Vacation Day 5 - A Hike

Today we decided to take a hike at a De Leon Spring State Park. It was hot. You can swim in the spring, but there were a lot of people there, and we had that nice swimming pool at G&G's neighborhood to swim in, so we skipped that in favor of going for a walk in the woods. We took the Persimmon Tree Trail, although you were supposed to register with a park ranger before taking this particular trail. I will leave it to Sweetie's hiking blog to capture a full account of the hike, but I will say that it was full of wild life: big spiders,



a box turtle,



poisonous snakes,



regular snakes, toads, toads, toads, dragonflies, a couple skinks and anoles, and even a squirrel. And then there were all the bromeliads and spanish moss and other pretty plants.



The hike was over 4 miles, but very flat (no Catalina hike, this). We were thinking about going to the restaurant in the old sugar mill for a pancake lunch and then renting a canoe, but the wait at the restaurant was 90 minutes and it was really, really hot. So instead, we left the park and went to Gram's Kitchen for lunch (good food and cheap!), and then went swimming at the pool until the thunderstorms rolled in. That night, Grammy made some delicious oven-fried chicken for dinner, and we didn't watch the Princess and the Frog (the Things weren't interested).