Day 46: Campground Exploration

It was another action-packed school day. We started the morning off with both Rob and me getting out for an alone run.

When I got back, the kids got changed and we loaded up the kayak to explore the intracoastal waterway. After that we boogied back for morning calls. Nicholas opted to do the day in his swimsuit.

We had good weather for an outside lunch, so we opened a pomegranate as a special treat (required to be outside since they’re messy). We followed lunch with a bike ride along the same path I ran in the morning. I didn’t notice the first time that the grass portion of the trail was full of those “spiky balls” that popped Nicholas’ tire back in the Badlands. We decided to walk our bikes home and will keep our fingers crossed we didn’t pop any tires.

After more school we had a mid-afternoon ice cream break and a walk on a nature trail. The ice cream cone was to make more room in the freezer and to help Rob and me feel less guilty when eating Blue Bell ice cream each night after the kids go to bed.

On the nature trail we saw loads of lizards, some frogs, butterflies, and Cooper saw a snake. The signs told us more about the cabbage palm and how the tree trunk was used to build homes. Also the hearts are edible if you’re willing to kill the tree. We also learned that pencils are made from cedar tree wood. We did learn from the ranger that alligators are only seen in the park 1-2 times a year because the water is too salty. We also learned there are two kinds of turtles here: box turtle (smaller) and gopher tortoise (larger). We had seen an oblong hole in the ground on our bike ride and apparently that was a tortoise hole.

As luck would have it on our walk back through the campsite I saw a gopher tortoise in an empty campground site. I was able to get Nicholas’ attention before it went into the bushes and he took a video of it for Cooper who couldn’t make it there.

We did their end-of-day calls at the picnic table, as the weather continued to cooperate. We followed the calls with a yummy spinach, spaghetti and meat sauce dinner, and we then wrapped up the evening with some RV demolition derby videos (requested by the kids based on a passing comment one of us had made before we left on the trip).