October 29th, 2019

Last week's Photo Safari began at Myakka State Park. It is Enormous!  It's size can best be described by borrowing a term my kids used when they were small.  It's Bigly Huge. It has at least a little bit of just about everything; rivers, swamps, bogs, plains, jungley areas, foresty areas, a fire tower (!!), Loads of wildlife and lots and lots and LOTS of trails.

The water was high so we had to carefully choose where to hike to avoid majorly flooded trails, but even so, we were there for hours!  It was awesome. We did not canoe, we did not take the boat tour, we even did not climb the fire tower (this time anyway) because there were too many other people wanting to do it and we didn't want to wait.  No patience for climbing.  All the patience in the world for photographs.

Practically the minute we entered the park we had to stop, pulled over slightly onto the side of the road to take pictures because there were so many "can't miss" things to see.  

Eventually we parked the car for real...an actual parking lot... and followed a trail down to........gator country.  Well that's what I call it.  It's an area where a lot of alligators tend to hang out, sunning on the banks, swimming along, living there little alligator lives.  There are always a lot of different sorts of birds in that area too.  We saw way too many Vultures  this past Thursday.  Creepy birds.

So there we were, avoiding bogginess, not getting eaten by alligators (good move on our part), not disturbing nature at all, driving from trail head to trail head,  taking loads of photos and enjoying each other's company.  A near perfect day wouldn't you agree?

But then we upped the ante on the days awesomeness by first, going out to lunch and then heading to Sarasota to visit her kitties.  

I had not seen them, except in photographs for more than six months. My gracious! They grew!  that's Charlie on the left and Winston on the right.

Charlie is mostly fur held together with adorableness  with big green eyes and a bit of sass.  Winston is long and solid and a regal dignity, except when he is being a total goober.

Charlie hates being picked up.  You can pet him all day long and he is fine with that, but as Joy says, "he wants all four feet on the ground at all times". I gotta respect that.  Winston on the other hand, loves being picked up. That is if you can lift him.  Honest to goodness, it's like picking up toddler!

Initially they were  both so facsinated with the camera that all I could get was EXTREME close ups.   But after awhile they relaxed and went about their normal kitty lives which means a lot of being cute and being silly and playing with all of their toys. Anyone would think that they knew I was taking their pictures and that they were posing just for me.

So long story short, it was an amazing day!  Hiking? Check.  Photographs? Check. Lunch? Check.  Time with Joy?  Check.  And cutiecute kitties?  Double Check!

So there you have it.  Today's blog was mostly photographs held together with a few words.  What is it that they say?  A picture is worth a thousand words.

In that case, I think I just wrote a novel here :)

​Hope you enjoyed.