Candid Florida

Egret in mating plumage at Gatorland

It’s amazing how many years it took me to get to Gatorland for the first time – my first visit was less than a decade ago – given my family’s love of natural attractions. I took the occasion of my mother’s birthday to take my parents their for their first time, and boy, were they sorry we didn’t go there back in the 60s.  Founded in 1949, it’s not an enormous park, but it’s so packed with wildlife that if you’re an avid photographer like me, you’ll easily spend most of the day there. It’s a birders delight, too. We arrived at the peak of breeding season, with the birds in bright and showy plumage, and spotted some species that we rarely see, like roseate spoonbills winging their way overhead.

No doubt about it – if you’re headed for Orlando, make sure you get to Gatorland. Set in a natural cypress swamp – in a spot where most of the natural habitats are now erased from the landscape by development – it’s an immersion into what this part of Central Florida used to be. Walk the boardwalks, marvel at the ancient reptiles, savor the birds, and bring the young ones, who can play in the splash playground, ride the train, go “oooh” at snakes, and hold a baby gator.

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After driving down Florida’s Turnpike more than a dozen times in the past few months, I’m getting more and more infuriated at the current effort to make Orlando disappear behind a set of walls that disconnect drivers from what’s around them. I think this will lead to less people getting off the exits to explore – after all, who knows what’s behind those walls? – making the number of casual road-trip stops drop, and will cause trouble in the communities where the walls are going up. People do NOT like walls. They aren’t comfortable. They make you feel trapped. I shot this little video yesterday morning while driving through the construction zone. It’s not pretty, but neither are the walls. Just wanted to give you a sneak peek of what’s going on along the Turnpike.

PS. Just saw my first graffiti on the walls yesterday. FDOT, you want Orlando to be perceived as another faceless drive through a major city like NYC or Atlanta, you are succeeding! This is a terrible, terrible project.