Palms - Americana

WOW, just took a look and it's been close to two months since I've posted a blog. I only like blogging when we've been somewhere that I think other travels would be interested in and for the last couple of months we've just been wandering around, taking it easy and riding a ton of bike trails in Florida and Georgia.

Right now we're camped in NE Georgia, we came over here because there are three great bike trails that cover close to 100 miles, we were going to cover it over a few days but the best laid plans went south. Some how I managed to get an infection in my should blade which was really getting sore so we stopped in a clinic and they put me on an antibiotic for ten day, the problem is while taking this antibiotic I can't go out in the sun. I hid Cathy's hammer and wooden stake, just in case.

We did manage one interesting stop while in the Gainesville area.

Santa Fe University Zoo

This university is located in Gainesville,Florida and the zoo is a teaching zoo. They have about 75 animals on exhibit here on ten acres and is a very relaxing, uncrowded zoo. There were probably 25 to 35 student zoo keepers here and were all over the zoo, which was very nice since when one of them saw you at an exhibit they would stop to ask if you had any questions, of which we had many and they were able to answer them all.

From the screaming Gibbons to the rare Tree Kangaroos and the uninvited Black Water Snakes we had a very enjoyable time.

If you get to a zoo that has Gibbons, early you'll be able to listen to them screaming, no matter where you are in the zoo you will hear them. There was a family of gibbons here, mom, dad and their little girl, the keeper told us that the dad was a real push over for his little girl. They will give him one of his favorite treats, grapes, if mom gets the grapes dad will take them from her but as soon as his little girl shows up he just hands them over to her.

Another exhibit was the rare Tree Kangaroo, they have four here and are hoping for an addition this summer and they look nothing like you would expect a Kangaroo to look like.

Big nest in the middle and Dad sitting on the egg to the right

They have a pair of eagles that are taking turns sitting on the egg, if this egg hatches, which they fully expect, it will be there 14^th chick since being in the zoo. They spent quite a while building a big nest and then one day the mom raked a bunch of pine needles into a pile and laid the egg there, instead of in the big nest.

One eyed Owl

WHich shell is the pea hidden under

 When we were crossing a foot bridge over the pond we noticed a couple of Black Water Snakes racing around the pond, one of the keepers mentioned that they were not part of the exhibit, they just showed up on their own and liked the pond so they stayed.

About a third of the animals here are injured and can't be released back to the wild.

The zoo is located right off of I-75 at exit 390