Month: January 2016

We had a fun drive down to Kissimmee Prairie Preserve. B and I hung out in the back and colored, read books and just chilled out.

It was a terribly bumpy trip into the park. The rain had ruined the road and the potholes and standing water were just ridiculous.

Upon arrival, we found our campsite to be mostly flooded with standing water. We parked as best as we could before the sun went down. In the morning we still had some standing water.

We went out to explore and found all the run-off areas full of water.

Mom and I saw a flock of wild turkey.

We took some long hikes and saw an alligator, lots of birds and even a water moccasin!

We hiked down to the horse camp and found that their roads in and out were flooded worse than our campground area.

We made the best of it and pretended to fish in the area our fire ring used to be. We moved the fire-ring to dryer ground. Mom and Dad worked on some motorhome issues and then relaxed.

The campground is designated a Dark Sky Park. There is a resident astronomer and we stopped by and saw sun spots through the telescope.

On Saturday we took a swamp buggy tour. Usually there isn’t much swamp to go through but after the long rain we had lots of water to explore. The buggy ride was about 3 hours long. We went on the morning and afternoon rides.

We saw deer, alligator, lots of birds, a black racer and a few other critters.

We loved splashing through the waters! It was really deep in spots.

We saw the carcass of a wild boar. The vultures were picking it apart.

There were some rather large alligators.

We also saw a bald eagle and a crested caracara! On the second tour we stopped to nibble on some saw palmetto plants. If you pluck them out just right you can get liquid from the plants. SO if you were ever stuck out in the wilderness we would be able to hydrate. It tasted bland but it was weird. Mom and Dad were shocked I tried it!

 

 

I wasn’t able to finish my art project in class so I came home and worked on it until I was happy with it. I am really enjoying my art class.

We also checked out a place called “We Rock the Spectrum”. It is a gym for kids of all ages and abilities. I really liked the swing that makes it feel like you are flying. There were lots of things to swing, move and jump up and down on. It was a fun day but we were exhausted afterwards.

We went down to the TECO Power Plant again this year. The Manatee Viewing Center was packed with manatees but you couldn’t really see them because the water was all stirred up from high winds. We did see several spinner sharks jumping out of the water and spinning like crazy. We even saw a spotted eagle ray jump out of the water.

I was a tad bit chilly and windy out. We didn’t last long on the viewing platforms for the manatees.

We checked out the visitors/education center and there wasn’t anything really new so we took a quick trip through and moved along.

It was super awesome to see the sharks and rays though. The good think about all the wind was that we didn’t smell all the sulfur like last year!

 

We had a fun time watching an online live science program about non newtonian fluids. They had some funny experiments.

We worked on our 4-H rockets a lot. We got them fully assembled and just need to buy paint once the glue sets for a few days.

Mom found this cool periodic table snap together chart. We have been taking turns assembling it.

4-H was fun as well. We learned about helicopters and did a project about how weight effects the time a helicopter can be aloft. I learned that adding holes to the blades it would stay up longer. That was the opposite of what I thought would happen.

We went to Pinellas Park for a trip to the Working Cow Ice Cream manufacturing plant. I was shocked by how small the facility was given how much ice cream they produce. It was a tiny building tucked off of US 19.

We had a tiny group of 8 people on the tour. We got to see where they store the ice cream they have made in the giant freezer. It was SUPER cold.

The next part of the tour required us wearing hairnets if we didn’t have a hoodie. Mom and I were the only ones who had to wear hairnets. I was NOT happy about that.

We got to see them making the ice cream. We weren’t allowed to close so we didn’t contaminate the ice cream.

These were the old machines that they used. They now have a much bigger machine that pumps the ingredients straight from the containers.

We learned that they recycle their containers by scraping off the labels and  sanitizing them.

We saw all the coloring and flavors that they add to the product. Mom was sad that for such a small facility that they use so many pre-made products to make their ice cream.

We got to sample fresh made butter pecan ice cream. I really liked it, considering I hate butter pecan. Well, I still really dislike ice cream in general!