Northbound Road Trip: Day One

Happy St. Patrick's Day, everyone! Sorry that I didn't blog last night, but we had a kind of a weird day, with some good luck and some bad luck. The morning was great - very relaxed, because we had plenty of time before meeting Travalon's old friend Hedgecat. She has a lovely house with a beautiful sunporch full of plants, and we sat out there talking. We found a great shortcut from her town to Ocala, but the road signs were confusing, so we ended up going forty minutes out of our way. We did find a Beef O'Brady's for lunch, since Travalon said I had to try the Gulf shrimp at this Florida chain, and they were really good. I grabbed a little clump of Spanish moss from a bush outside the restaurant and will try to grow it at home. A guy there warned me that there was a horrible traffic jam on the freeway heading north, so we found an alternate route, but the exit ramp was really backed up so we took our chances with the freeway. Big mistake - it was the worst traffic jam I'd ever seen outside of the Long Island Expressway at rush hour. We finally made it to the next exit and found a way to Silver Springs State Park, but by the time we got there, the last glass-bottom boat tour had already started. They are very cute boats that look like floating green trolleys. There is a boardwalk on a lush island at the park, and we felt like we were in the jungle. Supposedly there are monkeys at the park, but we never saw any. We did see a big, beautiful, black and white woodpecker with a red crest. I couldn't get a good closeup of him with just my cell phone, and Travalon's camera battery was dead. Plus his sunglasses somehow vanished at the park. Fortunately they were cheap ones, and he has other pairs with him. We drove to the cute, historical town of Micanopy and then had the great luck to get to the Payne Prairie Preserve State Park just in time for a spectacular sunset. We drove into Gainesville and took a walk on their lovely, subtropical campus, where I collected a tiny bit more Spanish moss. (We'll see if I can keep it alive...) They have a beautiful carillon just like we do back home on our campus, but theirs is much never, from the 70's. Thing seemed to be going better, especially when we easily found a Captain D's, a seafood chain native to the South that was a perfect place for a Lenten Friday dinner. But then... we had a tough time finding a hotel with any vacancies, so by the time we got settled, I was too tired to blog. I may blog twice today, depending on what time we get through Alabama. Our goal for tonight (too ambitious?) is Memphis!

Here are some photos from yesterday. The first couple are a large bottle brush tree outside our hotel from the night before, and the swans they made out of towels for us.

Next are some shots from Silver Springs State Park.

The sunset over Payne Prairie Preserve State Park was breathtaking.

And this is the carillon on the University of Florida campus.

Finally, a movie of two birds that were at the restaurant by the Everglades: a very loud black bird, and a pretty coppery brown bird. I don't think you can see the color that well in this video, so sorry about that. I do have a picture of it below.

Famous Hat