Our Winter in Florida

Hello everyone out there. Long time, no hear, right?!!

Jodi and I have been pretty busy hosting / volunteering at the Alfred B. Maclay Gardens State Park here in Tallahassee Florida for the past 4 months. This State Park was a plantation that was purchased by Alfred B. Maclay in 1923, 100 years ago this year. He purchased close to four thousand acres, sold off some to the surrounding areas. It now has 1,189 acres and consists of 3 parts, the recreation area for swimming, boating, picnicking, fishing, and kayaking on Lake Hall. The gardens covers 28 acres of many different flowers, plants, Live Oak trees with Spanish Moss hanging down, a reflection pool and a walled garden, The 3^rd part is about 11 miles of hiking and biking trails that go around Overstreet Lake.  It’s a beautiful park. The garden consist of assorted Japanese Camellias, Japanese Cherry, Southern Indian Azaleas, Red Buckeye, Saucer Magnolias, Sago Palm, many Live Oak trees with Spanish Moss and Resurrection Fern and many more. Too many to list. Its a State Park you need to see if you going through Tallahassee, FL off of I-10.

Some hosting duties we do is good hard work, I collect fees at the entrance booth of the park, and at times sit at the visitor center. I work sometimes outside clearing trails, raking lots of leaves and picking up trash. Jodi does all outside stuff like working in the garden weeding, transplanting plants and flowers, worked in two pollinator gardens, some trail work, raking leaves, cleaning the playground and other small stuff. We have had a great time hosting here at Maclay Gardens.

Some pictures of Alfred B. Maclay Gardens State Park

These Alligators were in the Park

Jodi took this picture on the left of the alligator in the garden pond. He was about 3 feet long, but looks big. The picture of the alligator on the right, one of our rangers took in the parks lake, Lake Hall. A bigger one, about 7 feet long.

The park has two lakes. One has a swimming area and a dock for boats, fishing and kayaking. The other you hike/bike around. We do not do lakes with alligators. NO THANK YOU….

Visited Edward Ball Wakulla Springs State Park

We went to another Florida State Park just down the road. Edward Ball Wakulla Springs State Park for a boat tour. This tour is a 2-mile loop downstream and back among majestic bald cypress trees, elegant wading birds and toothy alligators. Manatees are often sighted. We had a great tour guide, funny and full of information. We did see a lot of alligators and 4 manatees, but they were not that close. The movie Creature from Black Lagoon was filmed in this park back in 1954.

Here are some pictures Jodi and I took.

We are staying here till April 1^st and then heading up north to NY. We are going to stop in a few states on the way up. We plan on spending a good long month at Myrtle Beach for a vacation break, then up to Jordan Lake North Carolina to visit some friends. Making our way up to NY to see more friends and family. Then we are heading WEST for our next hosting job for winter.  We happen to find a hosing job at City of Rocks State Park, NM. Outside of Silver City, NM. We have visited that state park when we were hosts of Poncho Villa State Park in Columbus, NM, back in 2018.  We really like it out west, so we may be out here for a very long time. So this will be a quick post so everyone knows what our travel plans are from here in Florida, to up north and back out west for the next 4 months starting in April.

Will try to post again on our trip up north and out west when we can. We are sure looking forward to seeing some friends and family. Till next post, hope all is well, and stay safe. Stay tuned to see our next travel adventures.

Mark and Jodi, The Bobble Head Travelers