North Florida Family and Wildlife Viewing

Greetings from Tallahassee, Florida!

Family viewing: After driving through sheets of rain accompanied by thunder and lightning, I arrived in Jacksonville Florida on Monday morning.  Jacksonville is the city of my birth, my sibling’s birth, and my parent’s birth and I was there to spend time with my Aunt, Uncle, cousins, and close family friends.  What fun.  I had not seen many of them for quite a number of years.  Since I’ll be heading back to Jesup, I opted to leave Dora there much to the disappointment of my Aunt who wanted me park it at the local Winn Dixie so she could sell tickets.  I told her I’ll be back with Dora after my course, so we can set up shop at the Winn Dixie at that time.  I wonder how much she is going to charge and if I’ll get a cut?  Too funny.  In the photo below from left to right are my cousin Kelly, my Aunt Marjorie, and my second Mother, Marianne.

Family Viewing II: I drove over to Tallahassee yesterday afternoon to see my brother, Jimmy who has lived here since college.  Here he is with my MistyMoo and his rescue dog Soki, pronounced Saki.

Meet Jimmy’s other dog Hooch, named after the dog in the movie, Turner and Hooch.  His head is so big it needs its own zip code.  I swear, I don’t know how he holds it up all day long.

Wildlife Viewing: Jimmy had a full day of activities planned for us today and what fun it was.  We visited the St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge and the Wakulla Springs State Park with a lunch of the tastiest oysters I’ve ever eaten in between.

While at St. Marks Wildlife Refuge we drove out to the lighthouse and took a walk along one of the many levees as well as a walk around one of the interpretive nature trails.  Here are some of the shots I took while there.

This is a typical warning sign we saw where ever we went.

Here is Jimmy with the St. Marks light house.

And here he is in the photo blind we found on our Nature Walk.

After visiting St. Marks Refuge, we stopped at a side of the road Oyster Bar that Jimmy was familiar with and each ate a dozen of the most amazing oysters.  Jimmy tells me that they were Apalachicola oysters and that many people rate them as the best oysters EVER.

After lunch we went out back to admire the toilet garden pictured below.

Wakulla Springs State Park was on the docket for the afternoon and I’m so glad it was, but I’m out of time at the moment, so I’ll have to post those photos another time.  Stay tuned for Manatees and Alligators.