Monday, July 29, 2013

#68 - Blue Spring State Park - Orange City, FL - July 21 - 24, 2013

We left Manatee Hammock and went to Blue Spring State Park to 
meet up with some relatives, who were also camping at the Park. 

 Our Site #4
 Sister and Brother-in-law's Site #5
Niece and Nephew's Site #6
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 Views of the St. Johns River at Blue Spring State Park
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 This is the Thursby House. The Thursby's were one of the first settlers in the Blue Spring area in the late 1800's and they owned most of the land that is now the Park. The house has historical displays and a couple of rooms set up like they may have been back in the day.

Three bedrooms and one bath. ;)
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The Spring was chilly, but was very refreshing. Snorkeling was fun too!
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 There is a very, very nice paved bike path right outside the Park. It's called the Spring to Spring Bike Trail. Once it is completed it will connect Blue Spring State Park with DeLeon Spring State Park. Currently, this segment is a little over 5 miles one way, if you also do the loop at Lake Beresford Park. We saw deer, turkeys, and rabbits while riding. Very enjoyable ride! For more information: 
http://www.volusia.org/services/community-services/parks-recreation-and-culture/parks-and-trails/trails/spring-to-spring.stml




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#67 - Manatee Hammock Campground - Titusville, FL - July 18 - 21, 2013


 
We went camping at Manatee Hammock Campground for a few days. 
This is a Brevard County campground. We have camped here many times. 
It's a small campground, but it is located right on the Indian River and provides a great view to see launches from Cape Kennedy.

Site #89
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View of the new Space Shuttle Atlantis Visitor Center.
 The Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) with approaching storm clouds.

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We were lucky enough to be there to view a morning
 launch of an Atlas V Rocket.  It was a very pretty shot...  
 


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There is a very nice fishing pier at the campground. 
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 Great Blue Heron looking for fish...
 and he was successful!
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This boy, and his siblings, were playing around in the river
 by the pier and I saw his t-shirt and just had to take a picture 
of it (after asking his father, of course). Every photographer
 should wear one of these.
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Sunday, February 24, 2013

#65 - Trimble Park - Tangerine, FL - February 19 - 23, 2013

Lucky Site #13
This is the first time we have camped at Trimble Park. This may be our new favorite campground! It's a beautiful Orange County Park. It only has 15 campsites, but most of the campsites are located right on Lake Carlton.


This is the view from the back of our campsite. They built benches around the fire pit...a nice feature. We had campfires for two nights and enjoyed sitting right by the lake and listening to nearby raccoons "talking" and two owls hooting it up.

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 There are many old sprawling oak trees laden
 with Spanish Moss throughout the Park. 

This oak tree is so sprawling that they had to 
prop it up with a trunk of a palm tree.  Amazing!

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  A blast from the past!  
And no coins were to be had in the coin return :)
Something you just don't see very often anymore. There 
were actually several pay phones located throughout the park.

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There were beautiful azaleas of all 
different colors blooming by the lakes.

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 Sunset our first night over Lake Carlton. Taken from our campsite. 

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We visited Downtown Mt. Dora where there are several unique 
shops and restaurants. We ate dinner twice Downtown while
staying at the Park...Fiesta Grande Mexican Restaurant and 
Odom Thai Restaurant.  Both were very good. 
Downtown Mt. Dora is less than three miles from the Park.
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 There are acres of orange groves right by the entrance of
 the Park and the trees were just loaded with ripe oranges. 
 
 Our state flower - the Orange Blossom.  
You could smell the Orange Blossoms at our campsite. 
Just heavenly!

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A beautiful Osprey.
This is a great Park for birding. There are hundreds of birds inhabiting the Park and its surrounding lakes. We saw Ospreys, Great Blue Herons,  Vultures, Cormorants, Gallinules, White Ibises, Red-Winged Blackbirds, Tri-Colored Herons, Great White Herons, Anhingas, Eagles, Cardinals, Sea Gulls, Wood Ducks, and many, many Palm Warblers. 

Our National Symbol sitting in a tree right beside our campsite. 
So awesome!




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I was watching this eagle ( for quite some time) soar
 around the perimiter of the lake  just minding his 
own business, when all of the sudden... 
this hawk came out of nowhere and literally knocked the
 eagle for a loop!   What an event to have witnessed.
 Thankfully, the eagle was okay and flew off to fight another day. 

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 This Cormorant caught himself some sushi. The Cormorant is 
also called the Snake Bird because of his snakelike neck. 

  Unfortunately, it dropped the fish while trying to
 jockey it into position to swallow it. 
I think the bird's eyes were bigger than his stomach.

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Of course, you can't help but to see at least one of these guys 
lurking in the weeds if you are near a body of water in Florida. 
 
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 Sunset on our final night. We will be back!

Wednesday, February 13, 2013

#64 - Moss Park - Narcoossee, FL - January 29 - February 2, 2013

Site #25
This was a last minute "let's go camping" trip, so we went to our
 favorite nearby campground...Moss Park in Narcoossee, FL. 

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See those little black specs in the above photos, well those are Purple Martins. There were thousands of them flying above the campground when we first arrived. It was a good thing we have an awning on the camper, as we could hear little round balls of reprocessed insects being deposited on the top of the awning and could also hear them falling on the dead leaves on the ground :). However, we like Purple Martins because they do help keep the insect and mosquito population in check.

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 As usual, we saw several Sandhill Cranes. This one came right up to our campsite several times. He or she was solitary, so either it lost its mate, or it was a juvenile and was on the prowl. They are such beautiful, graceful birds. They can be very loud at times; however, I love hearing their honking calls (even at sunrise :-).

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 I was able to get fairly close to this Fox Squirrel; they are usually very elusive, but this particular guy was more interested in digging for goodies, than he was in me. 


 I don't know what he was digging up and eating, but it looked dirty, gooey and gross to me, but I guess they were like caviar to him, as he was very intent on finding as many as he could and devouring them. 

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My husband received a beautiful handmade turkey caller for Christmas. 
We saw several turkeys and did have some answer his calling. 

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 Several deer visited our site every afternoon.

 
 This little one was especially curious as to what was for dinner. 

Such beautiful animals

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A beautiful Cardinal.

Four and Twenty Blackbirds...but we didn't have Blackbird pie.

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It was chilly the morning we were to leave, but we didn't have enough
time to start a regular wood fire, so we made a pine cone fire. It did the trick.

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