At last I am very happy to have met Peregrinefalconlady. I was determined to let nothing stop me. I had been worried about unforseen events and some really weird ones popped up this time. Like the road work. Annoying but I have a Jeep. No prob. But when I got up today and checked the radar I hadn't expected to find a tropical storm right off the coast in the Gulf. WTF? But only 35 mph winds. That's nothing. I wasn't going to let a mini hurricane stop me this time. I just kept my eye on the radar. I loved going through those back roads I found. So nice to make it to Orlando without getting on the interestate. Also when I got to her hotel I hit 10,000 miles even on my Jeep. My Jeep will be a year old in Aug. Aug 5th precisely will be the 1 year anniversary. My gosh does not feel like a year.
Ok so, I waited in the lobby and finally met Peregrine and her dad. Because of the weather I was unsure if we could do Gatorland but then I figured the weather might be a good thing as it would scare the tourists away. I had one of those extra folding ponchos so I gave that to her and I had my rain coat. But we were out too early and nothing was open. Gatorland didn't open til 10am. So we went to Target first to pick up supplies like water. Then we just walked around the electronics section a while. The toy section was being restocked so not much to look at. There's a whole aisle for the new Cars 3 movie. I hope it's better than the second one. The first movie was great. So after that we took off and got there at opening time. I had never seen the parking lot so empty but it didn't stay empty long. Because it was raining so much I had to use my cellphone as my primary camera because it's water proof. I was right about the storm and we really enjoyed walking around having nearly the whole park to ourselves. There weren't many active egret nests because the breeding season was basically over. But we saw some and we got to see the many fledged juveniles. Also because of the rains the swamp walk was closed. We ate at the restaurant there and I checked the radar again. The storm had made landfall near Bradenton it looked like but now it was letting up.
Ok so some pics now.
A lovely skeleton donated from the skeleton museum of osteology. I found it amusing this was here as this was the back up plan if we hadn't done gatorland. Well I do hope to check out this museum sometime.
I took this pic for Chris because he loves gators and crocs and I got babies of both in this pic.
Beautiful day even though this was the tropical depression. No big deal. Theme park all to ourselves basically.
I loved the post of this guy in the shallow water and all the rain falling around.
I find most of our storms to be beautiful. Few are ugly and nasty. I loved this scene of the lake with so many gators in it.
This was a sign at the budgie aviary. We didn't feed the budgies because there were just too many people there this time. But we watched them from outside the cage. They've added more perches which was very necessary and some birdhouse gourds.
This was probably the most amazing thing we saw. This was my fave thing. They were feeding the gators and so many came up to feed it was just amazing seeing these huge monsters waiting their turn and climbing over each other. Gatorland is amazing and a great place to meet friends for the first time I have found.
After that we went to Publix and picked up a Key Lime Pie. Peregrine had never had one and I wanted to show her more true Florida things apart form Disney. I'm glad she liked the pie though it was tainted with nuts on the whip cream. Key lime is not supposed to have nuts so that bugged me but it's the only one they had. Then we shared drawings and drew stuff. I really enjoyed that. I showed her my laptop and art tablet and we sketched. I enjoyed seeing her cute art and the new projects she's working on. I let her keep my sketches I made of Scary Fear and Pyranax. The drive home was good too and now the storm is basically dead and gone. So an excellent and very successful day. I'm tired though and my back was hurting from all the walking and carrying camera equipment around everywhere. I hope I can get some rest tomorrow but not long. I have an appointment to take Bullet for her check up in the evening.
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Ok so, I waited in the lobby and finally met Peregrine and her dad. Because of the weather I was unsure if we could do Gatorland but then I figured the weather might be a good thing as it would scare the tourists away. I had one of those extra folding ponchos so I gave that to her and I had my rain coat. But we were out too early and nothing was open. Gatorland didn't open til 10am. So we went to Target first to pick up supplies like water. Then we just walked around the electronics section a while. The toy section was being restocked so not much to look at. There's a whole aisle for the new Cars 3 movie. I hope it's better than the second one. The first movie was great. So after that we took off and got there at opening time. I had never seen the parking lot so empty but it didn't stay empty long. Because it was raining so much I had to use my cellphone as my primary camera because it's water proof. I was right about the storm and we really enjoyed walking around having nearly the whole park to ourselves. There weren't many active egret nests because the breeding season was basically over. But we saw some and we got to see the many fledged juveniles. Also because of the rains the swamp walk was closed. We ate at the restaurant there and I checked the radar again. The storm had made landfall near Bradenton it looked like but now it was letting up.
Ok so some pics now.
A lovely skeleton donated from the skeleton museum of osteology. I found it amusing this was here as this was the back up plan if we hadn't done gatorland. Well I do hope to check out this museum sometime.
I took this pic for Chris because he loves gators and crocs and I got babies of both in this pic.
Beautiful day even though this was the tropical depression. No big deal. Theme park all to ourselves basically.
I loved the post of this guy in the shallow water and all the rain falling around.
I find most of our storms to be beautiful. Few are ugly and nasty. I loved this scene of the lake with so many gators in it.
This was a sign at the budgie aviary. We didn't feed the budgies because there were just too many people there this time. But we watched them from outside the cage. They've added more perches which was very necessary and some birdhouse gourds.
This was probably the most amazing thing we saw. This was my fave thing. They were feeding the gators and so many came up to feed it was just amazing seeing these huge monsters waiting their turn and climbing over each other. Gatorland is amazing and a great place to meet friends for the first time I have found.
After that we went to Publix and picked up a Key Lime Pie. Peregrine had never had one and I wanted to show her more true Florida things apart form Disney. I'm glad she liked the pie though it was tainted with nuts on the whip cream. Key lime is not supposed to have nuts so that bugged me but it's the only one they had. Then we shared drawings and drew stuff. I really enjoyed that. I showed her my laptop and art tablet and we sketched. I enjoyed seeing her cute art and the new projects she's working on. I let her keep my sketches I made of Scary Fear and Pyranax. The drive home was good too and now the storm is basically dead and gone. So an excellent and very successful day. I'm tired though and my back was hurting from all the walking and carrying camera equipment around everywhere. I hope I can get some rest tomorrow but not long. I have an appointment to take Bullet for her check up in the evening.
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17 souls devoured | Pray to Thagirion
