Onwards! To Paynes Prairie

This state park confused me.  There are different parts, or at least different access points, so that you have to drive a fair ways to get between the two (or more?).  I first went to the main part:

  

 which had a neat lookout tower.

 Some days this view provides glimpses of wild horses (Florida Cracker horses) and cattle (Florida Cracker cattle), both of which date back to the conquistador days with fairly pure lineage having been maintained along the way - by the Florida Cracker cowboys, as well as various Indian tribes, most notably the Seminoles (the park being named after one of their members).  Both are very rare today, mostly only kept alive by a few people dedicated to keeping the breeds going.  More recently (than the 16th century!  Try the 1970s...), plains bison were reintroduced, so you might see them as well.  I'm not sure if I saw any of the above, although a few of us up there saw some brown dots in the distance...

 More visitors to the treehouse.

 Fern-laden branch.

 Yes, these trees were literally dripping with moss!!

 Pretty wild petunia.

 Another five-lined skink (believe it or not!).  The young skinks are the ones with the fun rainbow coloring (seen in a previous post).  The adults mostly lose their striping, and this type here is actually called a "broad-head." The boys in this breed change not only head color, but also size and shape during the spring and early summer. This one here is a good example of a mature male during mating season.

The lovely road into the park.  Time to migrate to the other part of the park - where the gators are...!!

Oleno SP

 Another stop, on Ichetucknee Day, was Oleno State Park.  No gator guest appearances here either, although I'm positive they were there somewhere!!

 In fact, seems like a pretty good bet to me that this guy was Dancing with Gators!!  (this water's brown/tannic, you can't tell who's in there with you!!)

 Time to hit the trail...

 Across the bridge, to Grandma Gator's we go!

 Five-lined skink.

 Cool pool (scum-covered, of course).

 But isn't the scum pretty?!!!

 Green scum art.

 So the scum on the surface makes it look like nothing's go on with that water.  Guess not!

 And these are the Tree's Knees!  No, really!  These bumps are called knees, and they are weird structures forming above the roots of cypress trees.  Their function is still unknown, but they are thought to help aid the trees in stabilization, esp. in the more flooded areas.

 More trees, more knees.

And a cool building in the park.

Ichetucknee

Next to gators (and the wildlife in general), the best thing in FL, are the springs!  FL has tons of these gorgeous turquoise springs that spew out tons of fresh water daily and are home to all sorts of wildlife, depending on their location - sometimes manatees, gators, and...human beings!

I found these pretty phlox growing along roadsides all over FL!  Outside the Ichetucknee Springs entrance was the first sighting.

 Pretty path to one of the tubing put-in/take-out spots.

 Do they know they're going to potentially be tubing with gators?!  Probably.  That's one of the things that strikes me and Bill as so cool - people and gators coexisting, sometimes in almost the exact same space, without incident!!!  It doesn't always go that way, but more often than not, I think.  Of course, people usually try to steer clear of where they know the gators are, and vice versa, the gators stay away from people.  But sometimes they end up being yards or feet apart and just go their own ways.

 Another path further in the park.

 And the Blue Hole Spring, one of the many springs feeding into the Ichetucknee River.  

See?  There's someone swimming, and you see that brownish splotch on the other side??  Just kidding - no, it's not a gator.  But it could have been....!

 The head spring.  Isn't it gorgeous?!!

 And it was hot.  If I'd had my bathing suit with me, I would've gone swimming with the gators too (no, I didn't see a single gator in this park - they probably avoid it, as it's obviously popular and probably usually overrun with people!  This was still morning and most likely early season, so not too many people yet).

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.