The Trip Home from Florida

Epcot (Click on any picture to enlarge)

   Sharon and I had a wonderful time at Disney World with our Daughter-in-law and Grandson but it was time to leave and start our drive home. We decided to drive through the center of Florida as we never visited that area before. So we headed to Osceola State Forest near Lake City. Our objective there was to find the Red-cockaded Woodpecker. We lucked out and managed to find two of them along with Brown-headed Nuthatches and Chuck-Wills-Widow calling at evening. Among the mammals that we found was this lonely Armadillo scouring through the leaf litter. From here we headed north to the Okefenokee Swamp.

Armadillo

 

     Next stop was at Harris Neck NWR in Georgia. This was a real gem of at refuge where we found a nesting colony of Herons, Egrets, Ibis, Anhinga and Wood Storks. It was fun to watch the Wood Storks as they plucked sticks from dead trees and carried them to their nest sites.

Wood Stork gathering nesting material

White Ibis

Wood Stork

      After the refuges, we stopped in Savannah and took the Paula Dean tour. It was quite interesting, even though I don't watch the show. We had lunch at Uncle Bubba's (Paula Dean's brother) restaurant. Along the river, behind the restaurant, we found some Brown Pelicans and in the parking lot were Summer Tanagers.

Uncle Bubba's Restaurant

Brown Pelican

        Farther along on the way home we visited the town of Charleston, SC. It had a lot of nice southern homes and plantations but I actually preferred Savannah over Charleston. In Charleston bay we found American Oystercatchers as we were viewing Fort Sumter across the bay. This is where the first battle of the Civil War began and this April is the 150th anniversary of the start of that war.
       Leaving Charleston, we headed to Congaree National Park on central South Carolina. There is not much to do there except walk around a 2 1/2 mile boardwalk through the swamps. But we did that and even though the walk was through the swamps we didn't encounter any mosquitoes as the sign below indicates.

Mosquito Meter

        We did encounter other wildlife as seen below.

Carolina Anole

      We finally arrived home safely and were greeted by snow flurries and cold rain. Not what we were used to after being in 80 degree weather.