Lake Manatee SP

New Years in a South Carolina CG. A good dinner, some champagne and a James Bond movie made the evening memorable.


We had a good visit with my cousins Jan and Jerry Daniel in Jacksonville. What a good New Years dinner with the PA Dutch saurkraut and pork! We had a chance to see their vineyard and were treated to some of their wine. They left us camp out in their front year too! Thanks Jan!


Lake Manatee SP. Wow what a gem. Small park located just north of Sarasota, FL and inland on a manmade lake. Only 60 campsite which are spaced very far apart. Nice privacy. We are blessed with higher than normal temps, 75o to 85o during the days. And beautiful sunshine. It is to rain today but that gives us a chance to find this library to post the blog. This is a super start to our winter adventure.



Les and I have enjoyed 2 trips in the kayaks on a local river, Rye River. This "river" is smaller than our stream and it tidal so at low tide many places are very shallow. But the palms, pines, cypruss, orange trees, and mosses make it a really nice place to take in. We saw a river otter and many turtles. Oh yeah, and the big guy below.


OK, this is the time I was shaking. I simply must educate myself better to how to behave around alligators. Because I'm not sure we did the correct thing? As this 12 ft alligator slid off the bank just 20 ft in front of us, and then laid across our path looking at us. We stopped and starred at him, not knowing what to do as he was blocking our path with his large body. After a few very long seconds, he submerged and disappeared in the black water, shallow water I may add! Not knowing where he went, and being that this Rye river is so small, we paddled onward, over his position. That was spooky. This is a picture of him on our return trip where he was laying on the opposite bank. We are OK so maybe we did the correct thing by starring him down?? Or, maybe God protected us like he did David with the lions?