Thursday, May 5, we headed north, working our way out of the Everglades and towards our two sons in Maryland and New York. As we drove I saw a butterfly fly out and get hit by our screen. When we stopped for a trail to hike, I found him, un-splattered, but dead on my bug screen. Beautiful, but sad.
A beautiful trail!
This area reminded us of Bend Oregon Thousand Trails Preserve!
Except for the Palms!!!!
Later we stopped at another walk that was more touristy. There was a Visitors Center, restrooms and a high school class on a field trip. Other than that, it was a pretty impressive trail and walk. Many beautiful flowers!
More Borrow Ponds showing the limestone exposed as they quarried for road building materials. The trail we were on was part of a road system built into the Glades in the early 1920's. The trail/road was very narrow by today's road standards....just right for a trail to walk on!!! And the Borrow Pond was just right to gather many wildlife to the gathered water during this end of the dry season!
A fisherman or fisherwoman?
One big lazy gator!
Turtle!!!
We had been told several times that this was breeding month and twice had been told about the courtship ritual of alligators. Quite amazing, romantic and soft. Totally different than one would think for these walnut size brained reptiles. We saw a few of these acts exhibited as we looked at alligators over the last several days, but one that we had not seen was the roaring of the male alligators. Today, we witnessed this phenomenon for about 15 minutes. It was powerful! It was primal!
There were about 15 of them roaring at each other and competing for the attention of the beautiful female alligators lounging in the nearby mud. The ranger said that it is very rare for humans to witness this. She had been there two years and this was the first time she had actually seen it.
All the noise confused this young red shouldered hawk.
Wayne later decided to make his hat into a crown and pose beneath a Royal Palm.
Further north in Belle Glade, FL, while Ann shopped for a tee shirt, Wayne wandered the grounds of the close by RV Park and saw a Pea Cock strutting his stuff.
The closer Wayne got, the more the pea cock expanded and shook his tail feathers.
He was either showing off or trying to threaten Wayne. It was fun. No matter how close Wayne got, the pea cock did not back off. Quite the territorial bird. Stood his ground and claimed his territory!
Later, as we drove through Pahokee, FL we didn't see a single white person through the whole town! The town was very depressed and challenged, but they had beautiful palms!!!
Then we drove 30 miles along Lake Okeechobee. Some was depressed economically and some area was very ritzy! But, all of it was beautiful!
We spent the night in Camp Wal-Mart in Okeechobee!
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