We kayaked with Florida Nature Adventures LLC. They have a blog too! We are on the blog right now, about two entries from the top. http://www.centralfloridanatureadventures.com/
Driving to the kayaking launch. Florida is very flat, Tanner and I were always impressed with the straight flat roads ahead of us. Also, this road had "Bear Crossing" signs, we asked our guide and he said Florida has a good number of black bears. We didn't know!
This road was an odd one that the GPS had us take. I suspect that at some point it used to be lots of farms, but now it is lots of nurseries and orchid growing warehouses. It was interesting. Later in some of the suburbs on the way back we saw people selling orchids from the back of their vans.
Me in the kayak! It was nice and shady in the first half hour of kayaking. Notice the sit on top kayak, not a sea kayak like we are used to.
The green kayak is our guide Kenny Boyd. We also had a second guide, Wayne, and two women, Alice and Mary Jo, who are educators from Minnesota. They were older ladies, but for the last eight years have been taking kayak trips together in the spring. In the 7 days they were in Florida they did 8 kayak trips.
We are looking at some smallish brown birds, on the edge of the water in front of this backyard. They are standing in the shallows and picking at snails. These birds are very rare, and only live in certain tropical areas like Florida. They only eat snails, especially Apple Snails. They are an indicator species, because only if the river is healthy will snails grow, and then the birds will come. Our guide told us they are not closely related to any other bird species. He has birders come from all over the world for his kayaking trip, and this is one bird they put on their wish list. So we are very lucky. Of course we forgot what it is called! We fail....
This is a beautiful night heron. He was sleeping in the daytime, with his wings in this seemingly awkward position. We got close enough to see his red eyes, which are creepy, but good for seeing the dark.
It was Apple Snail egg laying time, I guess they usually do this at night, so were lucky to see it. Apple Snails are one of the largest U.S. snails.
Here in the trees is an Akiva (spelling?), this is a male, so he has beautiful black and white feathers. We saw so many beautiful birds. We saw many herons, including Great Blue, Lesser Blue, Night Heron. We saw both kinds of vultures, Turkey Vultures, like we have in the west, and Black Vultures, which they only have in the southeast. We saw some wrens, and heard some other similar birds. We saw a hawk fly over us with a snake in its mouth! That was amazing. I saw a Great Blue Heron struggling to fly out of the water, and it had a wriggling fish in its feet.
This is an example of how clear and pristine the water was. This river starts from a spring and is just beautiful. There is no sediment to cloud the water, like in a river that runs off of mountains. We saw two baby alligators in the water floating near the trees and bushes. We also saw a snake swimming on top of the water. We could see two or three kinds of fish swimming underneath us.
Look! A stereotype. These guys, a father and son, are fishing in an aluminum boat, in lumber jack shirts and cut off jeans.
An adult blue heron, not a Great Blue, but the normal blue. I guess it is the end of the breeding season, so his beak is extra blue for attracting females.
There are lots of rules to keep the rivers clean in Florida. At the same time, while we were there the Florida State Legislature ruled that the EPA could not apply national rules to Florida water ways. These rules would have been more strict on stopping runoff from farms and orchards. The cattle farmers and citrus growers don't want to apply by these stronger rules, there money talks loud in the state legislature. So that really sucked.
Tanner and Kenny talking about Spanish Moss, the gray moss hanging off so many trees. It actually has flowers and that is how it pollinates and spreads. Our guide really was full of great information. We would recommend this company to anyone.
A beautiful tropical flower, the photo doesn't do it justice.
We hung out in the kayaks for lunch, we just floated up against a little grove.
Turtle sunning itself. We saw one tiny little turtle that was so cute. Also saw alligators sunning themselves. It was hard to take photos from the moving kayak. This company leads much longer tours that go at a really slow pace, specifically for photographers.
I had Tanner take this photo. The homes that people had on the river were usually much simpler then this one. They just has the most amazing view from their back yards, it would be amazing to live there.
There is a young blue heron there in the background. It is a year old now, so it is turning from white to blue, so it has splotches all over it. Our guide Kenny was casual and funny. While we were chatting they found out I studied in China and spoke some Chinese. Kenny and Wayne the native Floridians were so surprised, they had never met a white person who spoke Chinese. They also loved my "exotic" first name, and Tanner's Japanese last name. They are open minded, educated men, but it reminded us that Central Florida really isn't an urban, sophisticated place.
Tanner really does love fish and water animals. This is a picture of the beds the fish make. They dig out these round holes in the bottom to lay their eggs in.
Another Akiva, in silhouette. Tanner took this fantastic photo.
Me with my spanish moss friend.
We stopped in Eatonville on the way home. It is a small town on the edge of larger Maitland and Sanford. But it was founded as the first free black communities in America. Zora Neale Hurston used it as a setting in some of her novels, she also lived here. This is a sign for a house, we didn't stop. But we did stop in the National Zora Neale Hurston Museum and Gallery. It was TINY. But they were featuring an amazing collection of Haitian art. They chose pieces that would capture the different periods and traditions of art in Haiti. The gallery only features works of African Americans usually. The gallery has this goal of showing great art in small communities, so often we only think of the arts as part of urban areas. We both really liked it. Tanner in one of his last semesters took a literature class and read Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God, so it was especially interesting to him, while sometimes museums are more fun for me.
Then off to Winter Park another suburb, to Tibby's New Orleans Kitchen. So fun on the inside.
Super awesome menu.
Po Boys, one half catfish and one half shrimp
Amazing wings! I don't even really like wings. These came to the table steaming, and smelled so amazing. I wish I could describe it. They smelled tangy, spicy, fresh and chickeny. They tasted just as good. Crispy on the outside, moist on the inside. The sauce they are cooked in is a New Orleans style Hot Sauce, I bought a bottle it was so good.
Our other entree was a sampler. Gumbo, catfish pie, and jambalaya with andoullie sausage. Everything was delicious. We would love to travel more in the southeast just to eat the food.
Yummy sauce!
We stopped at Downtown Disney before going back to the resort, Tanner needed to do some more shopping.
Duffy! The Disney bear. Tanner says in Japan he is everywhere and they love him. But I had never heard of him before. He was cute, and came with some awesome outfits.
I am showing off some Mickey earrings I bought myself. We stopped at Ghirardelli, for some ice cream.
Oh yeah, the sit on top kayaks. I got a pretty bad burn. It started to hurt around this time. You could see a line on the side of my calf where it was burnt on front and not on back.
Traditional banana split
Ahh, aloe gel with lidocane. We put it on a few times that night and turned on the fan. I think it really helped because it is healing well and doesn't hurt much.
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