Sunday March 24th 2024

Weekends in this state park are very busy. Today’s great weather with high temperatures around eighty seemed to bring even more people out. They come to see the alligators and maybe take hike or boat ride. Traffic on the main park road is very heavy and all of the turnouts near trail heads or wildlife viewing areas are overflowing with cars. The speed on the park road is defined as 15 mph. The stop and go nature of the ride with everyone pausing to look at real and imagined wildlife is frustrating. When you try to walk or ride a bicycle you just seem to become part of the problem. It is far better near evening when most people have departed or during the week when crowds are lower.

In the last couple of blog entries I talked about the water level in the Myakka River. Today I walked over to the river level gauge and it read 10.6 feet. I compared that reading with a picture I took of the gauge last September. It was 14.3 at that time. The river level is about four feet lower today than it was in September. Last April when I was here it read 9.3 feet. Thus, the water is a little over a foot higher this year. The grass along the shore is probably a couple of feet higher too.

The alligators seemed to be a little more shy today. There weren’t as many taking the sun on the river bank. There were still plenty of heads poking above the surface of the water. Every set of fishermen along the park road bridge seemed to have a gator or two watching their action. If they hook a fish the race is on to see who actually gets the catch.