Walking with Gators, Okeechobee, Florida

December 23, 2015

We never know how many gators we will see when we walk the trails around the Taylor Creek Storm Water Management facility just north of Okeechobee.  The path we choose to walk today I call the south trail, and is about 1 1/2 miles long.  I call it the south trail because it is on the south end of the facility. There is another trail I call the north trail and it's about 1 3/4 miles long.  Yep! It's located on the north end of the facility and we have not yet walked it.  So, if you really like walking alongside wild gators with no protective barriers, you could walk a total of 3 1/4 miles.  Wear comfortable shoes and don't bring your pet or they could end up as gator food!

 Kristi & Kitty walking

A short distance into our walk, we were greeted by these Black Vultures!  This would not be a good place to lay down and take a nap.  These vultures might think you're dead.

One of these vultures followed Kristi for a while.  They have a funny little hop when they walk.  But, there's nothing funny about being followed by a Black Vulture.  You don't want one of these guys to start pecking on you for sure! Maybe Kristi didn't have her make up on correctly!

The Black Vulture let us get pretty close.  He's checking us very carefully to see if one of us looks like a future meal!

We always see some Egrets on this trail.

 The next three pictures are Anhingas.

He's drying his feathers after diving into the water for a fish.

This little guy has one eye on us!

This Blue Heron is also keeping one eye on us.

 Comorants are plentiful here as well.

Now he has his other eye trained on us!

Easy big boy!  We're just passing through!

This guy looks pretty relaxed.

Something startled this Blue Heron!

This beautiful Tri-Colored Heron made friends with an algae covered turtle.

Whichever way this guy wants to go, I'm going the opposite way!

 This gator is about 50 yards from us and it looks like he just killed an Anhinga.  He was too far away to get a great picture.  Sorry, I am not wadding into the water to get a better picture!  But, you can see what appears to be an Anhinga wing next to the gators head.

Well this happy trail just came to an end.  We all agreed it was exciting seeing these animals in their natural habitat.  It's a successful walk when we head for the car with all of our limbs still attached!

Visiting The Navy Seal Home in Fort Pierce, Florida

December 22, 2015

While the girls went shopping, the guys went to the Navy Seal Museum located on highway A1A in Fort Pierce.  Randy, Sean, and I arrived at the museum just in time to hear a presentation about the history  of Navy Seals in the WWII section of the museum.

Warfare was changing dramatically during WWII and there was a growing demand for the Navy to develop an elite fighting group that specialized in amphibious assaults with expertise in blowing things up.  In preparations for landing on the beaches of Normandy, this elite group would be required to clear many of the 17,000 obstacles placed along the beaches by the Germans.  This elite fighting group was originally called Navy Frogmen and their training facility was in Fort Pierce, Florida.  Their name was later changed to Navy Seals.

The museum covers the Seals development from its WWII beginnings to present day.  It shows how the Seals progressed from WWII, Korean War, Vietnam War, and the current war on terrorists.
The vast majority of their missions are never made public.  But the ones that have been publicized have displays in their museum, along with hundreds of artifacts and equipment.

The pictures below show only a small part of the items on display.

This Seal Helicopter has been shot down twice!

Terrorists captured the captain of an ocean freighter and attempted to get away in this life boat.  The Seals were called up to rescue the captain and fired three simultaneous shots from a distant vessel killing the terrorists and freeing the captain.  Notice the rear window is broken where the shots entered the life boat.

This is Sean holding a 50 caliber sniper rifle

This is a Navy Seal Vietnam-era Patrol boat

Vietnam Seawolf Helicopter

Randy is checking out this Navy Seal Under Water Delivery Vehicle

The Seals were responsible for securing the Apollo Space Capsules after they splashed down in the ocean and retrieving the astronauts.  These capsules pictured below were used in their training.

MKV Assault Craft

There's plenty of interesting things to see at the Navy Seal Museum, and you could spend most of the day here and not see everything.  But, after taking in so many fascinating stories about the Seals, we were ready for lunch. So, we headed to a restaurant along the Fort Pierce Inlet with a view of the ocean.

After lunch we took a few minutes to walk along the Inlet to the Ocean.  It was a great day except for the wind gusts occasionally hitting 25-30 MPH.

Sean and Randy enjoying the Inlet walk.

This pelican is enjoying people watching!

The walkway take us directly to the ocean.

The wind is blowing the waves against the breakwater.

No! This is not Surf City, it's Fort Pierce north of the Inlet.

Our guys outing would not be complete without a stop at Bass Pro.  It just so happens, we know of a great place to get some hand dipped ice cream nearby.  What a great way to end our outing! This could easily become habit forming!

Air Boats and Gators at Everglades Holiday Park, Fort Lauderdale, Florida

Monday, December 21, 2015

We have been fans of the TV show Gator Boys for several years and since they are based in Everglades Holiday Park near Fort Lauderdale, Florida, they're less than two hours away from our home.

We use to watch Gator Boys on TV with our daughter, Kristi, and grandson, Sean,  when we lived in Illinois.  Since Kristi and Sean are here in Florida visiting us for the holidays, this would be the perfect opportunity to see the Gator Boys and tour the Everglades via air boat.

We arrived at Everglades Holiday Park around ten o'clock and checked in for the air boat ride and gator show.  We were assigned Captain Mike and air boat #5 which would depart in about twenty minutes.  After the one hour air boat ride, the amazing gator show would be next on our agenda.

While waiting for our air boat, Kitty took this picture of Kristi, Sean, and Craig (me).

As you can see, they have several air boats here and they're all covered to protect the passengers from the Florida sun, and each boat holds about 25 people.  These boat were custom made right here in Holiday Park.

After a few brief boarding instructions, we were on our way.  Each boat is powered by two 500 H.P. Cadillac engines and weighs about two tons.

This canal was man made in the early nineteen hundreds.

Kitty, Kristi, and Sean are enjoying the scenery!

This Cormorant is keeping an eye us!

Captain Mike proved to be a very capable pilot.  Despite winds gusting from 15-25 MPH, he managed to keep the boat on course.  His piloting skills were matched by his uncanny sense of humor making for an enjoyable experience.  Captain Mike is also an accomplished bird caller.  We stopped at one of his favorite spots to check out some birds usually found in this spot.  When he saw the birds weren't there, he used his expert bird calling abilities to call the birds to our boat.  He yelled, "Here sweety, here cutie, here baby doll!"  Amazingly, the birds flew over to our boat and Captain Mike rewarded them with a treat.

This Purple Gallinule is enjoying her treat.

This juvenile is under mom's watchful eye (top right).

 Another Juvenile Purple Gullinile.  These juveniles are being taught to come when they're called at an early age.

This Crackle wants a treat too!

This is a flowering Spatterdock.

Captain Mike found this grub inside the stem of a Spatterdock.  He says you can eat this if you are in the Everglades suffering from starvation.

To prove this grub is eatable, he is going to demonstrate!

No! He really didn't eat that Grub!

This gator is looking for some grub too!  

Here he comes right for the camera!  Wait a minute!  I just remembered I'm the one holding the camera!

Captain Mike used his best gator grunt to scare this big fellow away!  Thank you Captain Mike!

This iguana is staying as far away from gators as possible!

Well that hour air boat ride seemed to zoom by and was a boat load of fun.  Despite the windy conditions we were able to see some wild life and Captain Mike returned us all safely to the dock.  Now it's time for the gator show!

We stopped to take this picture of Kristi, Sean, and Kitty.

The Gator Boys rescue gators that intrude into human territory and none of these rescued gators are returned to the wild, by law, because of their homing instincts.  The lucky ones are rescued and are at Holiday Park, or other wildlife sanctuaries.

Our show was hosted by Chris.  He has a masters degree in Wild Life Biology, he's a published author, and a published photographer.  In his spare time, he volunteers his services to conduct a few of the gator shows at Everglades Holiday Park.

You can't do a gator show without a gator.  So, Chris brought out this 250 pound gator!

How do you open a gator's mouth?  Very carefully! You just sit on the gators back and say open wide!

Notice Chris's fingers are carefully placed between the gators teeth.

Here he is "jawing" with a gator!

This gator gets a smiley face for not having any cavities!

Folks, please don't try this at home!

After the gator show, Sean and Kristi had a wild hair and did this crazy stunt!

 That's a real juvenile python and alligator 

Not to be out done.  I stuck my head in this gator's mouth!

And Kitty threw this gator over her shoulders!

I bought Kitty that necklace at the gift shop for being so brave!

 After stopping at the gift shop to buy Kitty that necklace, we decided to head for home.  We had a great time and we all have some lasting memories from our time spent at Everglades Holiday Park.

On the way home, we decided to stop at Port Myacka on the north east side of Lake Okeechobee to enjoy the view and take a couple pictures.

 Sean and Kristi

From Port Myacka, it's a short drive to our house.  On the way home Kitty and I were both thinking of how much fun we had and we're already planning on going back to the Everglades sometime real soon!  If  you plan on visiting Everglades Holiday Park,  ask for Captain Mike, you won't be disappointed!