Inhabitants of South Lido Key State Park….

| Kelly

Decided to walk the trails of South Lido Key Beach while in Long Boat Key, Fl. The trails were great, well marked and the surrounding area was beautiful. Mangroves galore! What got our attention and respect were all of the very LARGE spiders that we encountered. Their webs were all over. We had to duck here and there, lean to one side or another just to avoid the webs. I was very nervous that I would accidentally destroy a web and have a spider crawling all over my head! Luckily I did not! After some research, found out that these are Golden Orb-web spiders. They actually are really neat looking spiders, just at a distance!

Homosassa…..

| Kelly

I was inspired this morning by Humbled Pie (www.humbledpie.wordpress.com). He posted some photos from Homosassa, Fl. I’ve been there many times to visit the manatees (wild and captive). This is not the best manatee photo, but it is one of my favorites from when we visited Homosassa Springs park. They have quite a few manatees who are there year round. This manatee arrived because one of the volunteers was about to do an educational presentation that involved feeding them carrots. They were crazy for those carrots!

No further than your own backyard…

| Kelly

Here is the flowering plum tree in the corner of our backyard. I had to take advantage of its blooming flowers and photograph it. When I was looking at the tree, what I found most interesting is how it stood out from the flowering trees and bushes behind it. Keep an eye out for more shots of this beautiful tree…. Enjoy!

Another Disney Landscape…..

| Kelly

The Tree of Life in Disney’s Animal Kingdom is a beautiful piece of artwork! Now it has some artistic competition in the form of Mt Everest. They are both pretty amazing. Put them together and you have one of my favorite views in the park! (Taken from one of many bridges in AK)

A Beautiful Silverback…

| Kelly

Here is another woodsy Florida photo, just not from the wild. This is one of the gorillas in Disney’s Animal Kingdom. They have a very large and lush habitat, easily the best enclosure for apes that I have seen in a zoo. I love these guys! I have been there many times, and every time I’m there I spend as much time as I can watching the gorillas interact with each other. It would be amazing to actually see them in the wild one day….

Florida is not just beaches….

| Kelly

I love the beaches in Florida, but I also love some of the inland sections too! This hanging moss can be found all over in the woods down there, very different than what you find up here in NJ. I think it looks very interesting when the light shines through it! (I took this while hiking the trails at Myakka State Park, outside of Sarasota, Fl)