Just hanging around at the park

There’s plenty to keep us busy here at the state park . . . hiking, biking, kayaking, bird-watching, swimming, fishing and even geocaching.  There are a series of 6 geocaches within the boundaries of Lovers Key State Park, plus one bonus cache that you get clues to when you find the first six.  Once you find the bonus, you get a prize from the Ranger Station.  We’ve found one of the six so far,

on the Black Island Trail, and the other day we decided to try to find another one.  The map and the clue led us in the general direction of the south end of the beach, so we got on our bikes and headed down the walking path to the parking lot,

and then along the tram road to the main beach.

On the way there, I stopped to get a few pictures of birds in the canal.  We have a new book called Florida’s Living Beaches, that helps us to identify the various birds, shells, and plants that we find around the park.  So, I know that these first birds are white ibis, and the 2nd picture is of a Reddish Egret.

At the beach, the GPS was telling us that we still had about .4 miles to go to the cache location.  Since the tide was low, we continued on bikes on the hard-packed sand.

According to the clue, we should have been close when we reached this sign.

Bryce started searching around with the GPS in compass mode,

and we focused our search around this likely clump of fallen tree trunks and branches.

With no success so far, we expanded our search deeper into the brush,

and in some nearby dead trees.

We searched high and low, and couldn’t find it anywhere . . . so we eventually gave up.  I’ll check the logs and see if I can find any additional clues to help us locate it.

Since it was almost sunset, we decided to wait around to see if I could get some good pictures.  There are several osprey nests on the beach, and we saw this guy hunting for fish.

Gradually, the sun dipped closer to the horizon and the sky began to take on some color.

The kids were getting impatient, though, so we didn’t stick around for the full sunset.  I’ll have plenty more opportunities – we have such beautiful sunsets on the beach!

To prove that point, last night’s sunset was really spectacular, and this isn’t even all the way down to the beach.

While the sun was setting in the west, the full moon was rising in the east!

While I was wandering around taking pictures, Tom was busy getting a fire started.

We watched the fire for a bit, and then went inside to watch some movies . . . a nice way to end a beautiful evening!