Catching Up; Oscar Scherer State Park

I'm getting caught up now on this blog.  I'm posting while at the park.  We are at the end of our 2 weeks here in Osprey, FL.  Oscar Scherer SP is tucked in the middle of residential areas.  It is an oasis for the wildlife here.  Another benefit of the park is that it is close to the beaches.  while here we enjoy shelling and raking for shark's teeth.  In the above pictures you see some of our shells and the bowl in the front is holding the shark teeth we found.  Such a relaxing thing to do.

The weather has been mostly sunny and warm with a few days of rain and cooler temps.  But who can complain about 60's instead of 80's??  I had better not or my PA friends will not let me forget it.

Speaking of friends, we met up with our dear friends from RI, Trish and Steve, for most of our stay here; and Pat & Dave from TN were in the area and joined us on day for a lunch at Linger Lodge.  What a Old Florida experience.  This restaurant is part of a campground that had been around a very long time.  The original owner was an amateur taxidermist and decorated the place with the local wildlife.  What a hoot.  And the best thing was the food was amazing!  I had the Linger Longer Lodge Ettroffee, a gumbo with Fl gulf shrimp, crayfish, mussels, chicken, gator, sausage .... served over rice.  Yummmmm....  Speaking of Gulf shrimp, after lunch, Steve and Trish went with us to Tampa and the shrimp boats to buy our supply to bring home.  They had just restocked with shrimp brought in that morning.  Double Yummmmmmm

Monday we move back to Myakka for a week.  We are hoping the water is still good.  We just had some good rain yesterday and that should help it.  Don't miss the post before this that was done just today also.

Better Late than Never they say! Myakka River State Park

Sorry all, I just let the time get away from me and it is a month later.  Wow, time does fly.  We arrived at Myakka to find the water level higher than we have ever seen it.  That meant we could kayak very comfortably from the dam to the ranger station, a good 7 to 8 miles without worrying about low water and having to walk any.  We paddled 4 times during our stay between windy days and rain.  There were more calm sunny days though.  What a blessing.  And yes, the alligators were out too.  Notice the gators in the pictures of Les and I kayaking?  They all behaved themselves very nicely.

This year seemed to be the year for wood storks here.  They are very interesting birds.  When we first came to Florida 6 years ago, these birds were very scarce.  But we have seen an increase in their numbers consistently during this time.  How nice.

We stayed here almost 2 weeks.  It was lovely and we will return after our 2 weeks at Oscar Scherer which is located just 26 miles southeast of here.