Florida and the Florida Keys (2)
This post is a follow up on my post from yesterday, I put the link to the other post at the end of this post.
After Orlando we went on to Sarasota.
Sarasota is comparable with my hometown in size, it got about 50.000 people living there, so a mid size city. We went to Sarasota on a tip from the daughter of a friend of mine, she stayed there for a year in a exchange program from school. She told us that is was a nice surrounding, and it was.
We stayed at Hibiscus Suites Motel, a cozy motel. It reminded me of Ray Donovan (the serie), a typical American Motel (at least I thought it was typical).
Siesta Key
When we unpacked out stuff we went to Siesta Key. At Siesta Key there is the world famous Siesta beach.
The weather was quiet cloudy, but the temperature was good. So the kids took a dive into the water en enjoyed it very much.
On some places on the beach there were red lines and signs. When we stepped closer we saw that those lines were for the turtles that breed on the beach at night.
There are some big fine's if you disturb the turtles during breeding, and I thinks that's very good because people are often to nosy when it comes to wildlife. I thinks it's awesome those turtles breed at the beach, but we have to respect them.
After the beach we walked into the village. It was still cloudy and had rained a bit, but for me that's perfectly fine. Walking in full sun isn't quiet my cup of tea :)
When we came back at the motel at night, this was how it looked then. Awesome view isn't it :)
Myakka Park
The next day we went to Myakka Park. This is a state park with a lot of wild wetlands. There are a lot of alligators in the park among other animals.
You can enter the park by car, bike of camper. Although I wouldn't go by bike or on foot that easy :) We entered by car.
There is some beautiful nature and enough warnings for the wildlife :)
We stopped the car at several bridges but didn't saw any wildlife, just some birds flying over. So we continued entering the park.
All of a sudden I noticed on gator besides a bridge. it didn't move in the water.
Can you see the animal on the picture below?
Gators are quiet relaxed animals, they stay at the surface, just with the eyes above the water. Waiting for a prey.
When we moved on I saw a deer, or some other type I am not sure, in the bush.It was relaxing . The first thing I thought was "What if a gator comes along", but then again, that's nature isn't it.
There was some great nature to be seen in the park.
In the center of the park there is a shop and a riverboat company.
We decided to take a tour, so we could see a lot more of the park.
According to the company it was the largest airboat in the world :) 70 persons could get on it.
The tour was fun, the captain told us all about the park, the animals and the life overthere. It was very educational.
He also told us that the water was quiet high for the time of the year and that a couple of places in the park are flooded. When that happens it's more risky because the alligators are leaving their normal space.
We enjoyed it very much although on the water there was quiet a hard wind.
On our way to the exit we encountered a deer with it's kid :)
Great to see...
It was a awesome experience in the park. To see those creatures real life..
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Have a great day
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It does seem mad that you have to threaten people not to disturb the Turtle nests. Looks like a great spot to take the kids for a few days. Would love to have gone down to the beach at night to see if any turtles come in to lay their eggs.
yes it is kind a strange isn't it, people should know on their own. At night indeed the turtles would come on the beach, the houses on the beach aren't allowed to have bright light at night otherwise the turtles get distracted and walk towards the house..
Who in their right mind would molest an alligator? xD
Hahahaha not me, thats for sure 😂
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Wow, thank you very much !! Highly appreciated !!
Wow Sarasota looks pretty wild and nice. I like the save the sea turtles poster they have on beach, good that you showed the zoomed in picture. I wanted to read it :D
When they put a board, Alligators are in all the water here, do not approach. But how about you taking a picture and the alligator run outs to eat you? I have seen it in movies, does not it happen in real life in such parts of US?
Or in movies they show cruel gators? maybe
There have been situations that people got hurt by alligators. When we were in de states a woman was injured by an alligator, she dropped a can of soda in the water and wanted to take it out again and then a alligator came out of the water and took her hand... Het hand had to be amputated. And there are more then plenty examples of people being killed by alligators.
Oh god that is scary, picking up a can and then suddenly alligators. But when there are so many accidents, how come people still want to go and do this. Like just openly walk around in alligators territory. I know it is adventurous and fun, no matter how risky, I myself would love to do it once. But government, don't they just ban it or something?
It's indeed the territory of the Alligators, people live besides them.. But most it are indeed tourists. The locals know where to go and not...
Hmm makes sense, the knowledge of locals and the fun the tourists are looking for.
I have only ever been to Miami Beach and of course to a northern girl it was absolutely dreamy. But I see now I have so much to see of the state. I did see some gators when I was in Louisiana however. Geez, you wouldn't think warning signs would be needed about trying to interact with them. Some people and their kids, I guess. LOL.
Thanks so much for sharing all your photos. A wonderful post, Verhp11:)
Thank you very much, we have been to Miami Beach too, gorgious place. But indeed there is so much more to see in Florida.
There is indeed:)
This is an area of Florida that I have never really gotten to explore. My wife and I were talking about heading down to the Key's sometime soon because they just built a new all inclusive resort down there. Then about a month later we saw on the news that the resort had burned down...
Oh really, that's to bad. The area is great though. So much to see and do.
If you get the chance again, I would definitely go :)
hi @verhp11
thanks for taking us with you with your travel photos !! I saw the turtle nests signs on the beaches of Mexico, but I've never seen either the turtles reproduce or the eggs !!
the park and the animals you described are very beautiful, I guess above all children had fun, learning from nature is always a good thing for them !! :-))
congratulation and thanks for sharing with us
Thank you very much @road2horizon , we haven't seen any turtles in the wild neither. We did went to a turtle hospital, I will write about that in a next post.
Have a great day !!
great!! I will wait for it :-))
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