Sheila and Nathan have a bass boat with a huge outboard motor, and we took it out Sunday. We went to Egmont Key State Park, an island at the mouth of Tampa Bay.
Everywhere we looked were gopher tortoises eating grass enthusiastically and ignoring all of us annoying people.
Apparently the island was an outpost during the Spanish American War, and earlier was used to imprison Seminole Indians before transport to Oklahoma. This was at the end of the third Seminole War, in 1858. All over the island are the concrete ruins of Ft. Dade.
There are stairways that lead seemingly nowhere.
The ruins are strangely beautiful.
There were other curiosities on the island, which is a National Wildlife Refuge. The palm forests were covered with millions of fallen palm fronds. It looked like rat heaven. There were also many decapitated palm trees, and palm tree grave yards--presumably left by hurricanes.
I've never seen so many huge century plants.
This is my favorite photo.
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