Christmas, Florida

I left home on October 12th. Nearly two months later, I managed to get one day's worth of pictures on my blog. Jump forward to today ... so much happened that I'm going to suck up all the bandwidth I have and post these pictures. The day started with the hawk, which I found out later this evening is always here. Now I know what pooped all over my van:

I have been in Florida for about three weeks now. I have NO Christmas spirit. Palm trees and sand and 80-degree, short-sleeved/shorts-wearing weather just doesn't do it for me. So to try to get into the Christmas spirit, I drove over to Christmas, Florida today. This is what greets everyone at the edge of town:

I went over to Fort Christmas to bring Hope for a walk. The first thing I see when I pull into the parking lot is a sign that says, "No Pets." Oh, well. I parked in the shade and left the animals to go through the buildings. They had a school house, lunch room, fort, and about five houses that ranged from the mid-1800s era to 1950s. This is how they decorated for Christmas in the 1800s. The garland is made from scraps of fabric:

And this is one of the homes:

A small pond on the property was the home of a blue heron. I don't know if it was a Great Blue or not; it was quite small. He was very good to stay so still and let me get such great close-up pictures of him:

After leaving Fort Christmas, I went over to the Orlando Wetlands Area. Again, no pets were allowed, but that's OK because it was closed for the season, anyway. So I left and decided to drive through the town of Christmas to see what it was like. I never got there. On the way, I discovered the Tosohatchee Wildlife Management Area. FINALLY, somewhere I could walk my dog, whose been cooped up in a van for weeks with two ornery cats.

We first took a walk on the loop trail. It was small, but not small enough. Walking the rutted, rooted, barely cleared path was no fun. I decided to follow the road and found the Bobwhite Trail, which was rightfully named because not 100 feet in, I came across a flock of Bobwhites. They're tiny and they're quick so I had no time to take a picture. I tried, but they ran into the underbrush too quickly.

Halfway down the trail, I saw a horse trotting off in the distance. At first I thought maybe we were next to a ranch. Then I thought maybe there was a herd of wild horses in the Wildlife Management Area. A few seconds later, I saw the horse was being followed by a golf cart (WTF?) and a red car. Came to find out, the horse was being chased down by the golf cart and car. Apparently it was a runaway horse, which finally got caught. This is him being led back to wherever he escaped from:

After our walk, I decided to drive through the Tosohatchee to see where the road went. I came upon the Powerline Road, which is the road I saw the horse and golf cart on. A sign pointed to the St. Johns River, so I decided to check it out. What a road! It was at 2.5 miles in and as straight as an arrow. These are views out my windshield and what I saw behind me:

Then I came to the 30-ton bridge. At first I panicked. I didn't think I could drive over this thing. It certainly didn't look sturdy and it didn't sound all that great hearing all the splintering and creaking as I drove over it. I then calmed myself by thinking, "30 Tons, Girl. As in the construction trucks that had to drive over these things (there were two of them) to install those high power poles and lines."

The St. Johns River at the end of the road:

On the way back, all the wildlife was out. I saw turtles -- HUGE ones:

A kormoran, egrets, and a tower of vultures:

At least a dozen armadillos:

Across the street from the entrance to the Tosohatchee Wildlife Management area are these mailboxes. If you can't read them, the bottom one is the home-owners name, the second one up says "Pony Express;" the third: "e-mail"; and I am assuming the top one says "Air Mail." I couldn't read it and I can't see it in the pictures, either.

And a perfect ending to a perfect day -- The Van of Discovery hits a milestone: