Yesterday was a great day. We decided to find a state park and see what native Florida was like. We had light breakfasts and each took an extra bagel with us for our lunches. Then we looked on Google maps for a state park close to us and found the Hillsborough River State Park.
I has plenty of trails for walking and the promise of rapids along one of the trail. There were also bike rental, which seemed especially appealing.
By the time we got there and scouted out the trails we both needed a rest stop and found a gift shop next to a huge swimming pool. The gift shop had a special on shoes---75% off, and out of the three pairs there, the cutest ones fit me! Chuck said to go for it. Sorry, no pic today.
There were bikes, but really not many places to ride them, so we opted for walking and picked our trail. Early in the walk we came to the rapids. Here the mirror-like river speeds up a bit and goes over a few rocks. But there is a great place to sit and have lunch!
We'd called home and since Thursday is usually the day we talk to Becca we also called her, so we have a couple of pics of us being typical tourists and talking on the phone while we walk. Becca can tell you that a lot of the conversation was about what we were seeing while we walked. We didn't miss the beauty around us.
Here, Chuck is showing what baby palm trees look like. Baby palm trees? Do trees have babies? Anyway, the young palms look like palm leaves growing out of the ground. As they get bigger they will have a trunk a few inches tall and about 6 inches in diameter.
There were a lot of tiny lizards, but we didn't have much success capturing them with our camera.
There was a sign telling about red shouldered hawks. We saw a few of them. The sign said they are especially noisy during mating season. While we were talking to Bec we heard a ruckus high above us. There was a hawk in the top of a huge tree. Then there were two. Then...
Bev also talked to Bec.
This is on a suspension bridge over the slower part of the river. After crossing the bridge we got into some boggy areas. We wondered how much this was like Everglades.
We also saw some more cool stuff. The light coming through a palm leaf shows how beautiful they are.
There were loads of turtles in the river and we took quite a few pictures but I will only bore you with one.
There were these butterflies in a lot of places but until nearly the end of our walk, we did not see one land on anything. Then it was so obliging that Chuck got a ton of pictures of it, including this beauty.
Unfortunately we did not get a good picture of the armadillo that came lumbering out of the brush. We got a picture, and we could show you where the armadillo is in it, but posting it here would be useless.
I've got to go meet Chuck for breakfast so this is all for now.
I has plenty of trails for walking and the promise of rapids along one of the trail. There were also bike rental, which seemed especially appealing.
By the time we got there and scouted out the trails we both needed a rest stop and found a gift shop next to a huge swimming pool. The gift shop had a special on shoes---75% off, and out of the three pairs there, the cutest ones fit me! Chuck said to go for it. Sorry, no pic today.
There were bikes, but really not many places to ride them, so we opted for walking and picked our trail. Early in the walk we came to the rapids. Here the mirror-like river speeds up a bit and goes over a few rocks. But there is a great place to sit and have lunch!
We'd called home and since Thursday is usually the day we talk to Becca we also called her, so we have a couple of pics of us being typical tourists and talking on the phone while we walk. Becca can tell you that a lot of the conversation was about what we were seeing while we walked. We didn't miss the beauty around us.
Here, Chuck is showing what baby palm trees look like. Baby palm trees? Do trees have babies? Anyway, the young palms look like palm leaves growing out of the ground. As they get bigger they will have a trunk a few inches tall and about 6 inches in diameter.There were a lot of tiny lizards, but we didn't have much success capturing them with our camera.
There was a sign telling about red shouldered hawks. We saw a few of them. The sign said they are especially noisy during mating season. While we were talking to Bec we heard a ruckus high above us. There was a hawk in the top of a huge tree. Then there were two. Then...
Bev also talked to Bec.
This is on a suspension bridge over the slower part of the river. After crossing the bridge we got into some boggy areas. We wondered how much this was like Everglades.
We also saw some more cool stuff. The light coming through a palm leaf shows how beautiful they are.
There were loads of turtles in the river and we took quite a few pictures but I will only bore you with one.
There were these butterflies in a lot of places but until nearly the end of our walk, we did not see one land on anything. Then it was so obliging that Chuck got a ton of pictures of it, including this beauty.
Unfortunately we did not get a good picture of the armadillo that came lumbering out of the brush. We got a picture, and we could show you where the armadillo is in it, but posting it here would be useless.I've got to go meet Chuck for breakfast so this is all for now.
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