Friday March 15th 2024

The huidity and temperature are climbing. The temperature peaked in the mid to upper eighties and felt warmer do to the humidity. Tomorrow is forecast to be about the same.

After failing to get to Robinson Preserve yesterday, I set out for Emerson Preserve today. It is located across the Manatee River from Robinson Preserve on the north side of the Manatee River where it empties into Tampa Bay and the gulf. It is a little further to the east than its south bank counterpart. The traffic on the north side of the Manatee River, while heavy, kept moving. It wasn’t anywhere close to yesterday’s slow moving parking lot.

Today’s issue happened once I arrived at Emerson Preserve park. There was nowhere to park. Each of the parking turnouts was overflowing with parked cars. I finally found a place to park at the far end of the point. Another car was pulling out as I was circling the lot. This is the first time I remember visiting the park at high tide. Usually there is plenty of sand between land and water to walk around the point. Today the water was lapping at the plant life along the shoreline. Every opening in the mangroves and bushes people were sitting or playing in the water. It wasn’t much of a beach, but people were using it as one.

Back at Lake Manatee State Park later in the afternoon the campground was filling up for the weekend. People were taking walks to the day use area and boat launch into Lake Manatee. I met many more people on my walk this evening than usual. There were also several Gofer Tortoises out grazing along the walkways. I don’t think I was late enough to see the rabbits from yesterday’s walk.