Sunday, May 20, 2007--We continued our Florida sight seeing at Lakes Park, which is just a short drive from Doug and Matt's condo. After parking our rental Mazda 5, we changed gears and set forth in a 4-passenger bicyle buggy for a tour of the paths through the park. Matt steered and the rest of us pedaled, sometimes with great effort on the slight uphill climbs. (Florida is so flat that "uphill" is relative.)
We saw lots of birds on the lakes, including ibis, a small blue heron, a large white heron, and numerous anhingas (anhingae?) drying their wings in the sun. This flock of ibis were taking baths and fluffing themselves near the shore. Doug said that the lakes were originally a rock quarry, that was sold to the city. Ground water and rain water filled them up, the wild things came and they built trails, a beach, and lots of picnic shelters. It's a lovely park.
In our travels, we found ourselves in a forest densely populated with palms, cypress, palmettos, vines and all kinds of vegetation. It was pretty and peaceful and cool. This is the end of the dry season and once the rains come, this will be quite swampy. It's amazing to me how these plants can adapt to living six months of the year with their roots in deep water and six months in what feels like a desert.After our hour was up on our bicycle buggy, we returned it and headed for lunch at Jason's, a favorite deli. The BLT is excellent, and they have free ice cream!
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