Sunday, February 17, 2013

Go ahead... Kissimmee...

Well, I tell you one thing... we were in for a shock this morning, as we woke up and I looked at our outside temperature... and saw only 37 lonely Deg. F. WOW.... what happened to our nice Florida!

This afternoon we needed some exercise so Judy decided it was time to Kissimmee! Alright!

Well, that is Lake Kissimmee State Park... what were you thinking???? This is a great State Park, in the heart of Florida. We wanted to go and check it out, as Judy had heard there were some great bike trails here.

She was right... This is an old wooden bridge across the river leading to the trail head. You pay $5.00 a day for as many people you can pack into your Jeep to get into this Park!

We took the Buster Island Loop, which is a 6.7 mile hike.... or bike! It took us two hours to finish... great ride.

There were lots of trees, and everglades on this trail... it was a bit cool out, but just great for riding.

 

It looked to me this island had totally burned at one point in time, judging by all the trees that look like above... this island is quite big, about 7 or 8 square miles in size.

 

We saw lots of birds on the trip around, but came across this armadillo above... he did not seem to mind us taking his picture and we were within 10 feet of him. He was busy digging for his dinner.

There is a full campground in this Park, and a full Marina on the river, that leads to Lake Kissimmee.

Heck, they even had segway tours in the Park....

Judy and I even took the time to tour the Cow Camp! Now Howard and Teri would have loved this one! We got to meet a real Florida Cracker from the 1800's...

Here is the story of the Florida Crackers above...

This "Cracker" described life of Cattle raising in the 1800's here in south Florida. He was quite the character with quite a southern "drawl" Judy took a video below, 20 seconds, and it shows why they are called "Crackers"... they crack their whip!

 

It was quite the day, worth the trip, which was about 20 miles from our Park.

Till tomorrow...

 

7 comments:

  1. Looks like you had a nice day & good exercise. Nice pic of the armadillo

    ReplyDelete
  2. Nice pictures of the park, especially the Armadillo. Interesting to learn how they got the name "Crackers" but makes sense after listening to the video.

    ReplyDelete
  3. excellent pictures...love the armadillo...its going to warm back up again really fast :) I'm enjoying the cooler evenings..for sleeping...

    ReplyDelete
  4. Looks like a great trail for hiking or biking. That fella can sure crack that whip.

    ReplyDelete
  5. We, here in the west, were finally able to collectively blow away the cold air towards you RVers in Florda.

    It was a balmy 80+ degrees here....and we've been enjoying some overdue heat.

    Suffer.....but not for too long1

    ReplyDelete
  6. I read your headline and I was just going to comment - "no thanks".

    But, I continued reading and glad I did - lots of great photos!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Nice area for a bike ride, and some wonderful pictures too. Always fun to run into interesting characters too.

    ReplyDelete