untitled continued

   Terrible connection yesterday.... here are the rest of the shots.  J

swallotail on asters

yearling Great Blue

Alice....asleep in the sun

FL Birds etc.

I had the opportunity this past week to put in several days paddling on two spring fed Florida rivers. I'm more at home doing coastal trips, but am getting comfortable on the local rivers. The state has done a wonderful job in protecting most of it's rivers and they are in pristine condition. The ecosystems seem healthy and the wildlife is abundant. It is strange, coming from Northern MI to find tracks and pockets of wilderness completely surrounded by residential areas. The thing that surprised me the most was that there was no noise spill into the wild areas. I could have been 50 miles from nowhere. On one afternoon there was no wind and the only sound was a few leaves bailing off the trees and rattling down through the canopy. I also found that if I paid attention, I could paddle with zero noise. Not even paddle drip. That combined with a gentle current, enabled me to float along and approach the wildlife quite closely . River otters, alligators, turtles and all manner of bird life. There were quite a number of juvenile herons and making a solid ID was interesting to say the least . I was surprised to learn that tallapia grow to seven or eight pounds. I know they are farmed and are a big commercial fish, but didn't know they got so big in the wild. They are vegetarian and you catch them with algae for bait....

In Florida there are thousands housing areas that are targeted to a specific buyer. Golf, boating, adult only, active lifestyle, you name it and you can find a community of like minded residents... I saw one yesterday that would do well in MI...” ***** Palms, A Deer Restricted Community.”...With all the lawyers down here, (Davenport has 78 pages of attorneys in the local phone book) I feel that I should start a class action suit for the deer so they can have adequate housing access.

I'm not getting much in the way of hours at EPCOT, but that will change as we get into December and the crowds increase. I'm using my off time to go paddle. Anne hasn't been able to hire on at Disney as yet, but we're hopeful. The weather has been nice, but as the cold up north pushes South, we get the tail end of it for a day or two. The local weathermen have a ball with the temperature drops and use words like; dangerous cold, freezing wind chill, record temperature drop.....of course we are talking about overnight lows of 46...Isn't that Spring???? 

Great Blue Heron

    

Green Heron

Wood Stork  (the only N American stork)

Little Blue Heron

Great Blue Heron

wrap up

 

11-2-14

Road trip wrap up.

We had a good trip South. The fall color lasted into southern IN and the weather cleared once we crossed the Mason-Dixon line. With one minor glitch, the rig behaved well and it was a smooth trip and I had fun doing a bit of cross country, off the main highways, travel. I actually learned more of the basics in using a GPS and some of the finer points as to how it thinks.

We spent several days at our favorite FL state park, St. Joseph peninsula, near Port St. Joe on the panhandle. The park is situated on a narrow peninsula out in the gulf. White ,sugar sand, wonderful dunes, and a shallow near shore sand bottom. Visually it could be in the Caribbean. The marine life was quite a change for me. I'm not used to paddling with so much wildlife out on the water with me. Everything from sharks, to manta rays, to skates, porpoise, all manner of fishes, jelly fish and all manner of fishing birds. There was so much going on that it was hard to keep track of everything.

There is a nice dune between the campground and the beach and it was here that I ran into a phenomenon that I found interesting. Every evening, just before sunset, the area behind he dunes turned into a freeway for Westbound dragonflys. 50 or more per minute, all headed west. I know that they migrate, but don't know if that is what these were doing. This happened every night that we were there. We did run into some migrating Monarchs one day up in the FL panhandle. I as saddened at the numbers that I was collecting on the windshield of the RV.

We spent several days on inland lake and spring systems. Lots of waterfowl and turtles, both of which weren't be photo enthusiastic. The turtles were mostly different types of Cooters and they are shy. (We missed the American Cooter Festival by several days. Also the Mullet Festival .) The Rainbow River was well populated with Cormorants. I not fond of them because of the ones that come up into the Great Lakes, but that's my problem. I didn't know that there were so many different kind and sizes. One thing that took some getting used to was that when they are fishing and come to the surface, only their head and long neck is visible. My mind kept saying “snake”. They are excellent swimmers and don't float well. Didn't get to any swamps this trip, so no good alligator pics.

We are currently getting settled in, here in Davenport, and I start back at EPCOT next weekend.

We had our first cold snap last night and the pattern for the whole eastern half of the country looks exactly like last winter. Here we go again...

Ghost crab

the beach at Gulf Shores

St Joseph....looks almost like home

A school of skates passing under me

walkway to the beach.  St Joe

Rainbow springs

catching up b

Gulf Shores Al.

We cut West in order to stop in Gulf Shores. We had never been there and there is a huge MI contingent that winters there. Nice area...I was out on a salt marsh and saw something that I had never seen and wasn't aware of. An Osprey was hunting from high overhead, the way I've always seen them do, when he dropped down to the waters surface and flew down the lake at about 3 feet. I've seen eagles hunt this way but never an Osprey...

Port St. Joe FL

This is our favorite place to stay. 10 miles of untouched sugar sand beach and we park in a small State campground that is tucked in just behind the barrier dunes.

50 yards from our door to the beach, which looks a lot like home except the and is white and the dune vegetation is different. And the water tastes terrible. The weather has been stunning and I had great fun kayaking on salt water for a change. I'm finding that salt water is a hoot because there is so much animal life everywhere. Rays, jellyfish, sharks, porpoise, and all kinds of fish. The jellyfish in the picture were the size of a large soft ball and they were numerous. I was surprised at how quickly they can pulsate through the water. I had trouble getting them to sit still for a portrait .

catching up a

10 24 14 catching up

On our overnight stop, in Bowling Green KY, we were torn, as to whether to stay and become campaign workers, till the election, or to continue on our way South. After much reflection we decided that we didn't want to work for peanuts.....

(I hope this qualifies as a double play on words)

 Southbound

 Southbound 10 14 14

On the road again. We're taking three weeks to go from Frankfort to Florida. Time to enjoy the Fall colors and weather. We arrived at Potato Creek, near South Bend IN, in time to experience our first encounter with masses of Asian Lady Bugs. 15 minutes after we parked the rig, it was almost orange on the outside. We learned that they seek out the “inside” after finding a few inside the rig. We ended up capturing or killing nearly 200 and didn't go out again that evening. A dust buster works wonders, sucking them off of the walls and ceilings. We tried to get the cat involved in the game but to no avail.

I had more fun with the Tom Tom GPS system yesterday. I don't really navigate with it, but do tell it where I'm going as a bit of a back up. They have re routed part of US 31 and Tom was beside himself. We were in a “Here Be Dragons” area and she wasn't happy. I have the voice set as a British, female, and she was getting insistent that I return to the motorway.

I'm sitting here currently watching a neighbors golden retriever, sit very politely watching a squirrel tease him unmercifully . The tension in the dog is visible. “I'll sit here the way that I'm supposed to, but give me the word and I'll chase that furry thing into the next county.”

We're off this afternoon to take a plant tour of an RV factory, over in Elkheart. There is also a museum there. Should be interesting and informative.. 

   Thursday 10 16 14 

          Decided that we had extra time on our hands, so are heading for Gulf Shores AL, for a few days and will then wander East across the FL panhandle shore line to Port St. Joe