Bear Island

We were supposed to spend two nights out in Big Cypress at the Bear Island campground last weekend, but plans got screwed up (as usual) and it ended up being only one night.  My youngest boy hadn't been camping in a couple years, so he was VERY excited to be going.


General gun season opened that weekend, so spots were hard to find, but we finally got one...tucked way in the back, off the road.  In fact, if I didn't have a 4WD truck, we couldn't have gotten to it at all.  There were two big mud ditches that we had to get through, but my truck did it just fine...whew!  

I really like our spot...a big cypress stand was right behind us...

As we were setting up the tent, two park rangers came through on foot with a radio tracking device.  They were out looking for a female panther in the area.  About an hour or so later, they came out of the woods behind out tent - no panther, she had moved further north.  Still a little exciting to think there was one close to where we were!

We did some caching (of course) and this guy was eyeing us as we tried to locate a cache across the canal from him.

The best part was building  campfire...throwing wood pieces I had brought from work, pine cones and palm fronds...nothing beats a good blaze!

It was alot of doing for just one night, but it was worth it...I was awakened at 1am by a Barred Owl calling and flying big circles in the area...soft country music from our closest neighbors...it was peaceful and just so nice to get away from the city for a bit.


Continuing the writing exercise mentioned in my last post....


Day 02 → Something you love about yourself.


Honestly...I don't love that much about myself.  I guess I'm empathetic, which is good...but I have too many negatives.  Ok, ok...there has to be something...Ok. I llike that I am not hung up on "keeping up with the Joneses".  Totally NOT me!  I do not fall into the latest, greatest things.  I am anti-"i" anything (ie. iPods, iPhones, etc.).  Pandoras?  What a waste of money!  Things are not important to me.  People are.  


Well, not much of a post for that exercise, but all I can think of tonight.

More shots of the weekend

Home away from home!


Ribbon Orchid, Fakahatchee Strand (I thought it was a Ghost Orchid, dang it!)

I cannot figure out what kind of hawk this is...

Indy snuck into the tent and managed to catch a little nap.

Eatin' some breakfast.

Yes, it was a little chilly!

My Weekend in Big Cypress

Every year some geocaching friends of mine have an annual camping event at a remote campground in the Big Cypress Preserve. This year, there were 4 of us making the trip...my two sons and my friend Lj from Pennsylvania. My littlest one was so excited about camping. All I heard for 2 weeks prior to leaving was "We go camping?" "I go camping, Mommy?" "We sleep in tent?" etc....

This was the view not far from the back of our campsite.

Friday evening, the squirt was really whiney and just plain tired, but would not lay down and take a nap. I decided we needed to go for a drive. No one else wanted to go. everyone wanted a break from the crying 3 year old, so it was just me and Aidan...driving down the road that leads to the campground and looky what we saw! Gee, it's kind of far away, but c'mon...you can guess....

It's a PANTHER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I zoomed in as much as I could and cropped the next picture. Terrible, but you can definitely tell what it is.

OMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Seeing this guy made one of my lifetime dreams come true. Awesome, totally, completely awesome. They are rare in South Florida and I bet 99% of the people here have never seen one in the wild. I feel very fortunate to have been in the right place at the right time. I just wish my other son and Lj had wanted to come along for the ride!

The next day, we went in search of a geocache located in the Fakahatchee Strand...a very humid, swampy, buggy area. Sounds awful, right? But it holds many treasures. One that we found was this orchid. I believe it's a butterfly, but not 100% sure. We also found what we thought were ghost orchids, but they turned out to be ribbon orchids. *Deep sigh, heavy depression* Well, I DID get to see that panther, so I can't complain too much.

I'll put up some more pictures tomorrow.

.....And for those curious, no, we never found that cache. Over 6 hours in the swamp and we camp out empty handed. Tired, sore, a bit bloodied and bitten. Maybe we'll try it again one of these days.