Trip North - Leaving St. Augustine - Melrose, FL

Today we leave St. Augustine.

One last morning walk in the squirrel forest

Site is all packed up

 

 RV is packed

 

 and Tucson is ready for travel

 

It is a short trip to Melrose Florida where we stay at a 

Boondockers Welcome Host site.

 

A short walk down the driveway to the Lake

 

Where we enjoyed cocktails with the hosts 

 

 

 

while watching the sunset

Heron's biting off more than they can swallow

 

and speaking of swallow - a Swallow Tailed Kite

 We head to Gainesville to check out Paynes Prairie Preserve where there are supposed to be wild Spanish horses and bison.

 

 

 We'll take a look from the observatory deck

 

 

 Gary spots two horses just down from the Tower.

 From above we get a view of a herd in the distance

 

 Tucson's not allowed on this trail so he waits in the Truck

 We get a closer view of the two horses we saw from the observation tower.

 

The next day we try the Preserve from the North entrance

Tucson isn't allowed here because of the Alligators and Bison.   He waits in the truck in the shade.

a nice boardwalk.  The trail is 3 miles one way to an observation tower

We find out the trail is closed half way

But we see plenty of Alligators

 Up close and maybe a little too personal

 This guy was sporting some camouflage - clever, we almost missed him.

 

 

 

 saw this Hawk

 and tons of Great Blue Herons

 

 

 A great place.  Dropped Tucson off at home and went for a late lunch/early dinner at Blue Water Bay.  We had stopped here for lunch with friends on a motorcyle ride last month.

and it was every bit as good as we remembered.  Gary had the Sirloin Tips

and I had the Shrimp/Grouper combo

a nice finish to our stay in Melrose!