Very much colder all day today. It may have made it to 55 degree's sometime this afternoon, but for me, other than a short walk over to the lake and back, I pretty much just hung around the trailer with the heater on.

    Read one book this morning and got a good start on another. I had to take a break from reading Gulliver's Travels. I enjoy some of these classics, that for some reason or another, I never got around to reading while younger, but they are certainly written in a much different style, and it takes a bit for me to get through very much of them at a time. I'll finish it up at some point and then get on to another classic, it just may take a bit more time than usual.

    Had a ticket to the theatre again this evening. The selection tonight was 'A Tuna Christmas'. Set in the small town of Tuna Texas, it was done by two guys who took on about 8-10 different roles each. Lot's of fun parts and dialogue, and the costumes were just a hoot. Very strong performance from both guys and a fun evening of humour.

    Was suppose to be on the road early in the morning tomorrow in order to meet a Colorado friend for lunch down in the Tampa area, but her daughter has been bouncing around a couple of northern airports trying to get down here to be with the rest of her family, and noon is when her plane is finally suppose to land. So lunch will have to be postponed until next summer when I get back to Colorado again.

   Will still be going down to the Tampa area anyway as there is a contra dance there tomorrow night and I really need to be up and moving again. So I won't have to get up near as early and be on my way, so a win-win situation no matter how it goes.

     So below are a few photo's from my outing yesterday afternoon over at the Alachua Sink area of Paynes Prairie State Park. Enjoy!

Wildlife at Paynes Prairie State Park near Gainsville Florida - Dec 20, 2012 

There is a lot more water in the area than there was last year. In practical terms it means that the alligators are more dispersed having so many more places to live in right now. If you have a warm sunny day though you will find them pulled out on a bank somewhere. I'm thinking this one is maybe 8'-10' long. Hard to tell without a tape measure.

They always look so content laying there in the mud with their toothy grins.

Lot's of water means lots of birds too. This great blue heron was fishing along a bank when I walked up on it. Managed to get this shot before it took off.

Another large, well fed looking gator. The park staff had actually come in and put up some temporary plastic webbed fencing at a couple of places where they seemed to like to pull out. Not sure if they were trying to protect the gators from the public or the public from the gators. I would imagine that somewhere out there is someone who would think it was okay to 'pet' this one. Not me though. 

I watched these two male great blue herons fish in this spot for several minutes. It seemed that neither one liked whatever spot they were standing in at that time and would soon walk over, and past, the other one. Of course when they got close enough the feathers on their breasts, wings and crests would all pop up in a nice display of 'maleness'. Men are all so predictable.

Probably the largest gator I saw for the day. I'm thinking 10'-12' based on a head length of close to 30". All the gators I saw today seem to have this huge roll of fleshy goiter right behind their head. Not real sure what the purpose of this is, or if it is common in well fed critters, but it looked kind of funny. As a friend said.... gator goiter!

They look so content laying there in the sunshine that you kinda want to go up and poke-um with a stick...... a really big, really long stick. But you don't because you're not mean..... or stupid.

 

A nice white egret.

I don't know what kind of trees these are, but they fascinate me with their texture and the shadows all the bumps cast.

This little knob really interested me. I think it may have been the remains of what was once a branch.

Another look at the same tree a little higher up the trunk. Kind of lethal looking. I have seen a few Native American clubs made out of this kind of tree in some of the local museums.