Moved over closer to the east coast this morning. Was up way to early and on the road by 9:00. Around noon I stopped at a Lowe's store I was passing by in order to pick up a new piece of 24" long x 3/4" dia black iron pipe for my trailer hitch. I use it to lever the two leveling arms, big long spring steel arms that level the front of the trailer in line with the back of the truck, up into position. Otherwise you have this big sag right there where the hitch is located and nothing rides right.

   Anyway, I had one that came with the trailer 4 years ago and I was always amazed that I had managed to hang onto it all this time, as it was always so easy to lay it down on the ground, or worse, on the back bumper, when I was done using it, instead of sticking it in the back of the pickup like it needed to be.  So as mentioned, I've managed to hang on to the original one for the past 4 years but must of finally forgot about it last week when I unhitched over near Gainsville. When it came time to hook up this morning there was no pipe around to help lever the bar end into place. Lucky for me I know a few tricks about leverage so I managed to get it all hooked up okay and then it was off for Wekiva Springs State Park.

   I also put a call into the park while stopped and they were able to tell me that they had one more spot open if I could get there in time. I was only 30 min's out so I managed to make it to the park in time, only to find out that the one space they still had available was going to be to short for my trailer and truck. Bummer! They did give me a couple addresses to other parks in the neighborhood though and I was soon off to find the Kelly Park County Park. Turns out it was only about 8 miles away and is actually on the same river as Wekiva Springs, just down river a little ways. They had one spot left also that would hold me for the whole 12 days I want to be over here. I thought about just staying a couple of days here and then trying Wekiva Springs again, but it seemed like a lot of effort for very little gain as this seems to be a very nice campground and also seems to be cheaper by a couple of bucks per day.

    I got backed in, unhitched and all set up with no problems. Then a quick bite to eat and then off to do some exploring. I was in need of some fresh groceries so that was high on the list. Found a local grocery and picked up some much needed green stuff before going in search of a WiFi hotspot. Found one at a McD's of course and got a few things done online, including figuring out why I wasn't able to upload my photo's last night. Turns out Google, who runs my blog site, changed the way it is done, sometime in the last week or so, not bothering to tell me about it of course. Now it will mean first uploading the photo's to an online album before I can then upload them to my blog from there. Just another way of pissing me off it seems.

    Be that as it may, it is now done and I managed to upload all the photo's from my outing the other day. I'm hanging out in the campground tonight but hope to go visit a friend tomorrow afternoon. She invited me over to watch the football game and drink beer. Something about the Bronco's playing or some such thing. :) Sad to say she is way more of a fan than I am, but I still like spending time with friends and if it takes watching football to do it, so be it.

   Also need to get a hold of my sister down here in Florida. Had been putting it off a bit in the hope that I would finally stop coughing, but it seems that it may be a while before that all finally goes away... though I did get some new stuff for it tonight and it does seem to be making a difference. Anyway, I hope to see her and her hubby in the next day or two and then several other times while I am over in this area.  Now for the photo's.

Alachua Sink area of Paynes Prairie State Park near Gainsville, Florida.

The water level has actually dropped a good 2'-3' feet since the last time I was here. But the weather was so warm and sunny that there were plenty of gator's and turtles out sunning themselves.

Several spots along the canal had 15-20 of them pulled out in the sun.

A nice Blue Heron.

This one looked to be about 10'-12' long.

White Ibis.

Happy, happy, happy.... or so this one seems.

Another gathering of gator's. Are a group of gator's a gaggle, group, ?

A couple more rather large ones.

Nap time.
 

I added this one in because the Heron was in the middle of catching a rather large, 4"-6", fish when this photo was snapped. It always amazes me to watch them flip them around head first and swallow them whole.

A bunch of white Ibis as well as one Snowy Egret.

Another Blue Heron.

Just a little 6 footer.

Yet another Blue Heron.

A different view of a bunch of them.

Lurking everywhere.

I like this photo of a Snowy Egret in flight... it is even better because I got it by accident when someone came along and scared up a bunch of them and this one flew over near to me.

One final note; seems that I have now had people from 20 different countries check out my blog. I am sure some of those just happened upon it by accident, but for those who did, and then decided it was interesting enough to come back agin.... welcome. Feel free to make comments if you like, otherwise I hope it isen't to boring. I also hope none of you are using this in order to learn, or even practice, your english. If it is..... I'm so sorry! ;)