#9 Of Birds and Mice

On the southern part of Merritt Island is the Kennedy Space Center and the adjacent Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. The Merritt Island National Wildlife Preserve is on the northern end of the island.  Our tour of Merritt Island started at the visitor center, where you can learn a bit about the ecology and wildlife in the preserve and take a quarter mile walk along the boardwalk. It takes you through some of the striking natural coastal Florida habitat.

 

A seven mile drive takes you through numerous lakes that are teeming with birds and other wildlife.  The “islands” in the shallow lakes often had "standing room only" for the birds.

We came upon one area in a lake where many ducks were bathing, splashing up water like a bunch of kids in a pool. This pic doesn't really do justice to their exuberance but if you look closely you can see the droplets.

In addition to many birds, we saw several alligators, and a few turtles, including one big fellow whose shell was nearly two feet across.

We had another opportunity to commune with nature at the Brevard County Zoo. This small zoo had some really neat exhibits that enabled you to get close to the animals will little or no visual barriers. Anne got a kick out of feeding some crackers to the giraffe.  For being such ungainly looking animals, they are amazingly delicate when taking food from one's hand.

One bird sure reminded us of where he came from. Doesn’t he look a little like his ancestors?

A number of beautiful parrots including several hyacinth macaws and scarlet macaws were also in the collection.

But the highlight of our zoo visit had to be feeding the Lorikeets in the free-flight aviary.

In the spirit of Florida attractions, the zoo has a Zip Line that passes over an alligator pond. Check out this gal zipping above the gator in the lower right corner of the photo.  Lunch, anyone?

Nearby, in the same pond, were a bunch of those toothy beasties! If you look closely you can see that the big fellow in the foreground is missing a rear foot. 

The next step in our trek through Florida was to the Orlando area, and we moved to Bill Frederick Park at Turkey Lake. This is a really nice park run by the city of Orlando. In the course of our travels we have found several city and county parks that have been just great (as opposed to state parks or public campgrounds). This one qualifies as one of the best. In addition to excellent camping facilities, it has boating, a golf course, disc golf, a pool, and a great picnic area. When you couple all this with a location that is only a few miles from Universal Studios and about 13 miles from Disney World, you have quite a camping find. So Shhhh……. Don’t tell!

One of our first activities here was visiting with our great- niece, Emily, who is a college intern at Disney World. In addition to working a full shift, she takes a college business course taught by Disney people. Here she is at the Disney headquarters standing about where she is on the org chart. (just kidding Emily - couldn't resist that one!).

Our main priority was to see Epcot and we spent a long, but fun day touring the World in Epcot. Emily was such a great guide that we got to see and do much more than we would have if she had not been with us. We even learned what Fast Passes are and were able to use them on one popular ride, General Motors' Test Track, that takes you on a vehicle test ride. It was pretty fast and jerky, but fun!

We also had that great experience of waiting in one of those humungous (80 minute)  you hear about, when we went on the Soarin’ ride.

Some people didn't seem to mind the line:

And the ride was worth it!

We also went on Planet Earth, saw some street entertainment, had some great Mexican food, and got so tired by the end of the day that we were ready to collapse. So judging by all that, we had a great time.

We left Disney wondering how Emily can do it five days a week! Oh, that’s right …… she’s 18 and we are ……..not.

Until next time………