun trip!

I feel like the jeep community is quite amazing.  From the Duck Duck Jeep, all the Facebook Jeep groups, and the folks we met on the trail.  Just Awesome.