Crowley Natural & Cultural History Center, Sarasota, Florida, The Slow Walk

Copyright 2014, CABS for Reflections From the Fence

After visiting the Pioneer Museum at Crowley Natural & Cultural History Center, we headed out to the boardwalk for a slow and leisurely walk.

Yes, there were cattle around.  Free ranging.  We did see a couple in the very back of the park.

For the most part, because this is very low and wet ground, swamp land and rivers and creeks, most of the trail was a boardwalk.

Now you know I just loved this part of the boardwalk. All the twists.  Photo does not show the best due to the shadows, there was a twist about every 8 feet.  Made us smile.

Man taking a sit.  We found a bench, we sat.  We listened.  We looked around.  We sat some more.

At the end of the boardwalk we find Selby Tower which overlooks the Tatum Sawgrass Marsh along the Myakka River.

Possibly a red shouldered hawk.  We saw a few herons and egrets.  We were actually a bit surprised we did not see many birds, as this is known as a birding area.  And, yes, we were quiet, and we were looking.  Sony Too had to zoom a LOT to get this photo!

I know, what IS this photo of the iPhone doing here??  We are always surprised when we are out in the middle of nowhere and the messages start coming in.  And, that is exactly what happened here.  I looked and I had the best connection I have had in some time.  Five full bars at 3G.

When you descend from the tower, unless you retreat back via the boardwalk you are put on a ground level, sorta solid path.  Love the color of the water.  And, there is a bench we actually did not sit and rest on.

There had been some rain the week before our visit.  At this point the path was a bit, well, wet.  And, muddy.  We managed to sneak by on the side and the shoes only got a wee bit muddy.  This is the area where the cattle reside, we did see two deep in the foliage.  They were not cooperating, camera shy I guess.

Just a bit down this trail we turned down a side trail and wandered back to the board walk.  We headed back trying to locate another path that went to an area where the Indians used to camp.  The docent had explained it, and it sounded neat.  And, we missed the correct path, ending up instead on the Children's Discovery Path.  Probably a good miss, as by the time we had wandered back up to Jolly my ankle was starting to remind me that I am still healing.

Our last stops of the day were interesting, photos coming soon.




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