Update

Sunday February 26, 2017
Rainbow Springs State Park
Dunnellon Florida

This is a short update to say that on Friday I drove 5 hours round trip to pick David up from the hospital.  I was and am very sick with this virus and found David to be still pretty sick as well.  He does not have a fever but he is weak and we are both coughing constantly. 

I had cnacelled our stay at St. Mark’s National Wildlife refuge earlier in order to stay at Rainbow Springs.  Now I have had to cancel days at St. George since neither of us in good enough health to move.

I am frankly shocked that Moffitt would discharge him in this condition but he says he’s better off here so perhaps he talked them into it by his persistant questions about the criteria for discharge.

Still no solution for the Live Writer Problem.  Perhaps today we will not both sleep all day and I can use my little energy to feel like I’m doing something by finishing the move of the final Disney post from Open Live Writer to Blogger and getting it published.  Perhaps not…….

You Have to See It to Believe It: Part 2 of Animal Kingdom

Wednesday February 8,                                                                   2017 Most Recent Posts:
Animal Kingdom                                                                             The Incredible Tree of Life
Walt Disney World                                              We’re Celebrating Carrie’s Birthday Week in Disney World
Orlando, Florida





David seems to be doing better but I have to rely on his nurse’s reports as I have the virus and cannot visit him. This post is the one I was trying to put up when Blogger refused to take pictures.  Seems like a long time ago now.  

I've spent all day moving it over to Blogger's platform which is very tedious.  The fonts and size and spacing seem to changer at will.   It isn't what I wanted to see.  But it's the best I can do under the circumstances.  I sure hope they get Open Live Writer working again.

If you read my previous post about The Incredible Tree of Life and our super day in Animal Kingdom, you already know about the creation of the tree. Some remarkable information and statistics. A link to that post is in blue above.

When I left off, we were wandering the trails around the tree which made it very easy to make our fast pass for the show It’s Tough to Be a Bug in the 400 seat theater in the base of the tree. With the same skillful attention to detail discussed previously, artists camouflaged the infrastructure of the theater creating a cave like atmosphere that befits this unique 3-D show. It will have you jumping out of your seat. Seriously!



We check in with our fast passes and then take our time finding animals along our way. I almost said finding all the animals but I seriously doubt it. Now matter how hard you look you miss them. There is a hidden Mickey here and we never did see it.

The roots are very cave like and you have to be sure to look around inside and to look up when you cone out.

The lines of both the fast pass and the stand by weave around, under and through. Most times people are in a hurry to get where they are going so they don’t take much time to really look. But if you have to stand for a while, you really don’t mind with all there is to see.

There are some you animals really can’t miss seeing.  They jump right out at you.

This may be your only chance to ever sit on an alligator snout.

Some of the carvings are composites. The hands here and the feathers and the two heads are all from different animals.

We’re walking down the path approaching a dead end. It is only temporary but meant there was a section of the tree we didn’t get to inspect this time.. The sun wasn’t good for the antlers in battle.

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The green wall is the stopping point. I stand here and look up at the trunk for a while

Here is some of what I see.

What a beautiful cat. Are those his claws? Here you can never be quite sure unless you know your animals better than I do but they don’t look quite right.

Time to turn around and head back under the roots to the theater.We’re still seeing things we hadn’t seen before.

 

So perfect, this made me laugh.

Don’t the leaves look real?

We knew we’d arrived at our destination when we saw this one.

David sports his “bug eye” 3-D glasses as we wait for the doors to open.

I don’t think there is anyone who ever comes out of this show and isn’t laughing or smiling at a minimum. 

 We exit near the section of the tree that you see when you first glimpse it as you come on to Discovery Island..

Nestled amid the burrowing roots at its base is a serene landscape of pools, meadows and trees which are home to a variety of live animals, including lemurs, flamingos, kangaroos and tortoises. We are on the other side of the waterfall shown in my last post.

This particular spot is one of those “kodak picture” spots. It has a bison on the right side of the viewing area and the big horned sheep on the left.

In the area with the Red Kangaroos are several White Storks. While we are watching, one of the keepers comes out and tries to toss some food from the green box in her hand to the storks without giving any to the local Ibis and Egrets who are gathering around. Not an easy thing to do. The locals are quite pushy.

The storks are seriously out numbered. I saw 3 storks but perhaps there were more. Still the egrets and ibis are the majority. I wonder if folks not from Florida realize that these are no longer exotic animals now that plumes in ladies hats are out of fashion.

Walking on around we come to what we think is the Flamingo area until we get a look at that HUGE nest in the center behind them.

They are sharing their space with a pair of nesting African Lappet Faced Vulture. The vultures wings span up to 9 feet. Like our two types of vulture they eat meat of dead animals which prevents the spread of disease to humans and other creatures. These vultures are much more colorful than ours. But they are still vultures.

Think about the size of this nest if the birds have 9’ wing spans. This is a BIG bird. It is bigger than our Bald Eagle.

They have what look like soft downy feathers on their chests but for obvious reasons, their heads have no feathers at all just like our vultures.

I sure wouldn’t want to see that face looking at me straight on any closer than I am.

Their much more beautiful neighbors were in strong color. Disney must be feeding them a LOT of shrimp. Look at the places under their wings and on their backs.

Such amazing animals.  Look at those eyes.

The final animals we spend time watching on Discovery Island are the Lemurs. The Ringtailed and Collared Lemur live on the island of Madagascar. As with many of the Disney animals, their populations are endangered. They use their opposable thumbs and big toes to help them pluck and eat fruit and hold onto the tree branches in which they live. It’s pretty obvious, which is which.

Today the Collared Lemur is the more active. The Ringtailed Lemur seems a bit on the chubby side. He shows interest in all this climbing around but doesn’t seem to feel the need to participate.

Their eyes seem to be wide open and staring all the time. They must have eye lids but I never saw them blink.

We leave Discovery Island and make our way toward the exit gates. Just as we are leaving the Oasis area we find the trees all around us have orchids growing in them. This is just a small sample of what we saw.

The colors are hard to see from a distance but there are yellows, whites, pinks, blues and purples.

 After two huge posts on our one day here it’s pretty clear this was a fantastic day for us and we want to remember it in detail. You really have to see it to believe it. Walt would be proud!