This was our last Sunday to go to Hope Lutheran Church until next year. We have enjoyed their casual style of worship that is offered at their contemporary service. It seemed to me that many of the snow birds who attend this service have already flown back north.

 

 

 

One of the trees on the church property is in full beautiful bloom.

 

 

 

This afternoon, we went to Estero Bay Preserve State Park which has several geocaches hidden within its boundaries. This 10,000 acre preserve serves as a land buffer protecting Estero Bay.

 

There are 4 scrub trails throughout all the preserve which took us over varied terrain. 

 

 

 

 

We saw areas that had been burned some time ago, but they still reminded me of a forest graveyard.

 

 

 

 

There were several types of wildflowers blooming, too.

 

 

 

 

The ground in some areas consisted of what is known as “sugar sand” and it is well named because it is as fine as powdered sugar.

 

 

People have seen gopher tortoises and armadillos along with various kinds of birds, but we didn’t seen any of those today. However, Cordell did see a large snake skin at one of the cache sites.

 

 

We had a video call with our son, Tim, who lives in Mt. Airy, MD. It was snowing again at his home and he showed us that the ground was already covered. He was expecting 2” to 4” total accumulation. We showed him a view of the preserve and us hiking in shorts.

 

 

We hiked a total of about 4.5 miles and our 70 year old legs were extremely tired when we finished.

 

We stopped and got carryout Chinese food for our dinner tonight. We were almost too tired to eat.

 

 

***OUT TAKE

Not only am I having trouble remembering what day it is, but now I sometimes get confused as to where I am!