Places Visited: Mount Dora, Lake Apopka, Lake Dora while camping at Lake Louisa State Park in Clermont

We are camped in Lake Louisa State Park on US-27 south of Clermont. The campground is fairly new and includes 50-amps, water with central dump station, paved interior roads and several lakes, $23.31 per-night: N28° 24.194 W81° 33.386'

Lake Louisa State Park is fairly close to Disney World as in around 25-miles. It is a nice clean campground with no shade trees in the campground area. It has a lot of hiking trails and equestrian trails, several lakes and preserves several thousand acres of the sand hills forming the northwestern edge of the Lake Wales Ridge. The Lake Wales Ridge is what makes the backbone of Peninsular Florida. It contains the high ground on the peninsular although high ground around here is only 300' above sea level. The high ground is sand hills, remnants of ancient sand dunes. When these sand dunes were being created the ocean covered most of Peninsular Florida. Corals flourished in this shallow tropical sea for thousands if not millions of years. Today the remains of that coral shelf underlies most of Penisular Florida in the form of limestone. Vegetation, in the sand hills area of the Lake Wales Ridge varies from tropical rainforest plants in the moist low lying areas to arid desert plants on the tops of those sand hills. We are constantly amazed at the rich variety of plant life thriving down here.

Joyce took these pictures of a pink trumpet tree while visiting Mount Dora a small town on the bank of Lake Dora. This is a tropical tree that can have bright yellow or even lavender blooms. No matter what color their blooms they command attention. Like fruit trees they are flowering with few if any leaves on the tree.

Within walking distance from the quaint downtown area of Mount Dora was a city park/nature trail on "Palm Island". It was advertised as a one mile nature walk reached via a boardwalk. Once on Palm Island you can walk on trails or stay on the boardwalk. From the island there is also a dock that wanders along the shoreline. As you can see we enjoyed our walk through Palm Island. To the left is some of the namesake palms while on the right is a cypress tree draped in elegant Spanish moss. The picture of the cypress tree was taken from the dock/boardwalk that meandered along the shore.

These are cypress knees, part of the cypress trees unique root system. To the right is a single fat cypress tree root. Scientists believe that cypress knees provide support in unstable, waterlogged soils and help the tree survive when oxygen is low around the root area. Underwater, cypress trunks and knees provide excellent havens for small fish and invertebrates.

This anhinga was drying its feathers. It looks so much bigger than it really is because the bird has its feathers ruffled. Anhingas are diving ducks that feed on fish. However, they have no oil on their feathers to make them waterproof. In order to fly they must dry off otherwise they are waterlogged.

On our way back to the campground south of Clermont we stopped by Magnolia Park, a county park on the eastern shore of Lake Apopka, we stopped to watch this husband and wife commercial fishing team. They were cast netting for talapia. She was operating an electric trolling motor as they slowly moved along the grass line. He was operating off a platform in the front of the small boat. As soon as he threw his cast net she would back down on the trolling motor. He would pull in the net full of talapia and empty them in the bottom of the aluminum boat. As soon as the net was cleaned of fish she returned to the trolling motor to get the boat in position for husband to mak another cast with his net. By the time he had the net readied for a cast she had him in position. They were a well oiled team. Very impressive.

These are talapia a tropical panfish that feeds on vegetation. You may be eating talapia when eating out since it has become a staple on restaurant menus. They are also available in the seafood area of many grocery stores. These aren't large talapia. In fact I would say they are small as talapia go.

This is what the bottom of a talapia boat looks like after a few casts. I can only imagine how many fish will be in that boat in a few hours.

By the time we reached Winter Garden on the south eastern edge of Lake Apopka it was time to watch the sunset from their city park. The sunset did not disappoint.

These flame vines are climbing in trees. While you can tell they are flame vines they are NOT in full bloom. When in full bloom they are spectacular.

Riding around Lake Louisa State Park at dusk was a good time to spot deer. Joyce snapped these does but the large buck we saw tonight was only a blur on the pictures.

This immature broadwing hawk was intent on catching a large grasshopper in the tall grass just below this fence post, enabling Joyce to take these pictures.

Cypress trees growing along the shoreline of Lake Louisa in Lake Louisa State Park.

This osprey was perched on a cypress limb while this meadow lark was singing his heart out. Both were in Lake Louisa State Park.

Central and South Florida is citrus country. Everywhere you turn you see citrus groves. People grow citrus in their yards, citrus grows wild in abandoned fields, workers are in the groves, citrus trucks are on the highways, small towns have juicing plants. In short you can see citrus activity at every turn. This is a citrus grove as seen from Lake Louisa State Park.

These are oranges on the left and tangerines on the right. Before these citrus fruits get into your breakfast fruit juice a LOT of manual labor is required.

Workers with bags on their shoulders climb ladders and hand pick the fruit. When the bag is full they empty the oranges into one of those large plastic tubs you see.

This equipment is used to enter the grove and unload those plastic tubs of citrus. Note that two of the handlers arms have plastic tubs of fruit. To the right is another look at one of those citrus handlers. Note that it is full of oranges. These rigs enter the groves to get the citrus then head to the edge of the grove to dump their payload into to a large 18-wheeler trailer.

Note how the lift on the rig on the left is used to unload oranges into the waiting 18-wheel trailers.

The trailer on the left was beside a highway while the loaded trailer on the right was on the edge of a grove several blocks from the nearest paved road.

Once the cargo of citrus is dumped into the 18-wheeler trailer the lift mechanism returns the container to the bed of that rig that goes into the grove.

Until next week just remember how good life is.

Mike & Joyce Hendrix