Thursday, August 16, 2007

Road Trip - Day 7 (Land Shopping, Bats, and Storms)

Up with the sun once again! I'm telling you if that rooster keeps this up he's going in the marinade with the wings!


Well back out to find my property! I met with the realtor early in the morning and wasn't able to get to the coffee shop, which was why I'm a day behind writing the rest of Day six. We head out into the wilds of this part of Florida looking for just the right spot for Lightnin and I to settle down. I'm properly dressed to push through the think brush, forest, and jungle that I may encounter, complete with gloves this time (hey, I may be an idiot, but I'm no fool!). Here's a small sampling of some of the area that I'm looking at:







Believe it or not this is Florida.























Hey here's a palm tree, how did that get here?!




After FC arrived home that evening he noticed that a gopher (a tortoise, not the fury little pest from "Caddy Shack") was out for a stroll so I had to capture it on film.
After that he took me over to one of the nearby wildlife sanctuary's to see a bat house that was built neat the Suwanee. We arrived just before sunset, so there was a good chance we'd be able to see the mass Exodus of the flying mammals for their nightly feeding frenzy.


While we were waiting an approaching storm gave us a bit of entertainment. This is common for the afternoons/evenings here this time of year. The heat and humidity build up into an impressive crescendo, finishing with a spectacular light show displaying Nature's beautiful fury!
Back to the bats. We could hear the sounds of rustling and squeaking coming from the bat house so we knew it wouldn't be long now. First a single bat emerges and flies off, followed by another, then another. All of a sudden the entire house empties, it was like a waterfall of bats leaving the house and flying off to devour as many mosquito's as they possibly could before coming back at dawn to rest again the next day. What an impressive sight, and the price was a mere few bites by gnats and mosquito's, well worth the effort.
On the way home we were able to witness the light show that we knew was going to follow the building storm we had seen earlier. Nature provides plenty of entertainment, you just have to take time to look around!
Today I'm going to goof off a bit more and head over to Cedar Key with the top down before heading back to the PF HQ to cook my famous wings. If possible I'll post some photos of that tomorrow. Lightinin flies in this afternoon so we'll see.
And the Road Trip continues........

2 comments:

Beverly said...

I'm so glad that you bought some land in Florida and intend to keep it Florida. I know that gopher will thank you for it.

Thunder said...

Beverly - Thanks for stopping by to visit. That's the plan, leave as much of it alone as possible.