Blog#28 Another Night in Kissimmee

Woke this morning to a beautiful day.  No rain, no wind.  I pulled out my coffee pot and filled it with water, then set it on my little hiker’s gas burner that Ryan and Amelia had loaned me, since I forgot my nifty butane stove at home.  I poured my cereal and covered it with fresh raspberries, then waited for the water to boil.  Got my garage sale frenchpress set up with coffee and waited for the water to boil. Walked to the bathroom and brushed my teeth. Came back to camp and waited for the water to boil. The flame was puny, and it didn’t get any bigger when I turned the knob. And then it was gone.

Bummer.

I took my shower and did a load of laundry. While in the process of switching clothes from washer to dryer, the camp host, M.J., came by to clean the bathrooms.  She walks all the trails here frequently and was telling me where to find some ponds in the park.  She comes here each year to host and her passion is photographing wildlife.  We hit it off immediately.

I went to the ranger station and read up on snakes. I could only look at the park’s pamphlets, because they had only one copy of each.  I read them front to back.  There was info on mulitple snakes, venomous and nonvenomous.

Out front of the building was a goofy looking jeep thing.

On the weekends, the rangers take folks on tours out into the savannah. I was sorry to miss that. Might have seen a giraffe.

Northern Crested Caracara

Little Blue Heron

Tricolored Heron

Red Shouldered Hawk

I took the trail M.J. told me about, and it was awesome.  Huge gators, turtles, herons, egrets, kingfisher, bobwhites, bitterns and one snake. The snake was on the trail, and slipped into the grass along the edge. I was looking into the sun to see it, and couldn’t tell what color it was. I watched the spot where the snake had gone into the grass and was surprised when the snake raised it’s head up out of the grass and turned toward me. In the pamphlets there was mention of a snake well known for this hunting behavior, but could I remember which snake? Of course not.  So now I am wary and remembering how the camp staff have twice told me that the Cottonmouth is aggressive-much more so than the rattlers. Great. Now to complicate matters, the snake is between me and the car.  And worse still, a pair of new birds(I think they were bobwhites) stepped out on the other side of the trail, just a few feet away.  What to do, what to do.  I tried to get a photo of the birds, all the while watching for the snake out of the corner of my eye.

Bobwhites? Bad photo.

I spent some time there, then drove the park road looking for snakes in daylight. I found one monster.

Biggest snake I’ve ever seen out of captivity. Yellow Rat Snake.

After my drive, I went back and repeated the hike.  Out at the ponds, I ran into M.J., there with her camera.  She said she wished she was seeing more snakes–and I told her about my experience the night before.  She said she couldn’t get out on that road– she would have to disconnect and unhook her motorhome to drive it, because she had no other vehicle.  I invited her to join me for a night hunt and we made a date.

One of my favorites, The American Bittern

I went back to camp to have some dinner, forgetting that I was out of fuel to make my macaroni and cheese.  So I had carrot sticks and triscuits with cheese. Then I went and picked up M.J.  She brought with her a huge insulated mug of wine. She said it was a great cup, because it never spilled or leaked.  I suggested that it was akin to an adult size sippy cup.

M.J. and I had not gotten far when the ranger radioed to tell her that we had missed a Corn Snake.  He asked us to shoo it off the road after we got our photos.

I turned the car around and headed back.  Meanwhile, M.J. was telling me that she is losing her vision and cannot differentiate black from gray, especially at night. I said, when it’s dark and we can’t see the snakes that well, we would view them with flashlight from the car.

Corn Snake

M.J. doing what she loves

This snake was gorgeous.  We took loads of photos, and then tried to shoo him.  He wouldn’t be shooed.  He struck at us.  I suggested that we leave him be, but M.J. was adament. She used her cloth bag to shoo him, and he bit it. So she carried him off the road by his teeth.

I started to see that M.J. is perhaps a bit over the top about saving the snakes from possible traffic deaths. It was dark when we saw the next snake. I said we couldn’t be sure what kind of snake it was, and therefore, I repeated that we would just take photos from the car. She responded that she’s not afraid, and bailed out of the car the second it stopped.

Shit the bed.

I could see me out here, 45 minutes from any town, with an elderly woman who had just been snakebitten. She’d probably sue me. She was lamenting that we didn’t have a stick, otherwise she would lift the snakes to safety. Stupid American Woman, why did you invite her?

Luckily, there was another car out there coming the opposite direction, and that driver was another snake lover who felt it was his civic duty to urge them off the road. So the snakes had been removed from the road, and I could end my date with M.J.  As luck would have it, it was not before every drop in her giant spill-proof mug full of wine had emptied on the floormat of my car.