Myakka River State Park

I can not say enough about this park! I can't wait to take our guests here in the future! Troy and Lora, Greg and Emily, you will LOVE this place!!! This is a park about 20 minutes from our house, just south of Sarasota, but seems like its in the middle of nowhere! The Agape crew met today for a cookout and the first annual flag football frenzy. Say that 4 times fast! While the guys were playing, we girls headed to the canopy walk. Its a suspended bridge in the middle of the trees with a tower to climb to see over the tree tops. This is major in Florida because its so flat here. I didn't realize until we got to the top that I hadn't had a view of Florida like this yet, except from an airplane. There are virtually NO hills anywhere. It is so flat, you never get out and above and look down on a pretty valley. There just isn't anything like that here. But the weather is amazing, so we will get over it! Anyway, the trail to the canopy walk was amazing! We kept stopping to admire the trees and vegetation. It was just so photogenic. Bear with my skills, I am still learning this camera. Alayna and JoDee got ahead of the group:
Alayna thought this tree trunk looked like a long neck dinosaur:

This tree really defies gravity...even with us piled on it! Next to me is Felicia, Harvey's wife (you may remember them from our Thanksgiving pictures).

Its hard to see, but beyond the sign is the resurrection fern growing on a tree branch:
This is the underside of the canopy walk. It swayed quite a bit as you walked across!

Alayna poses for a picture on the climb up to the top:


Only 4 people at a time are allowed on the bridge. Alayna wasn't afraid at all.
A view of our climb from the ground:
And at the top! I bet this is NOT how you pictured Florida! There is a small pond, but the Gulf of Mexico was still too far away to be seen. See how flat it is??
On the way back to the shelter house, we saw some alligators looking at us from a bridge over the river. He/she was content to just stare back at everyone!Riley steals the camera...AGAIN! He has been guilty of this often! When we got back, the boys had lunch cooking!
Charlie was at the grill:

After lunch we headed over to watch the second half of the football game. It was tied up at halftime. This is the back of the Mikarts family. Kristin was shaking her groove thing for the photo! Their four-year-old is slung over Mark's shoulders and nearly fell asleep like that on the short walk to the field! Aren't the trails beautiful??Here is the Prachar team...no we didn't quite have enough Prachars for the team, but close!
This is Kristin imitating the kids who were constantly saying, "Look Mom." and "Watch me!"
After the football game (I heard an unverified rumor that the Prachar team won), we grabbed our poles to try some fishing. As we were getting everything out, I notice Alayna's hair and cracked up. Do you know the nursery rhyme about the little girl with the little curl "right in the middle of her forehead"?
We started catching fish (tilapia) after we got some earthworms from some kind folks who were calling it a day and taking their 80 pounds of tilapia home. I even caught one on Alayna's baby pole! She had gone on a potty break...that's what she gets!
She caught a couple on her own too.

Harvey caught the biggest fish:

Two people from our group caught this fish! He got hung up in the brush and broke the first line and was dragging the piece of line and the bobber around the bank, then he apparently didn't learn his lesson and quickly got caught again! We got our hook and bobber back! Are you admiring my photography skills???

As the sun set, it made for a beautiful reflection on the river:

So, Alayna and I posed as we were packing up our things. What a fun day! We didn't do a fraction of the things we could have done at the park. There were biking and walking trails, canoe and kayak rentals, boat and tram tours, and I don't even know what else!

We'll save something for the next time!! When we got home, we played games, including a game of Yatzee in which I rolled not just one but TWO Yatzees!! I was using a score card from the previous 5 games that showed a nice row of ZEROS in the Yatzee category for each game! I about fainted when I rolled the second one! Needless to say, I killed them at this game and have been banned from any other dice games in the future! This was such a fun way to spend the day after Christmas!