Myakka River State Park

The paddling here continues to be a pleasure. Each time we go out, I get more pictures. I had been averaging around 50 pictures per camp stay. But here I have over 200 and that is the good ones with a lot of deleted pics! This picture shows how calm the water was this paddle, looks like I’m floating in the clouds. In the slideshow you can see the black-capped night heron, peninsula cooter, snowy egret, and cormorant that I digitally captured.

And yes, there were some LARGE alligators on this trip. We had been seeing a bunch of gators but this particular day the big ones were out more than before. If you look closely at the slideshow of the gator Les is passing, you will see he is having a problem with a upper left tooth. It looked abscessed and we figured that would make him pretty grumpy? Oh no!

We caught a sunset by the river here. Being in these parks like this has been such a blessing. The Lord’s creation is an awesome and wondrous thing to live in so closely. In the slideshow you will see a couple of gators heading out for the evening hunt after sunning all day and one of the MANY trees that the vultures roost in for the evenings. It is quite comical to watch them jockey for the prime position in the tree tops. The mornings reveal that the best spots are on top for the evidence of a lower branch is quite clear on those birds. ;-)

This was another addition to my bird album I have begun, a juvenile Little Blue Heron. They go through a white phase before getting their pretty blue feathers.
We drove around the surrounding area a few days this week (rainy day and then cold day to follow). It was neat to see the wide open spaces compared to the super congested coastal areas. We saw lots of ranches and ranchettes. We also ran into some large dairy farms.
Our friends, Lynn and Forrest, will be camping here for the next few days with us. That will be nice. Unfortunately we are to have a rainy Saturday, that will put a crimp on our paddling wishes.
We move 30 miles west to Oscar Shearer on Sunday. They have wifi there at that park also so we will be able to check email very regularly. It will be a place that we can drive to the beach for a bit more shelling time.

Myakka River State Park

We are in Myakka River SP now. The temps are still falling below the normal for this area, today was the first day in about a week that the temps broke 60o. Les seeks the sun! We are making good use of the sweatshirts and wool socks we brought. But we are still glad to be here. This park is the one we love for the wildlife here and we haven’t been disappointed on this trip. At night we hear the raccoons raiding the campsites of those not careful with their grub, and are serenaded by South Florida Gopher Frogs.


Myakka has a good system of trails: hiking, biking, and equestrian. This trail shows that this area has had a good amount of rain this winter. We had to do some creative stepping to get to the other side where the trail continued. There are pretty wildflowers in bloom and that special green you see in the spring with new growth on the trees. On this 7 mile walk we saw deer, wild pigs, turkey, red shoulder hawk, and other birds. We have been seeing robins at this park. Looks like they are pulling together to get ready for their trip back north. They will beat us!


Along with extra water on the trails, there is good water in the river. Last year we could not paddle some areas of the Myakka river due to low water levels, but this year the waterways are full and very enjoyable to kayak. Along the paddle we viewed little blue heron, green heron, white egret, cattle egret, tree swallows and let’s not forget the alligators.

The birds have given us special treats this year. Above you see a great egret with his catch. If you watch the slideshow at the side you can see why we watched with amazement and concern as he swallowed that big fish. There was a lump in his throat for quite awhile as he worked to push it down that long neck! I was afraid it would choke him, but no problem and he kept on fishing! Also in the slideshow are pictures of a mother limpkin teaching her young one to get snails to eat, how cute. And there is a picture of the large flocks of tree swallows we see at the lake in the evenings. There must be thousands! Another feeding picture is of an anhinga that swims with it’s body totally submerged.

We have another week here in the park. Friday they have a concert scheduled where a fellow will play black water bayou blues. I can’t wait! I will try to get a posting on before we move Sunday to Oscar Shearer, just 30 miles from here, short move that time.

Koreshan SP

Our time here south of Ft Myers has been very nice. A few late afternoon rain storms with cold fronts did not dampen our time here. We were camped at Koreshan SHS which has very nice camp sites and a very interesting historic area of a turn-of-the-century communal group. As you can see from the above picture, we are also close to the beaches for some shelling opportunities: Bonita Springs beach and Lovers Key SP beach.

We visited Lovers Key for a day. The picture above shows a fallen tree on the beach whose roots have been decorated by us shellers. We also walked a 3 mile nature trail seeing lots of birds and one alligator. We were treated by an osprey with a fish attempting to take lunch back to the nest. Unfortunately, the fish was just a bit too big or the wind just a bit too strong and it couldn’t quite get it to the nest. The mate was very frustrated by this turn of events and tried to encourage it to try again. The bird sat on a branch just a few feet from the nest refusing to let the catch go. We did not wait to see the result. Hope he made it up! We planned to kayak the water trail there but the wind picked up and the clouds darkened, so we did not put the boats in.

This settlement has some good living history re-enactors here. This is a bread making demonstration of rising bread done in a dutch oven with charcoal. Yum! A local tropical fruit grower brings her preserves for us to put on the bread also, double Yum! We also attended a session of cowboy cooking with the cast ovens and pots of beans and ham, cornbread and mango crisp. Oh so good. An evening of stations where characters from the settlement were portrayed to give us some history on the group was a treat. And then there are the Sunday afternoon musicals in the Art Hall taking advantage of the 1885 Steinway piano.

Just 3 miles away (biking distance) is the Estero Bay Preserve. Above is a mocking bird (FL state bird) who sang to us as we began our walk and there was a gopher tortoise also (see slide show). The 3 mile walk was nice but much of the trail in the salt flats area was under water.

We were treated with a day visiting with our friends, Lynn and Forrest at their place in Naples. We toured Naples and Rookery Bay, and then topped the day off with a sunset tour of the Corkscrew Sanctuary. During that walk we had a juvenile barred owl fly in to the boardwalk calling for it’s parents. A few minutes later the parents called and he flew off to them where he was either soundly dressed down or enthusiastically greeted by them. ;-)

We move Sunday to Myakka Rive SP. Another park we enjoyed last year. No internet close to there but we will travel to some on the 17th because we must make our next reservation for 2011 that day.

Bahia Honda State Park, Keys

A storm coming at us from the bay side. Batten down the hatches. Actually, it looked worse than it was. We have had very little rain so far on this trip. I believe only 2 partial days of wet stuff. As you can see from Les’s tank top, it is tropical weather here now. Unfortunately, it has been too windy for us to put in the kayaks here, but the biking along the beach road is beautiful. And of course the beach walking for treasures is very good here. I purchased a book to educate us on what we are seeing. So interesting!

A trip to Key West was very interesting. We parked at a shopping center and rode our bikes into the old town. That was very nice. We toured the Mel Fisher treasure museum, a collection of salvaged treasure found recently. The trolley ride around the island gave us good information on the history and highlights. There was a key lime pie chef tempting us with his pie and the sponge monster gave me quite a fright. Then there was the jazz trumpet player outside entertaining the café customers. Nice day. Pictures of these on the slideshow.

We have been blessed with some super sunsets here at Bahia Honda SP. The portion of the orginal railroad bridge makes the pictures even more special. And, we were able to meet up with our new friends, Bob and Kathy, at a very nice restaurant in the Marathon area called Key Colony Inn.
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Here is the invasive iguana that is trying to take over Southern FL. These two were fighting on the road by the camper and the one on the slideshow was just at our camp site. They are pretty but should not be here. The iguana are eating up the foliage and hurting many other native species. Unfortunately there are not any predators for them so they are multiplying very fast.
We move Sunday, 31st, out of the Keys and to the West Coast. Our first stop is at Koreshan SHS for 2 weeks. We’ll have to find the WiFi around that park.

We are in Koreshan SHS now and have found a wonderful library here. It is rainy here and cool. That will force us to explore inside things to do for a few days. I will post another time next week on our stay here. God Bless!

Jan. 23, 2010

We spent some wonderful time in Long Key SP. This is a picture of a sunrise we woke to enjoy. Only one of course! What a blessing to have this opportunity. The only negative was the smell of the decaying fish from the cold snap. That is all along the beaches now. It should not last too much longer we hope.

A wonderful benefit to camping is the opportunity to meet and make good friends who share common interests. This is Bob and Kathy, a couple we met last year here in the Keys and we crossed paths here again this year. We did some wonderful paddling trips and some good nights. Bob actually made their kayaks!

The sunsets are also wonderful here. God sure did a wonder when he blessed us with sunsets like these.

We had an excellent dinner at the Barracuda Grill in Marathon. No we are not being eaten!

Jan. 16, 2010

This is a white heron, relative to the great blue heron. We were told this variety is only found in this area.

We are out of the freeze! At least for now. ;-)
Yes, the temp this morning was 70o and it is now 78o. Les is wearing his shorts and sandals which is the offical sign that warm temps are here.

Of course we had some excitement when Aaron called us to tell us of the earthquake in Eureka! So glad it was not harmful. But sure looks like it shook things up quite a bit.

We are preparing to move on soon. Leaving tomorrow or Monday if they have a spot here for us to extend one night. We checked for cancellations this week and found 3 days in a SP south of here called Long Key. It is the park where every site is on the beach. We booked Mon, Tu, Wed there and then we will finish out the week camping at Key West. We are excited that those dates opened up for us. The friends we made here in Pennekamp are going to be there and we will do some more kayaking with them if the weather permits. I believe there will definitely be a good meal for us to share one night.

I will post next when I can. WiFi is not going to be easy to get for at least a week.

Jan. 10, 2010

Yes, we are experiencing the deep freeze in the Florida Keys. This morning (Jan 9th) at 5am the temp was 59o, noon the temp is 48o and dropping with rain. Yesterday (Friday) was the best day we had so far with a high temp of 67o and sun. But we are not complaining. We have been able to do some walking, biking and kayaking so we are happy. Today we meet with friends, Sid Stepler and family, who are here on vacation for the weekend. Next week’s temps are to get warmer each day and forecast is for sun.

We read a book last year on a pioneer couple in these keys and they told of an unusually cold snap that killed the fish so that they could just go out and scoop them up. Well, we are experiencing that now. The shores are littered with dead and dying fish; along with weakened and dying ones in the shore waters. It is a shame but it gives us a chance to get an up close look at them. The fish eating birds are having a feast! It is interesting to see them sitting among the fish so full they can’t eat another one.


There is a remnant here in this park of one of the Keys biggest industries, an orchard. To plant these trees; guava, mangoes, avocado, and of course, key limes; they had to dynamite holes in the coral and ship in dirt. The bigger trees are original trees and small ones were replanted. Some of the trees were blooming and some had fruit.


Here is a barracuda that we found on the beach. Those teeth make me glad I’m not bite-size to them!


Waiter, I would like that one.