Beautiful morning in the forest. I could hear all of the water dripping through the palms as the sun came up. We had a big breakfast, bacon & eggs, and headed out around 9. We went to the south end of Mansota Key to Stump Pass Beach and walked probably a mile south down the beach. We had heard before we got here that red tide is bad, especially in this area. When we got there a guy from the health department was digging a hole for the red tide warning sign. I took a picture of each different type of dead fish that I saw and I found a bunch of shark teeth, lots around a sailboat that was washed up on the sand.
It was starting to get hot and we weren’t planning on spending the day here so we headed out to find a place for lunch. Just a few miles away (across the bridge) we stopped at Cedar Point Nature Preserve. We went on a quick hike and saw a ton a lizards in the woods and vultures near the water. Had lunch back at the van and wished we had air conditioning.
On the way back to the campground we stopped in for some groceries, and also went into the thrift store next door and found a few DVDs for rainy van days and nights (if we have any this trip). Back at the camp we just hung out for a bit and appreciated the nature and quiet and Joe used his shovel/saw to cut up some wood for the fire.
Eventually we worked up the motivation to go for a hike around 5. There are a handful of named trails here, which are really just double wide service roads/fire breaks. There are also a bunch of unnamed trails/service roads that crisscross through the whole park.
We made our own 3 mile hike by combining the two. It would be so easy to get lost out here without a map, there are no streams to follow, no hills to climb, just flat ground with a thick floor of palms and the same tall pines everywhere you look. We didn’t see much for wildlife, but lots of tracks in the sand. We made it back to camp just as the sun was going down.
Another beautiful dark night. I grilled shrimp with some vegetables we needed to use, potatoes, green peppers, celery, and then probably added too much Old Bay at the end. It was great.
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