Ninja Squirrels

The squirrels here are really entertaining.  They like to mess with poor Ava, who is generally sitting on the back of our couch looking outside.  They seem to taunt her endlessly.  I'm not sure if they have nothing better to do, or if they are trying to intimidate her. 

Let me show you what we are dealing with!

I know, this guy is trying to look all innocent here.  Don't fall for it though.

He knows we are onto him.  First he runs away.  Then when that doesn't work he tries to be very still, thinking he can blend into the tree.

As soon as he sees that we are not going away, he turns all, "HELLO! MY NAME IS INIGO MONTOYA! YOU KILLED MY FATHER! PREPARE TO DIE"

 

This is just the tip of the iceberg.  They climb on top of the RV and throw acorns on the rig.  (Ok, here is where Nathan will say that is just the acorns falling from the trees but I know better!)  We hear their little feet scurrying all over the roof. I keep expecting to see one of them peeking at me through the skylight while I take my shower someday.

We are not scared though.  We will defend our little space here and our little dog.  Time will tell how this battle will end!

Living the life in Sunny again Florida! 

Flooding of Peace River

So much for landing in the Sunshine State!  When we landed in Peace River, we were surprised to see how hard it was raining.  It is rare for it to rain all day long here.  After being here for a few days, it was still raining.

Normally, rain is desperately needed in Florida.  I guess as all things though, too much of a good thing can be a very bad thing.  That seems to be the case here because all the rain caused the Peace River to flood.

Here you can see that the river is over the banks, and is covering the mini-golf area.

This is sad enough, but the real trouble is in the areas where the RV sites are at.  Some of the sites are covered in water.

Some of the sites are completely covered with water, including the electrical boxes.

It was pretty disturbing to see all the water here.

If it were not causing some issues for the park, it would be really enjoyable to look at because the water is rather pretty.

 We hope this does not cause major long term problems for the park here.

Myrtle Beach SC to Wauchula FL

Yesterday we headed south for our yearly migration to Florida.  We went halfway landing in Brunswick, Georgia.  We originally planned to spend a week there before heading to Florida but someone was anxious to get to Florida and asked if we could skip Georgia, so we agreed to alter our plans so we could accommodate that request.

We hit heavy traffic and it rained hard the second day so travel was slow.  Much slower than it normally is.  We were so happy to get to one of the places we call "home" which is Peace River Thousand Trails.  Our friend Buddy and his pretty partner Diane are here.  Rich and Donna are supposed to arrive at the end of this week.  We picked out a nice spot that we hope to stay at for the next several months.

We will miss the beach while we are here but we will not miss the tempting (read fattening) food that we encountered in SC.  This is one example of the food we did come across and Austin was brave enough to eat.  Fried Corn:

We had fun what little bit of travel we did this year and we are looking forward to a wonderful winter with the good people that are here. 

Brookgreen Gardens~Animal Show

I've already shared so many of the neat parts of Brookgreen Gardens, but I didn't want to forget this part before I move on because we enjoyed it so much.  While we were sitting and eating our lunch, we heard this neat woman doing a Meet the Animals show.

We headed over there after we were done eating so we could catch the rest of the show.  I'm glad we did because we got there in time for Nathan to make friends with a snake.

Not to be outdone by a grown man, this cutie pie followed suit:

His sister was thinking thanks but no thanks.  Same as me!  We also got to meet an eastern screech owl.

She/He was a real beauty.  Completely calm during the whole show like she'd been a stage star her whole life.

We had a great time learning lots of neat facts and being a bit more up close and personal with the animals!

Project 365~Oct 2 through Oct 8

Brookgreen Gardens~The Sculptures

There are so many fabulous parts to this place that it is impossible to say which part is the best.  I can say that the sculptures were the most surprising part to us.

We knew there would be some sculptures from the website, but we didn't truly envision how many there were and how grand some of them were.

It is hard to put into words how emotionally touching they were.

 

There were so many and they were all so beautiful that it was hard to absorb it all.  I couldn't even begin to share them all here.  I am going to share a few today and share some more later.

The Birds at Myrtle Beach State Park

I couldn't share the birds at one State Park and not share the birds at the other.  So here are the birds from Myrtle Beach State Park.  Except most of the birds there were different than what we saw at Huntington.

I did capture this cutie pie having a joyful time chasing the birds on the beach:

The Birds at Huntington Beach

When we visited Myrtle Beach State Park, we asked about Huntington and the lady who worked there said, "We have a fishing pier and they have alligators".  While we didn't see alligators, we did see a lot of other animals including birds.

 

I love watching birds on the beach.  They just go hand in hand to me.

 When we visited the store here, I was chatting with an employee.  We talked about workamping and what went along with it.  She told me her two most interesting things to date were when the alligators were mating and the males went in the campground area and did not want to leave causing quite the stir and an incident involving a snake. 

 I almost don't want to share the snake one, because it might stick in my mind and I might not want to stay here after all.

Ok, I guess I'll share it.  A young man was looking for turtle shells and he came across a water moccasin instead, landing him a nice bite from the snake.  By the time he made it to her, his arm was turning black.  Can't say I would want to encounter either one of those things, but I still do love interacting with animals in nature.

 

I am really going to miss this when we leave here!

Brookgreen Gardens~The Lowcountry Zoo

We decided to hit the zoo as one of the first stops at Brookgreen Gardens.  The first thing we noticed is how natural the environment was.  It is probably the most untouched animal areas we have ever witnessed at a zoo.

Because there were so many trees, this made the animal area very cool temperature wise.  We enjoyed the shade and cooler weather and I'm hoping that means the animals did too.

All of the animals here were rescued or were born in captivity.  All of the animals are not able to be released back into the wild.  They have animals that are native to the swamps, woods and waters of the Lowcountry.  They also have domestic animals to the Plantation.  We saw a great number of animals from alligators to river otters, my favorite being the bald eagle who was a bit feisty.

I can't forget a picture of an owl for Miss Aubs.

We really enjoyed this part of Brookgreen.

Living the life in SC!

Huntington Beach State Park

Across the street from Brookgreen Gardens is the Huntington Beach State Park.  We had visited one state park this week so I didn't expect this to be much different.  As soon as we walked out on the beach area though, I saw it was very different.

 I said, ahhhhh....this is more like it.

Notice the lack of tall commercial buildings here?  It makes all the difference in the world to me.  Here I can simply focus on nature.  I can focus on the huge fluffy clouds that so nicely offset the ocean below.

We walked and walked here, snapping pictures along the way.

If we make it back to Myrtle Beach, this is where we want to stay!  They have a full service campground that was quite nice.  They have a store and they offer wi-fi.  That and the beach is all we need!

 Living the life in NC!