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Dang is it ever hot!


Tizeye

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10 minutes ago, maddmaxx said:

Lots of Spoonbills can usually be found on the way out to the National Sea Shore out in the water behind pad 39 at the cape.  That's some great pics of a good looking bird.

Also, the white pelican’ migrate from Michigan as the gray pelican is native. The white pelican also prefers fresh water while the gray pelican is almost exclusively salt water.

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The outing was wife's idea. She has been riding a recumbent exercise bike following her knee replacement and getting stronger. There is a 2.5 mile birding trail, and she did the whole thing occasional resting and letting me go alone to side hikes. Great overview mound. People om that roadway were looking at a gator in the grass looking directly at the roadway. As I went by, stopping to get the picture, the gator started hissing. Time to move on... Yes, she was aware that other gator was along the shoreline.

 

Weltands 2-2019-25.jpg

Weltands 2-2019-26.jpg

Weltands 2-2019-28.jpg

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12 minutes ago, maddmaxx said:

Tizeye, where is that birding trail?

Technically, it is a wastewater treatment plant receiving  around 35m gallons of treated wastewater that was previously discharged directly into a river. High phosphate content resulted in algae kills. Now it is discharged here and takes around 40 days to filter through the 17 retention pools and by the time it reaches the St John River has less phosphate than the river has naturally. It is officially titled the Orlando Wetlands Park and open during daylight hours for hiking, biking, and horseback. No vehicles other than the city maintenance and ranger-in-residence, plus an electric tram that takes people around on the weekend.  Also, every spring there is a festival at nearby Ft Christmas and they had city busses that would shuttle people giving tours of the park driving on the dikes. You should have seen the amazed look a smiles on the bus driver's faces who had no idea the park even existed when assigned the extra duty.

http://www.cityoforlando.net/wetlands/

On the map, what I walked was the red dotted area.

 

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31 minutes ago, Tizeye said:

Technically, it is a wastewater treatment plant receiving  around 35m gallons of treated wastewater that was previously discharged directly into a river. High phosphate content resulted in algae kills. Now it is discharged here and takes around 40 days to filter through the 17 retention pools and by the time it reaches the St John River has less phosphate than the river has naturally. It is officially titled the Orlando Wetlands Park and open during daylight hours for hiking, biking, and horseback. No vehicles other than the city maintenance and ranger-in-residence, plus an electric tram that takes people around on the weekend.  Also, every spring there is a festival at nearby Ft Christmas and they had city busses that would shuttle people giving tours of the park driving on the dikes. You should have seen the amazed look a smiles on the bus driver's faces who had no idea the park even existed when assigned the extra duty.

http://www.cityoforlando.net/wetlands/

On the map, what I walked was the red dotted area.

 

If memory serves there is a similar place about half way between Orlando and Cape Kennedy with about 7 miles of coral road that wanders around in the St Johns river area.  There's also a ranger station back on route 50 with it's own museum and nature walk.  Very nice places to visit.  I cannot remember the name.

When I look at the map it almost looks like the same place.

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14 minutes ago, RalphWaldoMooseworth said:

How do you live with all those (*&%$ gators slithering aboot?

You don't take pets for a walk there (and some pet owners actually argue that the should be able to). Gators leave you alone as we are not their natural prey. That is only the second time in all these years that I have had one hiss at me. I was getting down low (collapsing monopod to about 2') though which may have contributed as I no longer towered over. Had a ranger telling me how stupid some people are as they need to get that selfie with a gator. And then, if you are looking for a job, there is an authorized group that keeps the population under control by raiding the nest and gathering the eggs. Got to make a living somehow.

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1 minute ago, maddmaxx said:

If memory serves there is a similar place about half way between Orlando and Cape Kennedy with about 7 miles of coral road that wanders around in the St Johns river area.  There's also a ranger station back on route 50 with it's own museum and nature walk.  Very nice places to visit.  I cannot remember the name.

Actually this one is about halfway between  Orlando and Cape Kennedy, but doesn't border the St Johns (western shore), just a discharge canal which I rode my bike (what are gates for anyway) through the adjacent ranch/cow pasture and eventually got to where the canal reaches the river. There is one similar, but closer to Melbourne on the eastern shore of the St Johns in Viera which I have never been to. The other is on limes stone one way road known as Black Point near Titusville in the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge Center which is along the Intracoastal Waterway (Banana River/Mosquito Lagoon locally) and the Canaveral National Seashore (immediately north of NASA property and the launchpads.) Perhaps either of those were the ones you were thinking of.

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1 minute ago, Further said:

Tizeye, Have you ever seen a Burmese Python ? Or other monster snake ?

Thankfully no pythons and there is not even talk of them being present. May have seen a water moccasin one time but usually just harmless water snakes. It is rare as the egrets, herons and wood storks ten to keep them in check.

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7 minutes ago, Tizeye said:

Actually this one is about halfway between  Orlando and Cape Kennedy, but doesn't border the St Johns (western shore), just a discharge canal which I rode my bike (what are gates for anyway) through the adjacent ranch/cow pasture and eventually got to where the canal reaches the river. There is one similar, but closer to Melbourne on the eastern shore of the St Johns in Viera which I have never been to. The other is on limes stone one way road known as Black Point near Titusville in the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge Center which is along the Intracoastal Waterway (Banana River/Mosquito Lagoon locally) and the Canaveral National Seashore (immediately north of NASA property and the launchpads.) Perhaps either of those were the ones you were thinking of.

Black Point is the one.  Thanks for jogging my memory.  It's farther out than I remember.  Womaxx and I went there once in August.  No tourists at all.  We took a couple of hours to idle along the 7 miles or so in a Mustang convertable with the top down.  Womaxx was sitting up on the back of the rear seat with cameras all around her and she had a ball.  We stopped every few feet.  This was about 20 years ago.

In the time we were there 3 carloads of tourists drove by (not idling) with the cars all closed up and the air running.  They saw nothing.

Yep, found it on the map.  That was probably the same day we stopped along the cutouts on the road leading to the national sea shore to take pics of the spoonbills with pad 39 in the background.

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I know what you are talking about - no tourist. People come to Disney, are held hostage to the parks and think they have seen Florida. Keep the tourist there!

Love Blackpoint as well, but last time drove by (seashore trip week before wife's surgery in October) it was closed. They are now building a manned entry gate rather than rely on honor system. :whistle: (Actually, I get in free anyway). Apparently  will be $10...but the various National Passes and adjacent Canaveral NS entry ticket will cover.

Also, on your drive from Orlando, if you took SR50 rather than the toll road, at the town of Christmas, you may have noticed a year round Nativity, Santa/sled/reindeer and tree. That is the road I turned down to reach where I was today.

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7 hours ago, Tizeye said:

I know what you are talking about - no tourist. People come to Disney, are held hostage to the parks and think they have seen Florida. Keep the tourist there!

Love Blackpoint as well, but last time drove by (seashore trip week before wife's surgery in October) it was closed. They are now building a manned entry gate rather than rely on honor system. :whistle: (Actually, I get in free anyway). Apparently  will be $10...but the various National Passes and adjacent Canaveral NS entry ticket will cover.

Also, on your drive from Orlando, if you took SR50 rather than the toll road, at the town of Christmas, you may have noticed a year round Nativity, Santa/sled/reindeer and tree. That is the road I turned down to reach where I was today.

In the year I worked in Orlando I took the trip many times.  Sometimes I would drive out to Bithlo for the races and some times out to the National Seashore for some relaxation.  After I was done there I took womaxx back for a vacation using all the various free points I had accumulated for flights, car rentals and hotel stays.

During that year I never ventured into the theme park quarter of town and even after bringing womaxx down I drove her down I drive only once to see the chaos.  Instead I introduced her to places like Mt. Dora and the National Seashore along with some of the great ethnic restaurants around Orlando.  Orlando can be a great place if you can avoid the tourists.  It's centrally located and one can easily drive out to the east coast, the west coast and take in all the sights.  Sometimes on weekends I'd drive to St. Augustine for lunch.

One touristy thing womaxx loved was the airboat ride at Midway.  There were no tourists so we had to hang on for a couple of hours waiting for a family to come along to make it worthwhile to take the airboat out.  During that time the employees there catered to womaxx, bringing out a baby alligator for her to play with and they took me down to see an engine overhaul on one of the airboats and discuss some of the technical innovations taking place.

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