Allen David Broussard Catfish Creek Preserve State Park and Segway Tours of Lake Kissimmee State Park

Our excursion to Allen David Broussard Catfish Creek Preserve was....um, interesting?  It's a beautiful area. It contains some rare plants, nice bird life, and LOTS AND LOTS OF SAND.  Not friendly sand.  Beautiful, soft, white sand...several inches thick...on the walking paths.  OK, you've undoubtedly been walking at the beach.  Usually, one walks in the hard, compact wet sand.  What if you were walking upland from that?  On the soft, gushy, hard to get a footing on sand.  Do you have that image in mind?  Good.  NOW, do THAT UPHILL.

Vincent, illustrating the climb, in the sand.  I think I passed him and left him in that shade spot for a bit....

 In the heat of summer in Florida.  Yeah, not good.  Very hard to deal with.  You have to be in good shape, to say the least, then you have to kind of like that sort of thing.  The sad part of it is, this part is dedicated to a lovely young man who was a rising star in the field of ecological biology, who was, by all accounts was a genius.  He died at age 29 after having a heart transplant.  The park is named after him/dedicated to him, and there is a statue of him with a quote of his.  Unfortunately, it is buried in the BACK of the park.  Unless you're on horseback or using a vehicle, there is no way you'll see it on foot.  The neat thing about this park, is that it looks like you're at the beach...even though the closest one is a good 2 or 3 hours away.  This area used to be sand dunes to the ocean front, 350,000 years ago.  It is a unique place to see.  Just very hard to do it on foot.

A sage plant...it's an ancient plant and an endangered one, at that.

Don't you expect the beach to be a few feet away?  It's not.

Nice lichen!

Courting woodpeckers, feeding each other.

Scrub lizard.

Brown anoles "doin' it".  

We escaped major rainstorms during our excursion, and rewarded ourselves with a beer at the Liars Lair, near our campsite. We told a few lies and left after a few brews.  The ride home gave us more views of turkeys...and then we went down to the lake and enjoyed the views of the skies and the water.  Saw a few gators, more turkeys, and some other wildlife. I was even treated to seeing lizards having sex.  I took lots of pictures.  Vincent said "They KNEW you were watching.  They KNEW you were filming... the boy lizard even said: "Just do it!  We're going to be on the BIG SCREEN!".  My husband is a sick, sick, man. I guess I'm a sick, sick woman, though, because I took the photographs.




Overall, it was  a peaceful end to the day.

Saturday, we got up and relaxed a lot.  I think I have to stop doing that.  Relaxing so much.  I need to get out and explore more.  Next park, I'm doing that.  Today we had a Segway tour of the park.  Segways are the two wheeled thing you stand on that is balanced using 5 gyroscopes.  Turns on a dime and is easy and fun to use.  Standing for the time we stood on it got tough on the feet...but we took a few breaks, and got off to "stretch our feet".  We saw two beautiful deer, one standing and one laying down.  A gator, birds, plant life...and the day was absolutely gorgeous.  Our tour guides and company owners Jeff and Melody were wonderful.  Very excited and passionate about what they do, and bringing nature to folks.  We enjoyed ourselves immensely.  If you ever find yourself at Lake Kissimmee State Park on a Saturday or a Sunday, they offer 3 tour times, 8:30, 1:00 and 3:30.  $35 per person gets you 70 minutes in nature.  They are shortly going to take over the general concessions at the park and offer an internet cafe, boat rentals, and light fare.

I'm sorry to be leaving...I really have enjoyed this park, and would have liked to explored it more.  It's only 3 hours from home, so I think we might find ourselves here again one day.  There are so many wonderful animals here, and it's a nice quiet, slow pace.  You can canoe/kayak here, go for many miles of walking, do the Segway tour, and during the "season" part of the year, you can see an old time "Cow Camp", where they reenact how cowboys of old lived off the land and moved cattle.  That stops May 1.  Luckily, all other services are available for the summer.  If your'e looking for a fun, relaxing camping trip that gets you back to nature, this place is it.  Tomorrow, we head out to Sebastian Inlet in Melbourne, FL.  I have heard it is wonderful.  I'm sure it is.  Until then, gentle reader....