I can tell you we came close to having our vehicle broken into while hiking out to MiamiTJ's Muddy Jeep Cache.

This cache is well documented -- do not attempt without a modified jeep, or four-wheel drive with huge tires. But you can drive up to the area with a car and hike the rest of the way, wading through Everglades swamp mud.

This is the dry season for the Everglades; it has been a little drier than normal this year, so this cache sounded good enough to go after this nice sunny day, and it was waiting to be claimed. But it's still a swamp with plenty of mud even in the dry season.

We loaded up for a day of caching: cooler, tools, shovels, chains, and tow straps. Our vehicle is a two-wheel drive Ford Explorer, and we knew we would not be able to drive right to the cache. But I was going to try.

I drove as far as possible, and after we turned off the dry gravel road on this trail, we came very close to getting stuck; the trail looked dry, but it was only a thin crust on top of the mud that was dry.

After spinning and slinging mud around, and looking for hard ground, we decided to park our vehicle just off the trail, as not to block it. This was no match for two-wheel drive, and going any further we would surely get stuck. Without four-wheel drive, like the cache page said, it would be a long time out here before someone would get to us.

We then headed out to the cache site on foot. It was not exactly in the middle of an open area, but next to a tree line; the area had clusters of trees, with some good-sized open swamp grass areas.

Then came Mr. Snake. The narrow trail meandered through the thick trees; the mud and water seemed to get deeper as we went deeper into the woods. The trees are so thick you cannot bushwhack through them. Our dog Julie loved the mud, and it was funny to see her run into it full bore, and come to a complete stop when she sank up to her belly. Yes, she was very covered in mud this day.

Susan, my wife, refused to go any farther down this trail, and as I dragged her into this, the tone in her voice got serious. She wanted to stop, and turn around. But I was getting more ahead of her now, reading off the distances on the GPS, and maybe making it sound like the cache was closer than it was, to get some more distance out of her.

Then came Mr. Snake. Now, I knew it was only a harmless common black racer about two and a half feet long. The snake took off in a hurry between us; maybe we scared it with Susan's scream. I think I should have recorded that scream; I could sell it to hikers to use to scare anything away.

We ended up hiking back out the way we came in, back to our car. After calming her down from the Mr. Snake episode I did my best to talk her into trying a different way into the cache.

Like, "You can't give this cache such an effort and give up now."

After convincing Susan there were no more snakes within five miles of us because her screaming made all of them leave the area, we were on our way again.

The new way in would involve some bushwhacking through the swamp grass, shrubs, and some trees. We were well off any trail now. After about ten minutes, we could hear a pack of quad runners, and three-wheelers coming down a trail we were not near. We did not see them until they came through a group of trees on the trail next to our vehicle, which we could still see.

We were about three hundred yards away from where we had parked, and we could see six riders in all, heading toward the car. As they approached our vehicle they slowed down to a crawl to check it out.

I had brought my gun with us, (permitted to carry) so now it was out of the holster, and I was holding it straight up in the air. We now had stopped in our tracks to watch, as they slowed down, and drove up close to our car. All but the last rider of the group kept on moving down the trail and out of sight. But one guy stopped, right at the back of the car, as his buddies drove away with out him. This guy seemed very interested in our vehicle.

We could see him getting off the quad runner, to get a better look inside the car. He then took one more look around, to see if the coast was clear, and then spotted us.

I had brought my gun with us, (permitted to carry) so now it was out of the holster, and I was holding it straight up in the air. I was thinking of letting a round off if I had to, into the ground, to get his attention.

After spotting us, he quickly leaped back onto his seat and took off after his buddies. I still think we would of taken a hit by him breaking into our vehicle if he hadn't spotted us and been spooked. If we were around the next tree cluster, we wouldn't have had a clear view of our car or him.

This would of been an easy hit for him, (smash & grab) and he did have enough time to get a good look inside, to see some of my tools and other goodies we had packed for the day of caching.

I had left most of the things covered with a blanket, but that might have looked even more inviting for someone to investigate.

Out where we were, no one but us would of heard the car alarm. And there was no way could we have run back fast enough, through the mud, to stop him; he could of taken his time, grabbing what he could carry, and speed away.

Well, I guess the best part of our adventure was finally finding the cache. I did find out I could have driven much closer to the cache, on the dry gravel road. If we had gone 50 more feet we would have seen the other entrance. But I thought that was too easy, and it wasn't how the cache description sounded to me.

Now who has done that? Something tells me it won't be the last time we do it either.