The Animals of Alachua!

On April 11th, Tractor helps us find our way to Alachua, FL.  We had reservations at the Travelers Campground.  It gets mixed reviews because it has an unusual site arrangement, but I'm so glad we stayed there because it had all sorts of barnyard critters our critters got to interact with!!

Like donkeys...

and horses...

a goatie...

(Bill, Hayes, and ever-present poop bag...!)

and peacocks...

I just can't get over how pretty and green it is in these areas!

Hayes finds another horse to play with!

Heading back to the RVs, but we warn the horse "We'll be back!"

The RVs park in lines, the idea seemingly that there are open rows in between each used row, so if someone parked behind someone else needs to leave earlier, they drive over the grass to get to the open row and just head out.  Some people evidently don't care for this layout, but it worked fine for us!  You can see here by the puddles, we got some good rain at this stop!

and parrots...

Hayes found the array of animals here absolutely fascinating!!

So pretty!

The kitties wanted to check everybody out too, of course!

Scratty and a donkey getting up close and personal!

Tractor says "Hello!  What are you?"

And then, "Whoa!!  That's a little close, buddy!!!  You have a BIG head!!!!"

"Well, maybe you're OK though...," he says as he pets the horse...  (Tractor "pets" us too, with little light repeated pawing on our faces)

 Scratty's cool with the horse too...

and emus...

And back to the other horse...

We loved how patient, open, and tolerant the campground critters were, letting all of our guys get right up in their faces!

Tractor says "I've had enough, I'm outta here!"

The dogs, on the other hand, think horses are awesome!!!  In fact, Hayes seems to have a horsey fetish.  Whenever we're driving around, and we point out a horse, Hayes goes bonkers to get to a window and see!  For Zouey, it's cows...

And back home again.

We spent three nights here, so there were frequent animal encounter outings!  Here, Zou and the emu get to know each other a little better...

Tractor imitating Grumpy Cat (although I think he was actually enjoying the heck out of himself!)

Hayes and Tractor at "the zoo."

Is Hayes appreciating how cute his sister is, walking by, or is he thinking to himself how good she'd be with some roasted veggies?!!  Hayes and the cats were mostly getting along really well by this point, but there was still some fine-tuning going on...

 Princess Scratty in her throne, and the dog on the ground, where he belongs...!?

Meeting up on the Truce Table.

St. Marks NWR

I think my first National Wildlife Refuge visit was back in TX, back in 2010, and I remember going there to look for gators - and finding them!  And I have been a fan of them (both NWRs and gators!) since then.  So while in Tallahassee, we made a visit to St. Marks NWR.

 Only saw this one gator, but he was a good-looking guy and RIGHT next to the visitor center trail!

 Looking back at the visitor center.

 Teeny weeny little snake!

 We drove on to explore the rest of the NWR and found some pretty water lily-covered waterways.

 The old St. Marks Lighthouse.

A pretty NWR - worth a stop, even if only one gator showed up that day!

Tallahassee - The KFC Capitol?!

While we were staying at the COE Landing campground, we decided to do a quick drive-by of the capitol.  Capitols, actually.  There is an old capitol building and a new one, right behind the old one.  Kind of weird...  

 This is just a cool building on the way to the capitol.

 Here you can see the old building in front.  Classic design, but the red and white-striped awnings...?!!!  That's why we call it the KFC capitol!  And you can see the tall skyscraper, newer capitol building behind it (not so pretty...?).

Old and new.

Follow us into Florida! First stop, Tallahassee...

 On April 9th, we left Foley and started our Florida odyssey!  Here, everyone except me and Scratty are posed at a rest stop along the way.

 We camped at a little park next to the Ochlockonee River, which was so big, we had it confused with the giant Lake Talquin Reservoir that it feeds into.  This campground was really not suitable for big rigs like ours, but I read in the reviews that they had ONE site that we'd be able to squeeze into IF we reserved it ahead of time.  We lucked out and got it, only for two nights - better than no nights at all!  As soon as we got parked, Bill got the chairs out and everyone got to come out and explore the campsite...

 But in the heat of the day, indoors is best!  Hayes thinks he'd like a little soda too, please...!?

 Zou checks out the river.

 Brothers.  These two are such twins, I like to call Tractor Hayes' brother from another mother.  So what if they're different species!  They're THE SAME!!!  Matching personalities and behaviors!!

 Bill and his boy (the other one - Tractor is his first and still favorite.  Even though Tractor and Hayes are so alike, he is still a CAT and Bill is a CAT GUY!) on the campground dock.  Finally late in the day enough to cool down.  Is this river humongous or what?!!

 Boat parking.  This place would be SO neat to have a boat!!!!  I was so bummed we didn't fall into that category!!!  But by boat, I'm not talking kayaks or canoes.  A big metal rowboat would be the smallest I would want to go out in.  Bill spoke with someone who went out in a kayak and heard about the BIG gators...  I would, of course, LOVE to see the BIG gators!!!  But from a BIG boat!!!!  

 So...how many times do you see signs like this?!  

 Such a pretty little park, and we loved our site - although it was a bit challenging to get into (little perimeter campground road that made backing in kinda tough - OK with a spotter, not so much on your own!!).

 BAD quality photo, but this was taken with my long lens, which was not nearly long enough to reach all the way across the river!  But I had to try, to get shots of these osprey on their nest.

 One of the gators.  It was frustrating to be stuck on the bank and seeing them so far out.  But some gators were kind enough to come in relatively close so I could see them better!

 The far shore.  So pretty and lush! 

 Families that fish together = a good thing!!

Going...

 going...

 practically gone!

A boat coming up made this guy feel the need to submerge.

 I kept hoping one of the many boaters would take pity on me and offer a ride but no luck.

 Some didn't really have room, and I probably wouldn't have wanted to stay out all day like they no doubt planned on!  But for the most part, most folks probably just didn't figure someone wanted to go out and photograph alligators for an hour or two...!?