Back to being cold for most of the day. A good day to relax in the morning and drink lots of hot tea while reading the comics. I did go out this afternoon and drive over to the closest state park. Wandered around their trails there for several hours watching the squirrels hunt for acorns and one armadillo looking for bugs in the leaf litter. Other wise it was just a nice hike of several hours, even if I did have to put a coat on to do it.
    Tonight has been pretty slow with me just working on some more photo's and sifting through a stack of magazines I want to finish up with and get rid of. I took a whole stack with me yesterday and left them in the laundry mat where I did my wash. It always seems like magazines there get a thorough look through, even though most of them are geared more for women than men. My popular mechanics and science magazines should appeal to all sexes I hope.
    I think it will be time to turn the space heaters on again this evening, but first I want to finish this up and then relax with a movie. Since I saw that Leonard Nimoy died today, maybe it will be one of the Star Trek flicks I have here in the trailer. Sorry to see he is gone.

Payne's Prairie State Park with Rima - January 2015

I continue to try and take a picture that really captures the feel of the sunlight through the Spanish Moss on the trees.... This one isn't quite it.

Neither is this one.... but it is getting closer.

Lots of water in the park right now. Was watching a NOVA show on PBS not long ago about sink holes around the world, and how they form. Florida has a lot of them because of it's underlying limestone layer. The program was interesting because it showed some scuba divers that were diving in this underground system while another person was on the surface above them tracking them with a special radio signal. Kinda freaked me out when it showed them in an underwater channel about 80 feet below a near by highway I drive on all the time and about 60 feet right under a big box retail store I know of.  

As long as there is sun out there are always alligators.

A nice Little Blue Heron.

Check out all the alligators, not only directly behind Rima but all of them on the far shore too.

Kind of creeps you out when you see them 'smiling' like this and realize that you are now back to being a part of the food chain.... and not the top spot either.

These two are maybe 9'-10' long.

A white egret and another 10 footer.

Thought I would experiment a little with this shot.

I think Rima kind of likes this kind of stuff.

Their skin texture is fascinating. It makes me wonder how they turn it into leather and use it to make things with.

This one is only 6 foot or so long. But he was sunning right beside the trail and kept waking up and freaking people out when he moved.

A nice Great Blue Heron.

A nice close up of his grin.

Nice teeth.

Nice teeth too. A lot cuter also.

They have a small herd of Woodland Bison in the Park. This is the first one I have ever seen and it was causing quite a stir. A neat thing to be able to see it, but I see hundreds of them nearly every year when I head back west, so it wasn't all that exciting to me.

brk*