Travel day

Air plant attached to a large live oak.

Yellow elder (sorry picture taken from the truck window while we were going down the road)

We are now in Collier-Seminole State Park south of Tampa Bay in Florida. It is soooo hot. It must be close to 90 and very humid. We have the air conditioner on in the trailer and it's almost 9 pm.

We passed a lot of nurseries with beautiful flowers and palm trees today. Also, we have discovered why the tomatoes in the stores have no flavor. We passed lots of trucks loaded with tomatoes that are as green as they can be. We have enjoyed eating vine ripened tomatoes, strawberries,grapefruits and oranges here in Florida. For awhile we were eating native pecans from Texas for breakfast, fish from the Gulf of Mexico at San Padre (we have one more fish dinner in the freezer) and fresh strawberries from Florida for dessert.

We saw a lot of alligators laying along the banks of the canals all along the road today. These weren't even in the National Parks. We went thru Big Cypress National Park today and it looked more like what I was expecting the Everglades to look like. Big cypress tress with spanish moss all over them standing in water. They have these cool air plants that attach themselves to the trees. They don't get any nutrients from the tree just from the air but they attach themselves to almost any kind of rough barked tree. Also, they have these beautiful yellow blooming trees called yellow elders. I had never heard of them before.