Moore Haven

I left Naples today and came east to Lake Okeechobee. There really isn't much here except sugar cane and fishing, but I wanted to see the area anyway.I stopped at a park along one of the canals that parallels Lake Okeechobee. 

What is this????? It is totally dried out. When I first saw it, it was upside down and I thought it was a rattlesnake skin.

One of the dams that separates the canal from Herbert Hoover Dike:

A truly cool rock:

Sugar cane. I heard that when they burn it, it smells wonderful. It is only about 6" tall right now. I don't even think that the sugar cane stalk has started growing yet. There's a notice on the bulletin board of the RV park I am staying in that advertises a tour of a sugar cane farm. I think I'll call about it tomorrow and see if I can take the tour. When I think of sugar cane, I think of the mini-series, "The Thorn Birds," when Meggie's husband Luke followed the harvesting.

TandG

I spent nearly two weeks with Tari and Gordy. Not much happened; it was a much needed rest after being on the go for three weeks. Besides, I had to take care of the brutal cold I caught due to getting far too chilled in Orlando and St. Augustine. One day Tari and I went shopping and another day I did a lot of running around doing stuff that needed doing (post office, oil change, new coach battery). Other than that, I just hung out at Tari's, took Hope for a few walks around the neighborhood, and caught up with three weeks of e-mails.

Here's a picture of Hope and Mosamo waiting to go outside:

On the last day of my visit, Gordy took us out on the boat. We went down to Marco Island and around the other islands off the shore of Naples.

I think these are osprey. There was a nest on nearly every channel sign:

This is THE party island. There were boats along the beach almost as far as you could see.

Spending the day out on the water made me miss my boat. Not enough to wish I could afford to buy one, but I still had twinges of a broken heart.

As is my usual mode of operation, I did not have much luck with my camera. At least I remembered to bring it with me. Whenever I tried to take a picture of something that was worthy of picture-taking, it either passed too fast -- or -- as with my luck, my battery died.

We saw a lot of dolphins and a pair came up and surfaced directly in front of the boat. I tried to get a video of a pelican flying overhead. He dove down into the water, again, directly in front of the boat. The best thing we saw was a stingray jump up out of the water. Tari saw it first and as she was telling us about it, I saw it jump again. That's a sight I would have never had the fortune to get a picture of.

Vanderbilt Beach Naples FL

A day at the beach with Uncle Ted and Auntie Rose. Not much to do here except people watch and get burned. Luckily, I didn't get burned, but I do have a mysterious red stripe down one side of my back. I guess someone didn't get sunscreen in all the right places.

Like to people watch? Go to the beach! There were white people and brown people (and I'm talking about intensity of tan, not race);  skinny people and fat people; tatooed people and empty people; long haired people and short haired people; fully dressed people and nearly naked people. I really wanted to take pictures of all the contrasting people, but I just didn't think it was right.

Here are the bathing beauties. Don't they look great for being in their 80's?

What is this girl doing? Whatever it is, it's quite popular.

I was mesmerized by the different bands of color in the ocean. These two pictures show them. The turquoise bands would come and go and I couldn't figure out if it was reflection of the sun or something within the water itself. While photographing the colors, I happened to catch a parasailer.

Advertising technique at it's finest:

OK, so I took one picture of someone while I was people watching. You don't see a guy in a business suit (right down to his dress shoes) at the beach too often. I even saw him on the phone once, but I couldn't get a good shot of him -- between him moving and other people walking in front of me.

A gust of wind came through, blowing this umbrella inside out.

Myakka State Park

I am now on my own. Peggy and Jean went north for Savannah, GA and Sandy stayed to visit with friends in St. Augustine. I went south and stayed with Darlene, another Roadtrekker, for one day, and then started my trek across and down the state of Florida to Naples. About two hours' drive from my destination, I stayed at Myakka State Park. I got into the park to register and I was so enthralled with its beauty (and finally having warm weather) that I stayed for two days. There is much to do here. Some of the activities include bird walks every morning; air boat rides on the lake; tram rides through the park; rental of bicycles, canoes and kayaks; entertainment on the weekends; a variety of ranger-assisted programs; and miles and miles of trails. Myakka is Florida's largest state park consisting of 57 square miles of wetlands, prairies, and woodlands. In comparison, all of Disney World is 44 square miles.

With these two pictures, I first need to flash back to the FMCA rally I went to this past summer in Burlington, VT. I took a seminar on dutch oven cooking. Ever since then, I've grappled with the thought of purchasing a dutch oven. The problem was the cost, as cast iron cookware can be very expensive. The other problem was storage for the oven, cooking plate, charcoal briquettes and lighter fluid. As I was passing through Tennessee on my way to Alabama, I noticed a Lodge Cast Iron Outlet Store. I succumbed and purchased a 6" dutch oven, a cast iron plate, and a wooden trivet to hold the plate. I nearly stopped at the next outlet to return everything because I was having a hard time justifying the cost for something so frivolous. One of the day trips Pat and I took while I was visiting her in Alabama was to an indoor flea market. I saw the same dutch oven I purchased three days before selling for $10.00 more, so I felt much better after that.

Sooooo, after carrying all the necessary supplies around with me for three weeks, I finally got the opportunity to try dutch oven cooking. This is the cooking process. For a 350-degree oven, you take the diameter of the pot and add three charcoal briquettes for the top and take away three charcoal briquettes for the bottom. For my 6" dutch oven, it was bottom: 6-3=3 and top: 6+3=9. I don't quite understand how this works because in a normal oven or on a stove top, the heat source is underneath the pot; but in this case, the majority of the heat is at the top of the oven.

My vegetables came out perfect. The next day, I made apple crisp and cooked it too long. I also neglected to put any liquid in with the apples. I didn't burn it, but came pretty close to cooking it to death. After using this cooking method only twice, I noticed that the wooden trivet is pretty much charcoal itself, so I will need to re-think my lower heat plate

The campground was home to flocks of vultures that also roosted in the trees overhead every night. Olly decided that this was the safest place in the park and still get fresh air and sunshine

I took a cruise on the lake on the largest airboat in Florida. This boat seated around 50 people and hit a top speed of 8 mph. These are some of the birds and alligators we saw on the lake:

Great Blue Heron

Tri-colored Heron

Alligators

Swimming along side the boat

Snowy Egret

A cormorant drying its wings

And back on land, looking across the prairie

St Augustine

I spent one day in St. Augustine with Peggy, Jean, and Sandy. It wasn't all that enjoyable due to the cold -- and I mean C-O-L-D. I had four layers of clothing on and I still got chilled to the bone, despite being inside a museum for most of our visit.

Jean and Peggy left the campground about an hour before Sandy and I did. When we connected, Jean and Peggy said that they weren't doing anything just yet other than taking the trolley around the city to see what was what. Sandy and I decided to do the same. We didn't get through one quarter of the tour when we decided it was just too darned cold. As soon as we could, we got back to the parking lot to her van and made something warm to eat/drink. As we were sitting there chatting, we heard a rather loud engine running and Sandy said, "I hear a generator. Doesn't that sound like a generator running to you?" I walked outside and sure enough, Jean and Peggy were back at Jean's van, running the generator to get warm and make some hot chocolate.

Jean and Sandy spent the rest of the afternoon touring the shops in town while Peggy and I went to the Lightner Museum. The museum was housed in the old Hotel Alcazar which was built in 1887 by railroad magnate Harry Flagler. The Hotel Alcazar was, in its day, a health spa that consisted of a Turkish bath, gymnasium, steam room, massage room, and cold plunge room. The building was eventually purchased in 1946 by Otto Lightner, a Chicago Publisher, to house his collection of Victorian artifacts and was opened to the public as a museum two years later.

Some of the more interesting exhibits I found were of the artistry in the Victorian era. People entertained themselves by making art from human hair, match box covers, and cigar bands.


I saw so very little of St. Augustine, that I went back the next day. The Lightner Museum had a room full of Victrolas and music boxes that they play twice a day. I wanted to get back there to listen to them play, but I never made it. Instead, I spent my afternoon at the Fountain of Youth.


The Fountain of Youth is where Ponce de Leon landed in 1513 and took claim to the land for Spain, naming it "La Florida." My interpretation of the Fountain of Youth is not of it's legendary youthful restorative properties but because of the hoards of youth that descend upon it en mass.  They were giving out little samples of the water from the fountain and twice, as I tried to obtain my own sample, was run over by groups of school children bombarding the room.


Florida's water taste like crap; it has a very high sulfur content and the water in the Fountain of Youth is no different. I got my chuckles watching half of the children guzzle their cup of water then run to the nearest trash recepticle to spit the disgusting taste out of their mouths.

This is an artist's rendition of the landing of the Spanish conquistadors

A Timucua Indian woman making pottery

A Spanish conquistador preparing the cannon. The most popular method for lighting the match was with a magnifying glass with direct sunlight. Although they did use flint stones, the sun/glass method worked faster. We had to wait for the sun to come out from behind a cloud for the gunman to light the cannon. 

The Fountain of Youth

A plant just inside the entrance gate. The driveway was lined with them.

This is Magnolia Drive. There aren't any Magnolias on it any more as they were taken over by Live Oaks. The street is one of the most photographed in the United States.

The Old Senator. Possibly America's oldest tree at 600 years old.

This cross is located at the Mission of Nombre de Dios & Shrine of Our Lady of Leche. The cross is the second tallest stainless steel structure in the U.S. at 208 feet. It was erected in 1965. The St. Louis Arch is the only stainless steel structure that is taller.

Anastasia State Park

We stayed for two nights at Anastasia State Park in St. Augustine. This is Hopey staying cool, although I have no idea why she needed to stay cool because it was downright freezing. Actually, this picture may have been taken at Jetty Park in Port Canaveral. No, wait. I know where it was that she embarrassed the hell out of me by digging holes: Fort Wilderness in Disney. It was cold there, too, so I still don't see why she had to dig a hole to stay cool.

This is a grove of trees just outside the beach. I thought that the intricate flow of branches was interesting. That and the fact that the beach side of the trees were naked of leaves.

Now for some interesting facts.  This is the conquina quarry on the outskirts of Anastasia State Park. Coquina is rock that is made of tiny shells. It is light enough to float, easily cut when wet, but nearly indestructible when completely dry. The Castillo De San Marcos was made of coquina stone. The fort was attacked four times and was never overtaken due to the coquina stone's impenetrable strength.

The Castillo de San Marcos was built nearly 350 years ago. Here you can still see the cut marks in the stone in the quarry's floor.

Kennedy Space Center

Another "been there, done that" deal. This time, though, I had a better camera, so I was able to get a good picture of the shuttle on the launch pad. I also played with my zoom and got a couple of good pictures of birds hanging around the bus terminal at the shuttle observatory tower.

Satellite launch pad

Cowbird

We were told that this is a male cowbird, as the above picture is a female. I think, though, that this is a grackle.