Woodpecker Trail

The day was heavily overcast and dark yesterday...on the cold side as well. It got down to 29 degrees last night. We're hoping for warmer weather today, but when we travel south for the winter, we continually remind ourselves that it is nearly officially winter all over the northern hemisphere. The forecast is for warmer weather today and tomorrow. For now, we're bundling up.

Nevertheless, we layered up and headed out for the Woodpecker Trail yesterday.

This part of the world seems to be covered in sand, even when one is far from the beach, and that is what our trail consisted of. Apparently the rangers come in and blow it clean of fallen leaves and pine needles. It was easy to see on our walk.

If the rangers slacked off, however, these red blazes would mark the way, and we saw them every few feet.

In addition to being a "nature trail," this was also a fitness trail with chirpy informational signs and suggestions for what exercises we might like to try here.

We won't be bossed around, however, and so we refused to do any of the suggested activities. We're rebels that way.

Eventually we came to a spur loop. Along the way there, we noticed bird feeders. This would be an excellent birding trail as well. There were plenty of informational signs describing the birds one might see.

Nearby, we spotted this abandoned birds nest. Sorry for the crappy picture. I had to use Mike's phone here because my camera battery went dead. That surprised me. I didn't think I'd used it that much the day before and so I hadn't put in a fresh one. Makes me wonder about the life of my battery.

Anyway...I'll never make a very good birder. Spotting birds takes patience, of which I have always been in short supply. My friend from high school, Judy who came to watch the eclipse with us, is an enthusiastic birder. She also has a PhD in entymology. She knew she wanted to be an entymologist when she was a young child. Imagine approaching a four-year-old and asking, "What do you want to be when you grow up, Little Girl?" And having said little girl respond, "Oh, I'm passionate about entymology!" That's our Judy, the birder.

On the other hand, I do have the patience it takes to do this embroidery piece. Yesterday I filled the latest hooping.

Now, this is all the remains to be stitched.

So I hooped up the next section, and I stitched all of that yesterday too.

You'll have to take my word for it because I didn't take a picture. Now I've moved on to the last of it. It just barely fits in my hoop.

If my patience holds, I might just finish this one before I die.

Okay, now where were we? The hike. (Please forgive that momentary brain fart.) So along with the sandy portions, some of it was boardwalk. This is common in the south where there are a lot of swampy areas.

Eventually, we came to the section we were looking for. There was a platform built out over the spring that gives Magnolia Springs State Park its name.

Looking across from the platform, we could see another bridge.

And that picture above was the last one I took with my camera. (Yes, we doubled back for the bird's nest.) There was a lot of reflection from the sky making it difficult to see below the water's surface. Moving around to a different angle, we were able to see where the spring bubbles up. You can see it where the aquamarine section of water appears in the image below.

Here's the informational sign about it.

I zoomed in on the text so you can read it, if you're interested.

Also here, we could see some fish and some turtles beneath the water. One of the turtles poked his nose above the surface to breathe. I took pictures, but with Mike's phone, it's hard to see anything. We'll head back there and try again with my camera today. It's just a short distance away from our campsite.

We walked around to the bridge on the far side. Looking to the left, we saw this. We hoped we might see some alligators sunning themselves, but without the sun, we saw none. We're hoping for some sunshine today.

Looking in the other direction, we saw this. You can see the platform where we were standing earlier in the upper right-hand portion of the image below.

From there, we walked back along the same trail to where we'd started and then walked along the road to Magnolia Lake, beside our campsite.

There was a platform where one could fish, but the sign admonished us not to fish past 10:00 p.m.
No problem, we thought. We're generally in bed by then. We saw a bird catch a fish while we were here, but without my camera, the pictures were pretty well worthless. Looking off in the other direction, we could see our RV. You can see it in the upper right of the image below. It's a great campsite.

Also, we were warned yet again about the alligators, and we stayed well back from the water's edge.

Speaking of alligator bait, Smitty got out for a couple of walks yesterday. Not Miss Sadie, though. She stayed bundled up in her quilt most of the day. She only came out for kitty treats.

Our plan for today is to take the Beaver Trail, which is a longer trail. We barely need to leave the campsite for that one. It's still pretty dark outside as I'm writing this, but we're hoping for some sunshine today. Fingers crossed.

As I was finishing up proofreading this post, I noticed a fisherwoman walking along the lake's edge. She sat down there and threw in her line.

We wondered if she has any idea the peril she's in...on the other hand, she could be fishing for alligators. What do you think?