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| Beautiful orchids at the market! |
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| Many bake stands with delicious looking breads! |
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| Now I have seen everything! |
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| So much delicious produce! |
Then it was on to the 6 mile cypress preserve. You walk on a 1 1/4 mile Boardwalk through a slough and see loots of beautiful vegetation, birds, turtles, wild pigs, snakes, alligators, etc. We ate our packed lunches there before the hike and toured the visitors center. It really is a very nice and interesting place.
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| The visitors center was interesting and the volunteers so informative! |
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| The alligator bike rack! Rather unique! |
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| This boardwalk trail took you through the slough! |
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| Cypress trees! |
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| 2 wild hogs resting! |
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| Time to get up...... |
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| and move on! |
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| Wild Iris! |
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| Beautiful! |
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| How true! |
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| An Egret! |
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| Mommy alligator....... |
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| and her babies. Only 1 or 2 babies usually survive. They get eaten by predators! |
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| Aren't they cute?????? |
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| If you look closely, you can see her baby on the shore! |
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| An egret on her nest! |
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| An Ibis in the swamp! |
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| More cypress trees! |
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| These are the cypress knees, which are alive and give additional root support to the cypress trees. Many people carve them into unique shapes and sell them at craft shows. The crafters need to purchase the cypress knees! |
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| So lush! |
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| Not my favorite critter to see along the trail! |
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| No room at the inn for anymore turtles! |
While there, i dropped my Ray-Ban sunglasses off the boardwalk into the swampy water. Two gentlemen who were familiar with the area said they wouldn't reach in there for any amount of money. After all we had just seen a water moccasin. But Chuck had an idea. He got a dead branch, scattered the vegetation on top of the shallow marshy water and on the first try bout up my sunglasses. My Hero!
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| Reaching over with a dead branch to get my sunglasses! |
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| My HERO!!!!! |
We left the area and stopped at Dollar Tree, Bealls Outlet so Melissa could get a pickle ball outfit and a beach bag, Wal-Mart for wine and groceries, Camping World for a needed piece for their refrigerator covers, and then one of our favorites, Costco. What a day! We only got back to the campground at 5:45 and that was before the time change.
We unloaded and put all our purchases away and then had dinner. Cleaned up and Chuck and Melissa came by at 7:30 to play Pinochle. It was a fun evening and the delicious sangria was a bonus! They left at midnight. It was a busy, fun day!
I almost forgot one of the highlights of the day - we SOLD our kayak. While we were at 6 mile cypress a fellow camper at Pine Island called Ken and said she wanted to buy it. She and her husband picked it up at 9 that evening. They paid cash and were happy to take it inflated with very little instruction. The perfect buyers! We have enjoyed using it,but since buying Waldo, storage is a problem and without the truck we can't haul it inflated. It was time to release it!
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| The happy non-kayak owner with his friends! |
Congrats on selling the kayak!! It was great what Chuck figured out to do to get your sunglasses, but I was much more impressed with how he got to his tonsil rocks with skewers!! :)
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