A Packed Weekend

Last weekend, my sweetie flew in from Pennsylvania.  As always, I asked him what he wanted to do that weekend and he wanted to go to the Keys...fishing, swimming and kayaking.  So we did!  

First we had to find a place to stay...the Conch on Inn was just a little too scary for us, so we settled on the Seafarer on southern Key Largo.  No bad - not great- but not bad. Lot's of ambiance!  I'd stay there again.

Ok, so my honey wanted to fish for tarpon from the kayak. It's a do able thing, just not in a tandem kayak!  So I took him to Robbie's so he could see some up close.  Some of them were in the 5' range...pretty cool!

We wanted to go to John Pennekamp State Park, but they were turning people away saying they were too full.  Well...thankfully I knew of a place we could dump the yak and still paddle into Pennekamp and that is exactly what we did.  We had a nice paddle through the mangroves and came out not far from the boat ramp in the park.  We pulled out next to the first swimming hole and jumped in.  The water was bath temperature, but still felt great!  After a while, we got back in the yak and headed back to my "secret" put in spot.  Thankfully my truck was still there...

Next up?  Fishing!  We settled for fishing off a bridge and for a couple hours had some fun in the sun...my honey catching all the fish (yeah, I am still a little pissed about that!)...Spanish Mackeral, a jack and a small Mangrove Snapper.  

Down some side street...gotta love the colors!

What weekend would be complete without going for a couple caches?  There was one located near this place, but some guys were hanging out, so we bypassed it.  That hotel has the Conch on Inn beat on the creepiness scale, though!

And just down the road is Jules Undersea Lodge... an actual "hotel" that you have to dive to get to.  Google it!  Kinda cool...

Leaving the Keys,we made a quick stop at the Botanical Site off Card Sound Road.  These flowers were out front, Scorpiontails.  I think they're kinda cool!

Still a few hours of daylight left as we headed back to Miami so I suggested a quick run into the Everglades National Park.  Of course....we had to stop for a cache along the way!  As my honey went bushwhacking to find "Frog Pond" (one of my caches), I stayed and took a couple pics of the storm moving in.

On the way to Royal Palm in ENP, we stopped to check out this little water snake in the middle of the road. Snakes can be so dumb sometimes!

Anhinga Trail

Pretty, huh?

Monday before making the drive back to Ft. Lauderdale Airport, we went to Key Biscayne and checked out Cape Florida at Bill Baggs State Park.

What's left of Stiltsville out in Biscayne Bay.

Well, a couple days later, I decided to go on up to Lake Placid to cut the grass and just chill out for a couple days.  This big lady was there to greet me right above the front door.  I left her in peace...she didn't mind me and I didn't mind her.

After cutting the grass, thunder started booming and the winds picked up.  I sat on the tailgate of my truck drinking some Gatorade marvelling at the gorgeous sunset in front of me...my stupid camera does NOT do it justice.  The colors were flaming and intense.

As the first rain drops started to fall, I watched a Black Racer duck into my shed.  

That was a smart snake!

And there you have a synopsis of  my last week!  

It's raining lizards!

I read in the Miami Herald yesterday that, the other day, when it got down into the 30s here, that iguanas and various other lizards were dropping out of the trees! They even had a picture of a poor, frozen iggy laying on the grass, belly up.

The cold doesn't kill them. Well, it can, but it has to be much colder than that. The cold causes their bodies to slow down, to lose control of all their muscles and fall into a deep sleep. Now, iguanas like to sleep in trees, so when this "hibernation" happens, they simply fall out of the trees. As soon as it warms up a bit, they wake up and carry on.

The article talked about this happening on Key Biscayne, but I also know it happened at Matheson Hammock. My hub works there and saw several iguanas and Cuban anoles (aka Knight anoles) lying around. People were even running them over. Yuck...poor things!

Happy Birthday, Sam!

Sam got his birthday present a little early...actually his graduation/Christmas/birthday present.


He doesn't look happy, but he was...he was totally surprised!

It was a beautiful day on the Bay.

Caching on Key Biscayne

Monday was a day spent caching on Key Biscayne with my little one and a couple of friends, Lj and Ana. There were 4 caches hidden in Crandon Park on the nature trail. I'd never been in that part of the island before. It was really beautiful. I took the picture below because the tall grass looked so soft...like it belongs in a field in the country, not an island!
These are mangroves. Red Mangroves, to be exact. There are 3 kinds of mangroves - red, black and white. Red Mangroves can actually start forming islands when sand and seaweed get stuck in their roots. Black Mangrove roots are like pencils sticking straight up out of the earth. They can grow close to each other and thrive off the salt water.

My little squirt on the viewing platform of the Bear Cut Fossil Reef.

From what I can remember, this reef is made of fossilized mangroves. It's really pretty neat to see. The little white caps you see in the picture are where the waves are breaking over the reef. The water was so clear and shallow, I wanted to walk out in it, but unfortunately I didn't have a change of shoes with me. That's downtown Miami in the background.

Ana spotted this little guy on the trail. It's a juvenile Spinytail Iguana. They're cute and colorful when they're young, but lose they're color when they get older. They are not native and very abundant on the Key.

We left Key Biscayne and headed to Alice Wainwright Park in Coconut Grove. It's a really beautiful park and I like it alot. The homeless folks like it alot, too. It's a freaky that there seems to be a little encampment in the bushes directly across from the playground...hmmm...but there were lots of people there, so that made me feel safer. It has a terrific view of the Biscayne Bay. Madonna used to own a house near this park, as did Sylvester Stallone.

We also stopped on Virginia Key to check something out and Ana spotted...a cat? No, not a cat...it was an albino raccoon! Way cool!!!! I wanted to take a picture of it, but before I could get my camera out, the squirt had chased it away. Maybe I'll get lucky enough to see him again one day.