Rainy Florida!!

Last night the rains moved in. We had a thunderstorm overnight and pretty steady rain. This morning we are making a shopping and laundry day of it since it is supposed to rain on and off. We have had a string of sunny weather since last week with warm temperatures and we have done a lot of kayaking and hiking. We kayaked on Florida bay and the canoe trail at West Lake. We biked a couple of trails yesterday' one to Snake Bight, a mudflat that gets exposed during low tide and attracts wading birds. The other trail went to Bear Lake which is one of the bigger lakes near Flamingo.
We will be here at Flamingo through the end of the week and the forecast is for cooler weather. On Sunday we move to Key Largo in the Florida Keys. We will be at John Pennekamp State Park for two nights and then move further south to Marathon and Curry Hammock State Park for two weeks. We are excited to have an extended period in the Keys to explore and play.
Here are some pictures from the past few days...

Kayaking on Florida Bay. The bay is fairly shallow and big open water. We paddled into the wind on the way out and on the way back got further from shore and the wind blew us back to the marina.

This boat made me think of Mike.

The marina at Flamingo. Lots of fisherman were going in and out to the waters of the bay.

A zebra long wing butterfly (according to the ranger program we attended one night).

A green heron on one of the ponds

Kayaking the grasslands at the West Lake canoe trail.

Heading into one of the mangrover tunnels on the trail. The white poles marked the trail and without them we would have been lost.

This was another of the colorful butterflies, but I don't know what it is.

Nancy on the board walk at Snake Bight. These are the mudflats near Florida Bay.

On the bike ride we took to Bear Lake. This was a seven mile round trip trail along the canals to the lake..

Me at Bear Lake

The clean up crew in the campground.