We did the tourist thing again today

Thursday, September 16, 2021, temperature not as bad as it has been but…………..it’s still HOT & HUMID!!!

Mary committed a murder this morning! The murder of a poor defenseless, starving, creature, she committed this murder before my very eyes and showed no remorse afterwords, of course said creature was a misquote that just bit her on the cheek.

Todays scalding hot adventure finds us in Shark Valley which of course the Shark River runs through it. No, there are no sharks anywhere near where we were. Apparently a long, long, time ago the Spanish, needing fresh water would travel up rivers until the water wash fresh, but in this river on the day they explored it the river was full of sharks. You see bull sharks seek freshwater rivers and lakes to give birth to their young. The Spanish didn’t know that so they just named the river, Shark River and we were in the valley that drains into the Shark River. Hence the name Shark Valley.

We took a tram ride to an observation tower this morning. We could have walked or rented a bike but at 15 miles round trip we didn’t think much of either option.

We already knew this, but it’s the wet season and that’s why we haven’t seen that many animals. In the winter, dry season, they don’t have nearly as much water so A.) they congregate near the water holes and B.) they are out in the sun trying to stay warm. Now they are in the water and mud trying to stay cool.

We didn’t see that many animals but the girl giving the tour knew her stuff on the ones we did see. One gator we did see was a female about 5 ft long, she was not happy that we stopped by her nest area, while we didn’t see any they said she had about 10 babies.  They don’t really protect the babies , but just the nest until the eggs hatch, then the mother will open the nest so the babies can get out. Then she will hang around for a while offering the small ones some protection just from her presence.

We did see one non poisonous snake on the tram ride. I forgot the name a yellow rat snake or other.

The tower we walked up sits on the site of an old oil well.  It’s a good thing for back when the well that was drilled had so many impurities and they didn’t have the technology to clean the oil, so unable to sell the lease they caped off the well and the government built a tower over it. The upper part of the tower was used as a fire tower, nowadays fires are allowed to mostly burn them selves out.

Florida leads the nation in controlled burns.

There were a couple of walking paths we could have taken but I thought I might melt so we didn’t go, instead opting to drive the loop road the other direction on our way home.

Pictures taken along loop road

Pictures of Shark Valley & the end