A river runs through it...

I've been missing the day trips DS and I used to enjoy so much. He's off living his own adult life and gas prices are keeping us closer to home. So yesterday was a real treat. We had planned to amble down to Cedar Key... no solid itinerary, just drive down and see where the road took us.

As we were getting ready to leave, we started talking and ended up with a completely new plan. We were going to Albany. Driving up the forest road, the conversation continued and we thought maybe we'd rather chedck out Dothan. It's been a while and we both like the town. After batting a few pros and cons around the car, we both agreed that Albany was the tour du jour.

It was a beautiful day. We thought we'd just explore the town a bit, see what the mall's food court had to offer, then meander home. As we came into town, I spotted a sign that said we should take the next right for the Flint Riverquarium. Hey, that sounds pretty cool. Let's check it out.

Now I gotta tell y'all, DS is not one of those spur-of-the-moment lovin' guys. But he went along with it coz he knew I wanted to do it. He wasn't too thrilled with it, but he reckoned he could suffer through it and then get on with the plan.

Despite the lack of further directional signage, my instincts did me proud and took us right to the place with no aimless goose-chasing. It's beautiful! Let's go inside and see how much... Yeah, OK, whatever. Well $9 a pop sounded like a bit of a waste to DS, but he admirably bit his tongue and didn't let too much grumbling slip out. Within 2 minutes, he had a huge smile on his face and was agreeing it was the best thing we've done in ages.

Seriously, if any of y'all are in the area, this is a wonderful place to spend a few hours. This is the first thing we saw, through a huge wall of windows.

This blue hole spring hosts a variety of turtles...

and fishes

One of my favourites is the Longnose Florida Gar.

This is getting a bit image-intensive, so I'll continue on Tuesday.
Now I need to dig up something for Monday Morning Mystery. Hmmmm....

Signs of the Times

They're back!

I went over to Lake Frances again yesterday and was so happy to see that the Wood Ducks have returned! It was late in the day and the ducks were very skittish, so I wasn't able to get any good pics. This one was taken last week at Chapman Pond in Tallahassee.

There were about 25 Woodies on the Lake, along with the usual varied group of Mallards. The Mandarin Duck was nowhere to be found. Hope he didn't end up as someone's - or some thing's - supper.

DS, always ready for birding, went with me. We took the long, LONG scenic route through Quitman and Valdosta, Georgia. Once we reached Quitman, we decided to follow the signs to Berlin. From there, it's only a few more miles to Barney. Just 8-10 miles to Hahira from here. Why not? Well, as long as we've gone this far, we might as well push on to Valdosta, right? I vetoed Brunswick about that time and we turned back toward Florida. DS doubled his Lowndes County list and I doubled my list of destinations for next time. And while we were gone, Duller cleaned the kitchen! Does life get any better? 8-]