Everglades/Florida Keys

An alligator fried lunch for Earl, a crab cake

for me and a large coffee cup full of key lime pie for both of us.  Steel drum music-oh my!

Mom and Dad osprey in this original sky home!  Below is a red-bellied woodpecker from the Everglades.  No, it is not a red-headed one.  That looks different!  Eucalyptus trees were in the Everglades National Park.

Florida and Georgia

Notes about Florida: Up the eastern coast, there is one city after another - no countryside at all.The telephone poles are all concrete for the hurricanes. If you are in the keys, they have a pattern for evacuation in case of a storm. Where it will hit the most evacuates first, then the next northern region, and so on so there is no huge traffic jam...how they monitor this, I don't know.There is listed an evacuation radio station like 91.3 which gives the latest traffic info. Billboards on the eastern highway 95 tell the wait times for hospital emergency rooms in the area.Gated homes and communities are everywhere and very FEW places for tourists to see the ocean, unlike Oregon! Heading up the coast, mailboxes are set inside concrete manatees, flamingos, dolphins and large concrete conch shells. We saw the Domino sugarcane, the S and H beans and lots of strawberries. The highest point in Florida is 345 ft. in elevation.

In Florida and Georgia, the schools are magnificent-all brick and very large.The churches are simply beautiful as well. We are now in Skidaway Island camping and there are so many cypress trees with what I believe is Spanish moss hanging down-beautiful also! As you head north, you see more brick homes that look like the eastern style of two story house. I still love being called "ma'am."

Today we saw, maybe because it is the end of March, MANY cars from Mass., New York, PA, etc. traveling north to go home. Must have condos in Florida and now the great exodus begins as the heat, humidity and bugs come out!

I love the softness of the south...hardwoods, combined with palms and cypress and magnolia trees.

More photos later of the Florida keys (islands).

Everglades-photos by Earl

A green heron, found mostly in the sub-tropics.

A wood stork that we certainly don't have in Oregon!

We also saw a mother manatee and baby near the

Everglades wharf where the kayaks go out to other keys (islands).  These photos do not do the area justice but just gives you a little flavor.  The area had rain this year, but because of more dams, more wetlands used for housing, and more water needed by new developments, it will never be as lush as it used to be.  We were honored to be there.

Canoeing in the Mangroves/Everglades

Someone is in our takeout place-yikes!!! Alligator!

We traveled 3.5 hours through the mangroves.   We saw many herons, egrets, alligators; everything I wanted to see but a spoonbill with the pale pink wings which was invisible to me!

When kayaking, the leader follows the poles in the water.

When we returned from our canoeing trip, a black buzzard was there to greet me - I did feel half dead but I won out! We had a lovely day!

Camping in the Everglades

Joyce Little, above, told us of all the different types of palm trees in the Everglades...royal, coconut, paurotis and cabbage trees, with others also.

We thought the Everglades would be like a swamp with cypress trees, moss hanging and alligators swimming in that swamp.  Actually, it is like that in spots but mostly just lush with beautiful greenery and amazing animals.  Many mosquitoes!

Saved by NOMADS

When our trailer tire shredded, we pulled off the Texas Highway and within minutes, up came Terry and George Lair.  George helped Earl change the tire; Terry and I visited and then we were both on our way!  Amazing coincidence-or is it????  We were very grateful!

More New Orleans

Same photo! Darn the operator of this blog!

This was my very favorite group!

Oh my!!!

If you are a very wealthy family, you would

purchase a tomb such as this.  It can hold

up to ten people.  Those who have died

have vases and fresh flowers in them.

However, if you are very poor, this is your "tomb" and if another family member wants to occupy the space also, the first burial's bones are pushed to the back! Because of water level being below sea level in most of N.O., all graves are above ground.

Earl and I bought fresh sea trout-we baked it - good!  We also

bought fresh shrimp that we will use on the trip.  We

chose not to buy turtle or oysters!

Next photos from the Everglades!

Oak Alley, Louisiana Sugar Plantation and New Orleans

Welcome to New Orleans and the LA plantation!

The live oak trees that line the path to the plantation house.

Miss Donna met us for the tour of the plantation home.

Magnolia trees are ever present around the plantation.

One of the original sugar boiling pots.

We took the Algiers Ferry from near our campsite to the French Quarter of New Orleans.  The French Quarter is all the small buildings in the foreground.  The taller office buildings are the downtown area of New Orleans.

This is St. Louis Catholic Church, 

one of the oldest churches in the United States.

The following photos are from the inside of the church.

animals in East Texas

Who would believe that an alligator, armadillo and the ibis are just wild in Texas??? In this photo, the armadillo looks larger but probably about a foot long. We are now here in a state park in east Texas and many alligators at the lakes here! The ibis with its curved orange beak is beautiful! I think we're becoming birders!!! Even saw a titmouse at our bird feeder today! Oh, we're so nerdy!

Oil Refineries inTexas

We have traveled from Rockport on the Gulf Coast northward towards Houston. We are camped at a state park here and it is beautiful and a photo will follow in the next blog.

Where did the oil come from? From Rockport here was a shallow inland sea basin with sandstone deposited. The basin eroded uplifted and was covered again by a sea which deposited chalk. Because oil is lighter than water, the oil migrates up until it can't migrate any further and pools. The oil is deep - about 3,500 ft. deep.

They built a pipeline from here to Philadelphia to supply oil mostly to the Allies in WWII. They sent the oil from 1942-1944.

The refineries here produce 4.6 million barrels of oil a day. Texas has 25% of the oil reserves. It produces 1/4 of the US's natural gas. It produces the most wind power in the nation.

I wanted to know all this! Hope you did too!!!

Nature in Rockport, TX

Above is Rockport's famous 1000 year old live oak tree! One morning, we saw our very first whooping cranes. There are sandhill cranes here, also, but we've not seen them yet. We are heading to the Wildlife Refuge tomorrow.

Earl, out our trailer window, spied our first look at cardinals!!! The mother on the feeder and the father looking out for her are married for life, so they say!

Rufus is going in for surgery Monday as he has a huge sty on his eye which needs to be lanced. Then we leave Tuesday for New Orleans--benets to eat, the French Quarter, and a tour of a plantation. Hopefully some more magnolia and dogwood trees to see.

Hopefully, some more nature photos tomorrow!