Pine Island

 

Well, the little alligator made his appearance this morning in our lake. We saw him circle around, coming ever closer to the shore, but I am grateful that we did not see or hear him catch his breakfast.

 

 

We watched a great blue heron who was fishing just outside our lanai.

 

 

Our main objective this day was to purchase tickets for the Baltimore Orioles opening home game for their Spring Training Season. Tickets went on sale a day early for loyal Warehouse Wire newsletter subscribers at 10:00 a.m. this morning. This game is always a sellout so we were happy to have this opportunity to secure our tickets. Dreams really can and do come true. For years, I wished I could be at one of these games and now this will be our 5^th year of attendance!

 

 

We took a trip to Pine Island which is the largest island in the state of Florida. Home to four unincorporated towns, the island has a small town atmosphere, with no traffic lights and mostly agricultural zoning.

 

 

We spent some time on Pine Island during the past two years, but there still were some geocaches waiting to be found.

 

 

We visited a cache named End of the Road that had some interesting terrain. The road we drove on was gravel and then turned into grass.

 

 

Even though I saw an obvious geotrail once we arrived, I failed to find the geocache. It was very warm today so after Cordell found the cache, I sought some shade while I signed the log.

 

 

 

Another cache took us through probably the densest vegetation we have bushwhacked during our past 5 winters here in Forida. But, the palmetto fronds are much more forgiving than some of the briars we have in Maryland and Virginia.

 

 

Along the trail, we saw some very large pinecones and I was visualizing what nice Christmas decorations they would make.

 

 

We also stopped at Galt Preserve, Pine Island newest park. It is advertised as great place to walk, picnic, bird-watch, fish or even take a short kayak ride. The preserve is home to a variety of bird and animal species, including bald eagle, bobcat and American alligator. One of the big success stories of this preserve is that a pair of bald eagles began to nest following the removal of the invasive exotic plant species, melaleuca. We saw the nest with an eagle perched on a limb.

 

 

 

We ate lunch at our favorite restaurant on the island, Low Key Tiki, a friendly waterfront tiki hut. The nice outside setting is said to always have a cool breeze due to its location on the Monroe Canal and is a great venue to come by boat, bike, golf cart or by foot.

 

The motto of Low Key Tiki is "clean, cold and cheap” and they always have cold beer. How could you not enjoy a meal at a place that posts signs like this?

 

 

Back at the condo, we enjoyed eating our dinner while watching this beautiful sunset.