Kissimmee Prairie Preserve - Part 2

Kissimmee Prairie Preserve is a peaceful place to be for about three or four days.  We were there for ten. 

By the third day we had walked the only trails we were interested in. We had had some rain and we could see that many of the possible trails had large lake-like puddles on them. The weather had also turned a bit cool because of a large cold storm that was battering the rest of the country.

We did, however, go on an 8:30 AM buggy ride on Saturday. As you can see, we dressed warmly and I took our picnic blanket along as a lap robe. The air wasn't too cold, but zipping along at 30 mph or so into the wind made it seem so.

Cold as we were, it was one of the high points of our stay. We did see one large gator at the gator hole. We were told that there were as many as thirty gators in that area!  Glad they weren't all out when we had walked that way the day before.

Luck was with us in that one of the other passengers was quite a good birder. She called out sightings of many birds that to me were mere specks in the sky or grass. 

These wading birds were a bit more visible.  Mutt and Jeff?

One of the best things about the buggy ride was that we were higher up than if we were walking or in the Jeep. I enjoyed seeing the vast stretches of grass waving in the wind.

The last day of our time at KPPSP we went to Lake Okeechobee, which is the seventh-largest freshwater lake in the US, the top five being the Great Lakes.  We walked about two of the 110 miles of the trail around the lake, and back again.  At the town of Okeechobee, the trail is on a large levee between some sand bars on the edge of the lake, and a navigable waterway fronted by largely manufactured housing and some businesses and utilities.

Along the waterway, we passed this complex which shared striking turquoise roofs.  Near the right side of this image you can see a sign that reads "Grand Opening".  From the decrepit condition of the pier in the foreground, it's likely that the place never actually opened!

On the trail we saw two black buzzards.  One of them flew away pretty quickly, but the other just walked off the trail.  As we came alongside, he continued to walk away from the trail, and it seemed that he could not currently fly.  Craig walked closer to him for a few steps, and near the end he made a remarkable jump, rather like a kangaroo.  But the slow response time of our little camera meant we didn't get an image of the jump, and we have to settle for this image.

I am writing this from our next campground up at Wikewa Springs State Park.  Having good internet and a large city just outside the park entrance is wonderful.  

We are going out to dinner...