Little Old Lady Reprise and more

Skidaway Island State Park

Out at 7:30am just after sun up to go running.  That seems so late to me, Sun up at 7:15.  I ran the two trails we hadn’t already seen and around the park for a total of 4.5 miles but BOY was it hot and sticky.  I was exhausted by the time I got back and only wanted to jump in the shower and cool down as soon as I could.  When I got out, I felt great but totally forgot to stretch and later in the day I could feel my muscles' complaints.   I usually do yoga 4 or 5 times a week and I have done none in over two weeks.  Have to figure out how to get that back into my life.  Who knew I'd be busier now than in my busy life.  ;-)

In spite of the heat, we did a few chores – David adjusted my bike seat for me and took off the water bottle holder which was mounted in the holes put in by the factory but was in my way getting off the bike.    I have some thigh bruises to show for it.  At only 5 feet tall, I have quite a few height challenges that don't bother others at all.  David also found that the AC evaporator drain was clogged and that was what had caused our atlases lying under the dash on the passenger’s side to get so soaked that we had to iron the pages.   He cleaned it out easily.  Great to get another two problems solved!!

We decided then to go out and hike those two trails at a leisurely pace and enjoy the scenery.  But when we got on the bikes I could hear this great female voice that sounded like Aretha Franklin whose concert in Charlottesville on Friday October 1, I had a chance to see for free but we of course won’t be there.   So I rode over toward the sound and discovered the Sweet as a Peach PT Cruiser Car Show was in the park for the week-end.  As I pulled in, there it was again….The Little Old Lady From Pasadena.  At this rate I'll never get that song out of my head.   It was a car show DJ with 5000 tunes from the 50’s and 60’s and a great sound system.   So we took a look around and here is some of what we saw.

              
I call this one PT Woody - Surf City Here We Come complete with Surfboard on top.

                                               How about this paint job?  Both Outside -

                                                And Inside. :-)

  

And then there was Froggie.  Check out this paint job and Kermit in the Passenger's Seat.

And one last one, David's favorite, what I'm calling "the sophisticated PT"

Next we went into the interpretive center and found that the curved beaked bird we had seen at Cedar Point and I thought they were Whimbrels but Heyduke first thought they were Curlews and then later wrote back to say they were Ibis and he was right.  They were confirmed by the ranger at Skidaway as immature White Ibis. (see blog entry Sept 18)  While we  were talking with the ranger and standing in front of their bird feeding area a Painted Bunting and his mate flew up to the bird bath.  My camera just wasn’t up to the task.  I took a couple of pictures but my zoom just isn’t good enough.  I’m making holiday gift hints pretty heavily now.  

David ran out to get his much better camera from the bike but two obnoxious cow birds intimidated the buntings and they flew off before he could get back.  I got a picture of both buntings at the waterer but I have to blow it up too much for it to be clear enough to post.  Such a shame as they were beautiful.   But how about this instead.

On the way out, still trying to get to the trails,  we looked in the side room and there was a replica of a 20’ tall Ground Sloth whose fossilized bones were found at Skidaway in 1820.  This guy ate 600-700 pounds of vegetation per day and weighed 6000 pounds.  Sure glad I wasn’t here when he was. 

 By this point the day was closing in on us and we were getting hungry.  So we skipped the two trails in favor of food and getting a little start on the pack up for tomorrow.  

Getting ready to move on AGAIN…this time to Crooked River State Park near the Florida Georgia Border.   See you there.