February 22, 2012

We looked around downtown Tallahassee this morning and drove through the Florida State campus then headed back north - on the slow route.

We went through cotton country and pecan country. We also saw many cattle farms.

We went downtown Macon to a used bookstore. Midtown, as they call it, looks to be making a resurgence. They have about half the buildings in use and many others are being restored and worked on. We found a nifty little hotdog place. It is just a hole-in-the-wall that has been there since 1916 called Nu-Way Weiner Stand. Weiner is intentionally misspelled. There are 6 small booths and 10 stools at the counter and that is it. The hotdogs have a red covering which makes them unique. There was a newspaper article on the wall of when Oprah Winfrey was there. If you are ever in Macon,Georgia, go to Cotton St to the Nu-Way Weiner Stand.

It was a unique hotdog but it doesn't compare to the Chicago Style hotdog, in Chicago!!!!


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Post Script

I finally posted information about the 17th which was our first day in the Everglades National Park. We didn't have internet that night and tonight it took me an hour to get the pictures downloaded because the server was so very, very, very slow.

Two additional thoughts. The drivers on the east coast of the state honk their horns all the time. Secondly, southern Florida has more adult bookstore and movie places than any place we have ever been!

February 17, 2012

This was a very busy day filled with a lot of new animals and information. But first, a picture of our hotel. Very pretty.

Girls, here is a huge field filled with a vegetable. I couldn't see what it was but there were workers out there picking the vegetables so they can be taken to grocery stores for us to eat. The next picture is of them watering the fields because it is so dry.

 


This is an example of one of many air plants that live down here. They live on trees but do not harm them at all. All they need to live is the air and moisture in it.

This tree is filled with Spanish moss which is also an air plant.

This is a different looking tree called a gumbo limbo tree. The bark on it is a reddish brown color and very thin and smooth. 

These are coconuts growing on one kind of palm tree. There are several different kinds of palm trees and only certain ones grow coconuts.

This is a crocodile. It is a gray color and you can see it's teeth while it is resting. They are difficult to see along the shore because they are about the same color as the dirt. Not many live in the Everglades.

This is an osprey. Ant the next picture is of its nest. They nest close to where there are people. They know they are save in the national park.

There are several different types of trees that are called mangroves. They all can live either in salt water or on land and all have a very different root system. When they grow in the water, they are very short and that type land is usually called a mangrove swamp. We saw a lot of these all over South Florida.

Here is an alligator swimming in the canal. You can see mangrove roots in the background.

The have some West Indian mahogany trees which have been used to make very good furniture. These big things have their seeds in them. There is nothing to eat in them like the nuts in acorns or black walnuts.

Pop and I took a boat ride down a couple of canals and on two lakes. We saw more alligators, crocodiles, osprey, mangroves and more. It was a fun time.

This was a bunch of seagulls!!!!! Actually they are called a colony of seagulls.

Aaron, I think is this Gilligan's Island. We think maybe we saw a smoke signal from where the Captain and Gilligan started a fire to get attention from a passing ship!

Girls, I think this is Charlie Brown's Christmas tree.    Actually, it is a cypress tree.

This is an egret.

They have a few turkey vultures like we have at home but most of their vultures are called black vultures. What is the difference between ours and theirs? A group of vultures is sometimes called a venue. When they are circling overhead like they do, they are called a kettle of vultures.

Did you guess correctly? Our turkey vultures have a red head and these are all black or gray. These vultures also like to eat the rubber on cars. They will eat the windshield wipers, the seals around the windows and even the tires. The national park service has some tarpaulins that they let people use to cover their cars so the vultures won't harm their cars.

These birds are called anhingas. The female (girl) has a light brown neck and the male (boy) has a black neck. We walked on one of the trails just before dark and saw many more animals. The last picture shows birds, mostly anhingas, roosting in the mangrove trees for the night.

And last but not least, we saw many alligators at this time of day. Where this picture was taken, there were 10 alligators in one small area. The amazing thing is that there were turtles and many different birds all around the alligators and the alligators didn't eat any of them.

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Sigh

We had planned to spend today at used bookstores, quilt shops, looking around Florida State Campus and doing laundry. We managed to do two of these. Sigh!!!

Last night as we drove back to the motel from eating the "check engine" light came on on the car so we had to take it to the ford dealership. We spent about 4 hours there and about 4 nights worth of motels there. Sigh!!!

We made it to the only 3 used bookstores in town and found some goodies. The only quilt shop in town was no longer in existence. Our laundry is, however, very clean, neatly folded and put away.

Like Aaron, Ed is hooked on Chic-Fil-A.

February 20, 2012

We drove from Tampa to Tallahassee today. For about 180 miles, off the interstate and along the coast, it is nothing but strip malls and constant stoplights. Hopefully those who live here can go another way to get where they want but the traffic was heavy all day.

These papaya trees were growing by our motel last night. The manager said that it grew from a seedling to having fruit in about 4 months. Unbelievable!

 
We stopped at the Forest Capital Museum State Park at Perry, FL and saw a "cracker" homestead which was built in 1864. The people who lived in this part of the state used whips to drive their cattle and oxen. The home has a porch on two or more sides which gives shade to the house.

The netting above the bed is dropped down at night so the mosquitoes didn't bite during the night because they didn't have screens in their windows. They kept their windows open because they didn't have fans or air-conditioning.

Girls, here is a rug like the braided rug I showed everyone at the library. Her's looks much nicer than mine.

How would you like to take a bath in this bathtub? No bathrooms or showers in those days.

This is the inside of the chicken house. The chickens could walk all over the yard during the day but at night they were kept in a fenced area so animals couldn't get to them. In the house, there was a board with straw where they would lay their eggs and poles on the back wall where they would roost (sit) during the night.

This is the long-leaf pine tree that grows around here. We saw many trucks carrying the logs that had been cut.

This shows the kitchen behind the house. It is separate because it gets very hot and humid here in the summer and it would make the house too hot if it were attached.

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February 19, 2012

We spent most of today at the Manatee Park near Fort Myers, FL. This park is by a huge Florida Power and Light hydroelectric plant where they discharge warm water which the manatees like, especially in the winter. We saw them three different times but they are fleeting and don't rise above the water much. I was lucky to get what little of them I got in a picture.

This is the Skyway Bridge that goes between St. Petersberg and Tampa Florida. We had a friend who was so frightened of this that he would drive 100 miles rather than drive over this bridge.

This is coming down off the bridge. Nothing but water all around.

It was 85 degrees when we left Fort Myers and just a few hours north it was only 73 degrees. This seems really cold to us. Don't you feel sorry for us?????  :)

A problem with traveling is getting enough vegetables to eat. After 10 days we really needed some and found a neat restaurant, Sweet Tomatoes, which is just a salad bar with soup, breads and ice cream. It was wonderful to eat veggies again!

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February 18, 2012

This was a slower paced day and we didn't see so many things that were so very different. On the way to the Everglades again, we had to drive through Miami. This time, rather than the beach road, we drove on US Highway 41 which goes east and west. We were a mile from Little Havana. For about 2 miles there were no signs on stores, restaurants, etc. that were in English. They were for Cuban, Puerto Rican, Haitian, Dominicans and possibly more that I couldn't read. It was strange to be a minority.

One time today when I looked at the temperature, it was 89 degrees. Later in the day I saw a guy with a Chicago Cubs t-shirt on and started to ask Ed if the Cubs were playing today. It didn't take long to get used to really warm temperatures and forget about basketball and hockey.

We saw a lot of birds again and many alligators. There were also red bellied turtles just like the one at the Mounds except this one was larger and in the wild. One place there were 7 baby alligators all sunning themselves.

There were several exotic looking flowers along the paths too.

We saw a lot of porches and out-buildings that had thatched roofs. The Indians that lived, and some still live, here used these roofs on their houses.

There are cypress trees all over the lower part of Florida. We kept seeing these small trees that looked dead when all the rest of the trees have leaves. These were young cypress trees. This type cypress is a conifer and deciduous so it looses all its leaves in the winter time. We saw some with leaves and they look rather like a pine tree. These trees form knobs.

Here is a small cypress tree, just beginning to get its leaves.

Here is a mature cypress tree.

Here is a huge cypress tree with a strange growth on the right of it.  :) 

I was very excited that we would be able to see an eagle's nest but when we got there we discovered that vultures had chased away the parent eagles and the babies are either gone or died. It is hard to believe that a vulture could chase away eagles but the vultures down here fly in groups of 10 to 30. I suppose if a large group came at the eagles, they would have to leave. Here, at least, is the nest.

The good news is that the Decorah, Iowa eagles that I follow have laid an egg. Hopefully more will come!



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