Since today was warm the ice cream shop in the park was open. Turns out they sell "Doggie Sundaes." I just had Wazzu with me so I opted for a Hot Fudge Sundae and I shared that with her. Good thing I had her along as there was no way I could eat that all by myself.
After our walk I went back and got my handsome little buddy, Slugger, and took him up to get him a Sundae. The walk from our RV to the ice cream shop should take about two minutes. But it took us close to 45 minutes as Slugger had to hunt for lizards. Many people enjoyed watching him hunt. He is so cute - he'll see one run into a bush and he'll go and take his front paw and punch the bush over and over to see if he can get the lizard to run again.
We finally got to the ice cream shop. They filled a cup full of ice cream and then put a milkbone doggy cookie on top of it. It was so cute - but it was a LOT of ice cream. I think all three dogs could have shared it and had plenty left for me to have a bite. But I let Slugger eat it all.
On the way back Slugger wanted to hunt lizards more, of course. I saw one lizard about the same time Slugger did. Just in front of the tree was a little mound of dirt. As Slugger went for the lizard he stepped on the mound of dirt. And I tell you it was like Mt. St. Helen exploding. Thousands and thousands of fire ants exploded out of the ground with many of them going on to Slugger. Poor guy started dancing like when we put little boots on him. I pulled him out as fast as I could and started brushing the ants off.
The poor little guy has bites all over his paws, tummy, and shoulders. From what people down here tell us, those bites really sting. In fact, dogs have died from getting too many bites. Slugger didn't get that many but he still isn't so happy. Poor guy.
Since we got our car back last night I was able to go out and about. So today Mike and I went to the Crystal River Manatee Festival. It's very similar to the Issaquah Salmon Days Festival - although much larger and you have to pay to get in. Interesting, you have to pay to walk around the streets and look at all the stuff people are selling. But it was worth paying for parking and the entry fee. We hadn't taken much cash so by the time we paid for parking and entry we only had $5.00 left. Boy did that ever save us money as we found some things we would have purchased had we had money!
One place did take credit cards so we bought Slugger a camouflage visor to match his collar.
With our $5.00 we bought a Cuban Sandwich for lunch. I'd never heard of these before but boy was it good!
At the festival we did get to see a number of animals. We saw the poisonous snakes they have here, a flying squirrel, and an armadillo. In addition we saw a Barred Owl.
And even more interesting, we saw a two year old alligator.
This made me realize how big the alligators were that we saw in the lake at the park we stayed at near Orlando. If you remember that picture, they were at least three or four times this big. According to this lady, alligators grow about one foot a year. The alligators we saw in the RV park were somewhere between three to five feet long. Scary!
After leaving the street festival we drove around the city. This is a very interesting community as 90% of the houses are on a canal. And just about everyone has a boat.
We stopped at a local park and walked out on the pier. There were a handful of fishermen there but I think all the birds were getting the fish as we didn't see any fish in the buckets.
The scenery however was beautiful.
While we were on the pier we saw an Anhinga diving for fish.
And then to our great delight we saw a dolphin! Unfortunately he wasn't real close and other than his fin sticking out of the water he only came up once. Hopefully you'll be able to see a little bit from these pictures.
On our way home, Mike saw an entrance to another park. So we decided to stop quickly to see what it was like. Are we ever glad we stopped!
Immediately upon arriving we saw a Great Blue Herron eating his catch.
He must have been having trouble eating it as he kept dipping it in the water repeatedly. A short time later a couple boats came along and scared him away.
Nearby was a Great Egret. He was very tame and in fact spent most of his time less than two feet from a fisherman. I think he was waiting to eat any the fish the guy might catch.
We then proceeded to walk out onto the pier. Once again there were a handful of fishermen there. On one end of the pier were two fishermen. One was an old guy that looked as though he had lived his life on the pier. The other was a very good looking rugged guy probably in his 40's. Both were extremely nice. And were we ever glad we struck up a conversation with them. They were very knowledgeable about all the area and the wildlife.
When we were at the Manatee Festival they were selling tickets to go out on boats to look at the Manatees. Mike really wanted to do it but the way they were doing it you had to stand in line for over an hour - and then you weren't even guaranteed to get a ticket. Mike was disappointed about that and decided not to bother.
But as we were talking to these two guys on the pier they suddendly pointed to the water and pointed out some very circular ripples. They told us that those were from Manatees. And sure enough, just under the surface were these huge Manatees. We probably saw at least five of them over the next few minutes. Only one came above the surface and I was lucky to capture its head.
It was really cool to see Manatee in the wild. Mike was especially excited about it so I'm really happy that he got to see that. Sure was a good thing we started up a conversation with those two guys!
We waited around for a little bit hoping to see more Manatee. In the meantime we saw an Osprey.
We figured he was here to root on the Seahawks! Tee Hee.
In addition, we saw dozens of Pelicans. I know I've already shown you a couple pictures of Pelicans in previous posts but I really like them so here is another shot.
There were a number of birds that kept landing near the fisherman on the railing at the pier. They guys said they like to come and steal their bait so they kept shooing the away. But I thought they were pretty.
Here is the male Boat Tailed Grackle. Now how did I get "blue eye" (similar to red eye in people) when I didn't even use a flash! Oh well, I've always liked blue eyes.
And here is the female Boat Tailed Grackle.
This place was swarming with boats. Half of them were probably fishing boats and the other half were private boats and tour boats out looking to sight a Manatee. Little did they know they just needed to come to this dock.
Anyway, one airboat came by. It brought back bad memories for both Mike and me as someone had started one up in the RV park this morning at 4:00am and let it run for about 15 minutes. I don't know if you've ever been near one of these but they are LOUD. It's definitely something you don't sleep through!
As we were walking back to the car we heard a bird and looked up in the tree to find this pretty bird. We don't know what it is but we enjoyed seeing it nonetheless.
I sure wish we could have stayed longer to watch for more Manatees but I was very happy we could even go to begin with. What a great time.
Debbie
1/13/07
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