Sunrise, Sunset

Hi all -- Dianne here.  Don't bother looking for a sunrise photo; these are just sunsets.  After 36 years of the alarm going off at 5:15 a.m., we've seen enough sunrises to last a lifetime.  The sunsets, however, have become a nightly event on our little corner of the island.  Even the anhingas line up on the buoys and face the sunset every evening.    Best of all, the evenings have been balmy and nice enough to sit out and enjoy it, usually in our shorts and t-shirts.

Roger has figured out the proper inflation for our inflatable kayak, so I even took it out the other day and had a great time.

  I paddled all around and had no problems at all.

  Roger took a photo of Jasper on alert and standing guard, watching me in the water.   That dog really takes his job as my "guardian" very seriously!

  Actually, Roger and I both took the kayak out; we just took turns.  The beauty of this little kayak is that we can configure it with one seat or two, however we want to use it at the time.  I used our waterproof box (another perfect retirement gift to Roger) for our camera and paddled out to take a photo of our wonderful camp site from the water on the driver's side of the motorhome.

  (There is water on both sides; our site is on the point of an island).

At the other end of the island, beyond the other camp sites, is another point.  Off this point is a tree growing in the water.  Every evening, birds of every size, color, and description roost in this little tree. 

 Most of them are the anhingas, ibises, egrets, and little blue herons that populate this stretch of the river.  We try to time our evening dog walks to go to that side of the island to watch them swoop in for their nightly roost.  It's quite a show!

I also took a photo of the lovely view we have out our "dining room" window.   There are a lot of cattle and horse farms in this area of Florida, one of which is just across the water on that side. 

  

We really haven't ventured out much since we've been here, other than to find a dog park and run some errands.  There is usually something to watch right here at our patio, whether it be the birds, jumping fish, or boats like this large barge that went through the lock yesterday. 

Roger took some photos showing our patio lights reflecting on the water. 

 I'll let him add his thoughts on our sunsets, since he took several of these photos.

Roger here....  Yesterday, I told Dianne that she needed to hide the camera from me every evening until we leave.  We really don't need any more pictures of the sunsets :-)