Tuesday March 13th 2018

This area of Florida is at the southern end of the weather system that is dumping lots of snow on New England. Down here it’s just unseasonably cool. It was in the forties when I got up this morning. My campsite has trees to the east, so it doesn’t get full sun in the morning. I was forced to turn on the heat for a little while. The sun warmed the RV later in the day, but the outside temperature didn’t even reach seventy.

Nature walk through the Palm and Oak hardwood hammock.

I spent most of the day continuing to explore the Myakka River State Park. A short bicycle ride up the park road from my campsite is a Canopy Walkway and nature walk. That is where I started my exploration today. The nature walk is through a high area in the surrounding wet lands known as a hammock. There are both palm trees and hardwood trees in this hammock. The surrounding wetland is not very wet this time of year. During the rainy season the water often invades the area of the nature walk, but right now even the wetlands are pretty dry. It was a quiet walk, with lots of nice scenery. The only thing I missed was seeing some wildlife. I saw a squirrel or two and heard a few birds, but nothing out of the ordinary.

Marsh area that is dry now, but would be flooded in the rainy season.

Canopy walk bridge.

The Canopy walk was interesting, but seemed to be a pointless use of donated money. There are two wood towers about a hundred feet apart with a cable bridge suspended between them. I’d estimate the bridge is thirty feet off the ground, but it is still well below the top of the trees. One of the towers goes up an additional twenty or thirty feet above the trees. There was a line waiting to go up the additional distance on the taller tower and I didn’t wait. It is a narrow stair case that people have to come back down. I wonder if the facility was designed to be a zip line that didn’t get completed.

Tram loaded up getting ready to start the tour.

Boat tour heading out into the river/lake.

From the canopy walk area I continued my ride out to the concession area on the lake. The tour boat and tram were loading up when I arrived. Today I remembered to take some pictures. The parking lot was full and overflowing. Cars were also parked along the entry road. Both the tour boat and the tram were full and many people were in line at the ticket window for the next tours. Other than the cool temperature it was a beautiful sunshiny day.

Great Blue Heron out in the middle of the river/lake.

Great Blue Heron walking across part of the Myakka river.

I made one other bicycle ride late in the day to the bridge over the Myakka River. I wanted to see if the visible wildlife was any different late in the day. The only thing different that I noted was more alligators were in the water rather than on the bank.

Monday March 12th 2018

The cold front arrived as rain with the dawn. It remained cloudy and windy most of the day. Late in the day the sun broke through, but the temperature peaked around seventy.

Quiet water on a tributary of the Myakka River.

I got the day started with a Walmart run after breakfast. This was an older Walmart that had things in different places. It was a challenge to find things. This goes against the very reason I shop at Walmart. I like being able to find things in familiar places in the store. There is something comforting about the similarity between a store in the middle of Utah and a store in Florida. I don’t want to have to wander up and down every aisle just to find the things I want.

Great Blue Heron with the tree above reflected in the water.

Great Blue Heron standing still watching the water for lunch.

This afternoon I explored the state park on my bicycle again. I doubled my travel distance on the bike today even though a few of my muscles are complaining. I traveled out to the lake and checked out the services offered by the concessions. There is a boat tour of the lake and a tram tour of the inland areas. The boat tour is one of two “worlds larges covered air boats”. One had left the boarding area shortly before I arrived. It was very loud and it was having a hard time making headway against the wind. It might be an interesting tour on a better day.

I met the tram tour on my bicycle. It didn’t look impressive. A pickup truck driven by a guide with a headphone mounted microphone pulled two trailers full of people. They moved slower than my bicycle pace and about six cars were stuck behind the tram on the park road. I don’t anticipate taking the tram tour. Neither the boat or tram were very expensive. Either one was only $14 per person with both going for $21. Of course, you have to pay to get into the park too. The daily rate is $6 per car.

Gator conserving energy on the riverbank.

There weren’t as many alligators visible today. The cooler temperature and lack of a visible warm sun was probably keeping them in the water. It was nice to see the Great Blue Herons were still out looking for food. They are a very proud looking bird as they stand with their neck at full extension watching the water ahead.

The new animal on today’s exploration was a Florida Soft Shell Turtle. This one was thinking about crossing the road. Many cars and people had stopped to watch the turtle cross the road. It was located right around a sharp bend in the park road. A park ranger was on the scene either to direct traffic or protect the turtle. I’m not sure which. Mostly he was just talking about the park.

Florida Softshell Turtle thinking about crossing the road.  I don’t understand why it’s out of the water.  

Today’s bike ride was around 10 miles round trip. Some of the pedaling was into the wind so I got a good workout. I still haven’t reached the areas at the north end of the park. Maybe I’ll get there tomorrow if I don’t have to many aches from today’s ride. Of course, I could always drive out there.

Sunday March 11th 2018

With the return to Daylight Savings Time, sunrise was at 7:42 this morning. It wasn’t visible. Yesterday’s rain left a heavy overnight cloud cover that didn’t break until after noon. The humidity continued all day and the temperature peaked just short of eighty. The dreary day made getting started this morning difficult.

Tree lined park road.

Around 10AM I set out on a walk to explore the area. I couldn’t find any nearby trails, so I followed the road further into the park. About a half mile into the park the Myakka River crosses the park road. At the bridge, I found birds, gators and tourists. Everybody stops to see the alligators on the banks of the river. I was more impressed with the birds. In particular one football sized brown bird with white spots that was making a racket. Later when I looked it up I discovered it was probably a Limkin. I don’t think I’ve ever seen one before.

Limpkin ?

Alligators line the bank of the Myakka River.

This Alligator seems to like to be alone.

Once I was back at camp, I got busy making my bicycle ready for use. It’s pretty clear that walking is not the best way to get around this large park. Unfortunately, I’ve been neglecting my bicycle. It has been following me around the country, but hasn’t gotten much use. It needed some cleaning, a lot of oil and some air in the tires. This afternoon I took a test ride up the park road about 2 miles and back. I discovered two things. First, I need to adjust the front brake. It’s dragging. The second thing is my bicycle riding muscles need some conditioning.

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After I grilled a chicken breast for lunch, I caught up on the hour of sleep I lost to the time change. It wasn’t a planned nap, but the heat, humidity and full stomach had an impact. Florida has this bright idea to stay on Daylight Savings Time year round. The legislature has passed a law to that end. The US Congress needs to support it with a change to some of the interstate commerce laws. Now that there is an actual chance it will happen, people are starting to question the impact. The biggest concern is sending kids to school in the dark during winter.

A cold front is supposed to pass through tomorrow. The forecast has a high probability of rain followed by temperatures in the sixties for most of the week. If it’s dry I’ll explore more of the park. Otherwise, I’ve got errands to run in Sarasota.

Saturday March 10th 2018

Today was moving day. I relocated about 70 miles to the Myakka River State Park east of Sarasota Florida. By road, it was around 115 miles in about two hours.

The sun was out this morning, but the forecast was for rain. This was one of those short travel days going from an early checkout time to a place that has a much later checkout time. I slow rolled my departure preparations with some more boat watching in the locks and managed to depart right at the 11am checkout time. Even traveling well below the speed limit, I arrived at Myakka River State Park right at their checkout time of 1PM. The published check-in time is 3PM, but I didn’t have any problem checking in a few minutes after 1PM. Normally I would have stopped at a rest area on the way to kill some time, but the only one on my route was closed.

My RV home on site 66 in the Palmetto Ridge campground at the Myakka River State Park. It was just starting to rain as I snapped this picture.

I have a long pull through site in the Palmetto Ridge campground in the state park. I’ll be here for two weeks. The rain held off a few minutes, but not quite long enough. It started to rain gently before I was finished setting up. It was in the mid seventies, so a little water wasn’t a big deal. The area really needs the rain to alleviate some of the fire danger.

Site 66 is a long pull through with plenty of room to park your car. Mine fits fine behind the rig.

The rain prevented me from doing any touring of the park today. This is one of the older and bigger Florida State Parks. It has many different types of terrain surrounding the meandering Myakka River. In that terrain is a wide variety of wildlife including many alligators. I’m looking forward to checking out the park from my bicycle and on foot. Tomorrow is forecast to have occasional showers. That should allow me to get started exploring the park.

Friday March 9th 2018

I think the weather forecasters got today wrong. They had predicted a warmer day than yesterday. It was at best the same temperature as yesterday. The wind was out of the northeast instead of the northwest. This made it more difficult to find areas out of the wind. Late in the day the wind died down and it started to warm up, but sunset arrived first. It is not forecast to get as cold tonight.

Two boats entering the lock from the west.

I’m sure this boat hasn’t been to its listed home port of Fairbanks Alaska. It probably hasn’t even been on the west coast of the continent.

This is my last day at the Army Corp of Engineers Ortona South Campground. I’ve really enjoyed my stay here and will certainly come back. It is not a good location for visiting the cities on either coast, but is a great place to relax. I spent more time watching boats pass through the lock and taking pictures of the wildlife.

The Little Blue Heron was back picking up some food.

This turtle was at full stretch.

This Martin House seems to be full of Swallows.

I finally got a better idea on what the fishermen are trying to catch. The Snook season in this area open at the beginning of March. I saw one caught that didn’t meet the criteria as a keeper. They have to be between 28 and 33 inches in size. You need a special permit with your fishing license to catch Snook. Snook is just one more variety of fish that I don’t know anything about. Up north I know a little bit about the species of fish that are available to be caught. Down here it’s a big learning curve. That’s one of the reasons I’ve been hesitant about getting a license and fishing.

Black smoke to the east this afternoon.

This area has a Red Flag warning in place. The low humidity, dry conditions and wind make fire danger very high. When I checked in last week the attendant told me that my car should always be backed in to facilitate evacuation. There have been several big forest fires in Collier county south of here. Earlier in the week, when the wind was out of the south, some of the smoke came through this area. This afternoon, not too far to the east, a lot of black smoke appeared. Whatever it was went away within an hour or so, but with all of the warnings, it sure got my attention.

Tomorrow I’m moving up to the Sarasota and Bradenton area for the rest of the month. I’ll be able to attend more spring training games and get some service items completed on my car. It is not a long distance, but I need to kill time so I don’t get there before my site is ready. I will probably stop at the rest area on Interstate 75 for a long lunch. I’ve heard conflicting reports about the availability of cell service and internet access at my next stop. If I can’t get online from my campsite, the blog will be delayed until I leave the park every day or so.

One last sunset along the canal at the Ortona South Campground.

Thursday March 8th 2018

The results of yesterday’s cold front were apparent today. It never got out of the sixties all day. On top of the cool temperature was a strong wind out of the northwest. It was a long sleeves or sweatshirt kind of day.

This boat holds the honor of getting me out of the RV to check it out.

Waiting to pass through the lock westbound.

The cooler temperature lowered my energy level. I spent all morning with my breakfast coffee and the TV. I kept an eye out the window for boats passing through the locks. Traffic in the canal was also slow today. Around noon I spotted the first interesting boat of the day to transit the canal. It was sufficiently interesting to get me out of the RV.

This hawk was having a hard time holding on to the palm tree in the wind.

This little blue heron was back today. It is sheltered from the wind and can find plenty of things to eat.

During the afternoon the sun was clear of the clouds most of the time. If you could find a place out of the wind and in the sun it was comfortable and warm. While I was walking around the park I saw fewer people today. Most people were inside their RVs or huddled up out of the wind. Even the number of people fishing was down.

This ultra light plane went by just before dark. The wind wasn’t too strong at that time. I hope it had landed before the strong gusts returned.

Most days there are at least a half dozen people fishing. On the weekend there were twenty or more at one time. Today, the most I saw was three people fishing from one of the piers. They weren’t doing any better than any other day. For all the fishing going on, I have only seen two or three fish caught. That’s surprising given the large number of fish you can see in the water.

Tomorrow is forecast to be warmer after a very cool start. The overnight low is expected to be around forty. It may be even cooler. At 9:30PM, as I’m writing this blog entry, I’ve had to turn the electric fireplace on to take off the chill that is developing in the RV.

Tonight’s sunset.

Wednesday March 7th 2018

The latest cold front passed through the area last night. This is the southern end of the same storm system that is represented by a major snow event in the Northeast. The passing of the front was heralded by rain showers. It started raining lightly off an on over night and finally cleared off late in the morning. The remainder of the day was partly sunny and breezy.

This Anhinga seems to be in the same place every day.

Great White Egret

Ugly fish.

Little Blue Heron.

I spent the day enjoying life at the campground. The primary entertainment was a traffic jam of boats needing to pass through the lock. The Army Corp of Engineers was trying to deal with a wasp problem at the lock. They had an exterminator in to deal with the problem, but needed to close the lock periodically so the guys with the insecticide could get to the area with the hives. They even had a boat in the water to reach the areas in and around the lock at the water level.

Boats waiting for the lock to open after the bug inspection.

Jamming the boats into the lock eight at a time.

In the middle of all this a group of nine boats traveling together arrived at the lock. They were returning to the east coast from a week at Captiva Island in the Gulf west of Fort Meyers. The line handling skill of the people on the boats varied from capable to novice. The lock master had to coach them carefully. It gets tight in the lock when they squeeze eight boats into a single lift. Not only did it take additional time to get all the boats in and ready for the lift, I think they also filled the lock slower to produce less current. Clearing the backlog of fourteen east bound boats took a couple of hours.

Fancy top of the line boat coming into the lock fast.  Smaller and older boat from Maine follows it in. 

Slowing down with very noisy thrusters from a remote location on the upper deck.

West bound traffic only backed up one or two boats at a time. One pair of boats was an interesting contrast. The first was a big relatively new top of the line boat. The captain came in fast then started to “play” with his boat’s thruster motors to slow and move to the side walls to tie off. It was very loud and took a long time. The second boat in was a much older boat from Maine. It came in slowly, eased up to the wall and the captain and his wife grabbed the waiting lines and tied them off. The guy in the big new boat up front was still tweaking his position with his thrusters while his line handlers tried not to get yanked overboard. I guess boating is just like RVing. It takes all kinds.

In between watching boats passing through the locks and walking around the campground, I worked on making more travel plans. I managed to reserve four nights at Jetty park in Port Canaveral in the second half of April. The weekends are all booked so I’m staying from Monday the sixteenth to Friday. That’s one of the places I wanted to visit before heading north. Once I had that reservation, I filled in the time after my April 5th departure from the west coast of Florida with a stay in the Kissimmee area. Unfortunately it is still considered spring break in the resort area so rates are high. I also continued to work on my summer travel plans.

Tonight’s sunset in the cloudy sky.

Tuesday March 6th 2018

It was another beautiful South Florida winter day. The humidity and the temperature were both up a little. The temperature topped out around eighty and puffy clouds developed in the sky as the day progressed. It was a good day for a Baseball game.

A sailboat and a very large yacht waiting for the lock this morning. The yacht was very impatient. It maneuvered around the sailboat and tried to get in the lock before the gates were open. It had to back out. Then it started in again before the boats in the lock had cleared the exit channel.

I made the seventy five mile drive to Port Charlotte for the Red Sox vs. Rays game at the Charlotte sports park. This is the spring training home of the Tampa Bay Rays. The trip to the ballpark was easy. I didn’t encounter any traffic until I reached the stadium. There were two solid lines of traffic waiting to get parked. I arrived an hour and a half before game time, but the massive parking field behind the stadium was already half full. Tailgating seems to be a common thing at this ballpark. It cost $10 to park in the field. While this is the normal rate for spring training here in Florida, it was only $5 in Arizona last year.

Red Sox taking batting practice.

View from right field.

The stadium is a modern facility with a seating two thirds the way down each line. This is complimented by lawn seating to the outfield walls. A boardwalk area crosses the outfield. The seats are standard width, but the amount of foot room could be better. My knees were in the back of the row in front.

The game was fun. There were several home runs, a couple of double plays and an odd ball play or two. I’m still trying to figure out what happened during an infield fly that was completely missed by the Red Sox fielders. The runner was out by rule, the base runners advanced to 2nd and 3rd, the Sox weren’t charged with an error, but they seemed to come out better than if they had caught the ball. In the end the Red Sox won 9 to 1 and the game ended with a 1 to 2 to 3 double play from a bases loaded situation.

The game lasted around 3 hours even with all the pitching changes and position player substitutions common in a spring training game. The real ordeal was getting out of the parking lot. All of the traffic needs to funnel out one exit road. It took around fifty minutes from the time I got into my car until I reached the main road. The people that resumed their tailgating had the right idea. I was back at my RV home a little after six following another easy drive.

Tonight’s sunset. 

Monday March 5th 2018

It was cool to cold overnight. I rolled over and went back to sleep several times waiting for it to warm up in my RV home. By nine thirty or so I dragged myself out of bed. It was nice in the sun, but still in the sixties overall. The temperature topped out in the upper seventies with no clouds and a little wind. It was another great day.

A school of some variety of (sucker?) fish.

Three turtles and a lurking fish.

This park continues to keep me entertained. I planned to go grocery shopping after breakfast, but watching the activity in the park distracted me. I finally left the park around three thirty. Today I was drawn to the water creatures more than the birds. The canal surface was still enough that you could see schools of fish swimming around. On the banks turtles were sunning on the rocks. East of the dam I even managed to catch a glimpse of the manatees I’ve been hearing about. For a few minutes I could see the noses of two manatees break the surface to breath. Most of the time they seemed to be deep to avoid the boat traffic. This evening one of the otters was entertaining as it found and ate its dinner.

Mock Stern Wheel River boat out of Fort Meyers heading east bound in the lock.

Leaving the lock to the east.

Turning around just east of the lock.

Entering the lock westbound.

Ready to be lowered for the westbound transit.

An interesting stern wheel excursion boat out of Fort Meyers delayed my departure from the campground. I had to watch the unusual sight pass through the lock going eastbound. Then it turned around and passed back through the lock westbound. If it hadn’t turned around it would have gotten trapped in the river since the locks stop working at 5PM until 7AM. Their were quite a few people on the excursion that wouldn’t want to get stuck forty miles inland from Fort Meyers.

When I finally made it to the Walmart about twenty minutes to the east, I was less than impressed. It’s a relatively new Super Walmart, but it had a lot of empty spots on the shelves. Some of the stuff I wanted to get wasn’t available. I departed with food basics like bread and meat. The smaller sizes in the paper goods aisle were empty. I don’t have room to store the large economy size package of paper towels, for example. In the non-food area, a replacement water hose and sewer chemical weren’t available. Because of these deficiencies this Walmart didn’t get all of my business. Another Walmart down the road will probably get the missing business.

Otter after consuming a fish. I think he/she is looking right at me. I’m too far away to be considered the next course.

Tomorrow I’m going to a spring training baseball game in Port Charlotte. It’s about a seventy miles away so it will be a long day.

Tonight’s sunset.

Sunday March 4th 2018

The temperature got down to the low fifties overnight according to the TV weather people. I think it may have been lower here. I woke up around 5AM and added a blanket to the covers. The day was another almost perfect day. The temperature peaked in the mid 70s a little lower than Saturday and the wind blew harder as well. Once again the there wasn’t a cloud in the sky all day.

I sat outside with my coffee this morning listening to and watching the birds. After a while I got my tablet and a second cup of coffee. Before I knew it the morning had passed. I put the tablet away for awhile and walked over to the viewing area for the lock. Over the course of the next hour I watched the boats going through the lock. They ranged from little ski boats to sixty foot ocean capable trawlers. My guess is they range in cost from a few thousand dollars to north of a million.

Three boats ready to rise eight feet in the lock.

Small trawler in the style of an old tugboat.

Big 60 foot boat coming in from the east.

Sixty foot trawler from “Omaha Nebraska”. I think the owner said they were actually based out of Punta Gorda FL.

The afternoon found me back in my chair watching the birds and reading. I think I’m back in RV living mode after six weeks of being mostly in travel mode. I experienced some bad weather coming across the country, but overall was lucky. During the last couple of weeks the areas I traveled through have had more than their share of bad weather.

For dinner I grilled a piece of steak and microwave “baked” a potato. It was very good. It also pretty much emptied the refrigerator of my backlog of food. If I don’t get to the store tomorrow, I’ll have to raid the freezer. I guess my days of hanging out at the campground are over for a couple of days.

Tonight’s sunset.