Thursday morning, the kids swam in the pool again with Jeremy and Jim while Aunt Barb took me shopping at her favorite consignment stores. I made out like a bandit, finding the new slacks for work that I have been needing as well as several nice blouses and sweaters. After lunch, we drove about 20 minutes to Myakka State Park, which was inland. The whole landscape changed. Suddenly the land was scrubby, ferocious biting bugs made an appearance, and the freshwater heralded the appearance of... the alligators.
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| The lookout tower above the treetops gave us a bird-eye view of a Florida-style forest. It definitely looks different. |
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| Under the forest canopy, it was a completely different place. The light was eerily gray under the thick, tall vegetation, and everything looked brown and dead (yet thickly grown). |
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| Dr. Seuss trees! |
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| Finally, along the shores of Myakka Lake, we saw our first alligator. We soon saw that he had many, many friends. Could that be why this state park lake is posted "No Swimming?" But they did have canoe and kayak rentals. We declined. |
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| Alligator bait. |
Thursday evening, we attended
Circus Sarasota. It turns out that Sarasota is the winter home and training grounds of several circuses. (Ringling has his name on many things here.) We picked up the "cheap seats" tickets under the one-ring Big-Top, and were so glad that we did. None of the kids had ever been to a circus. Jeremy and I hadn't been since we were quite young kids. I enjoyed it, but the kids loved it. Helen didn't sit down for the entire show. She stood gripping the back of the seat in front of her, mouth hanging open. I understand the ban on flash photography during the circus, but I was sorry not to be able to capture the excitement in the eyes of all my kids, especially Jeremy (whom I think loved it more than any of us.)
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| Waiting for the circus to start. |
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| The one act I captured without a flash - the aerial gymnasts. |
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