Alachua and Gainesville, FL
Grandma Becky makes a mean breakfast. She had the bacon cooking before we were even up. After filling up on that, eggs, fruit, and her homemade strawberry and guava jelly (she’s very crafty), we headed out to a day full of activities she planned for us.
Devil’s Millhopper Sinkhole
The first was Devil’s Millhopper Sinkhole. Florida is filled with sinkholes. Sometimes they swallow up houses. But this one has been around for quite a while. It’s deep, hundreds of feet. This time of year it is full of this cool blue water. The water comes from runoff and eventually seeps into Florida’s aquifer. There is a stairway all the way down. I don’t think you can swim in this one, but we’ve heard of others where divers go to the bottom of these things.
This was the first time we had a chance to really try out Hoggle’s backpack. It worked really well. He didn’t fuss at all for the 30 minute or so trip up and down the sinkhole.
Grandma Becky stayed at the top this time, understandably not wanting to tackle all the stairs. She told us as kids she would take cardboard and slide down the hole to the bottom. But now it’s roped off and there are threatening signs to not go off-path.
Paynes Prairie – La Chua trail
Paynes Prairie was once a lake until a sinkhole opened up and drained the whole thing. Now it’s a big prairie and swamp.
On the north side of the prairie is the La Chua trail. It’s a half mile paved/boardwalk trail to a sink, and then a grass walkway out into the prairie. The trail is known for its gators, which we saw a few. There are a lot of birds, something called a pig frog (which fooled us into thinking we were hearing the wild boar that roam there), and some wild horses, even a couple of pretty newborn babies. The biggest gator we had ever seen out in the wild was just laying on the side of the trail. It’s almost as if the gators are tame.
We also used Hoggle’s pack on this trail too in order to sneak him in as dogs were not allowed. Even the gators were fooled by our Hoggle subterfuge backpack. Good thing too, as I’m sure Hoggle would’ve make a tasty snack. The backpack hid him pretty well, which is good to know. And we devised an intricate system of standing in strategic positions to hide him from the numerous trail guide volunteers out that day.
Wiiiillllllllllddddddddd horses couldn’t drag me aaaawaaaayy! … I will ride them, someday.
Butterfly Forest
After some lunch Grandma Becky took us over to the butterfly rainforest on the University of Florida’s campus. Here is where Hoggle’s luck with his backpack ran out. They wanted us to check (store) the large external frame backpack before they let us into the forest (not realizing that there was a wiener stowaway tucked inside). So Jay made an excuse for needing to get some things out of the pack first and gracefully ducked outside. Grandma graciously volunteered to look after Hoggle for us on a bench outside while we looked at the Butterflies.
There were a ton of really cool butterflies. Jay got some good pictures of some of them. They must have liked Em a lot because a few of them landed on her. We’ve heard that this means she is pure of heart and spirit… Jay must not be because the only one that landed on him was on his old muddy boot.
After all that touring we went back home and Grandma still had the energy to quickly whip up a lasagna dinner to feed us and Em’s aunt, uncle, and cousins.
Other Compelling News
Jay has found himself to also be a traveling computer technician. He’s set-up/fixed/optimized his mom’s, Em’s parents, and Grandma Becky’s computers. It’s the least we can do when people are being such wonderful hosts to us!
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