Kissimmee Prairie Preserve State Park, Okeechobee, Florida
Then the LORD said to him, “Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own, and they will be enslaved and mistreated four hundred years. But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions. ~ Genesis 15:13-14 The Israelites had been in captivity to Egypt for 430 years when they left with Moses and Aaron. The captivity began after Joseph died and a new Pharaoh came into power who “did not know Joseph.” He felt threatened by the large number of foreigners in his land, so he made them into slaves. And that went on for hundreds of years, until Moses came to set them free. I wonder if anyone remembered the prophecy given Abram when the enslavement initially happened? Can you imagine how shocking this would be for them as a people group? To be living free and prospering, and then suddenly, you’re thrown into captivity and all your freedoms and privileges are stripped from you, and you’re treated harshly? How often must they have cried out to God! And how discouraged they must have felt when He didn’t seem to answer – for over 400 years. We tend to get impatient when we don’t hear from God the next day! But His timing is always, always perfect!
Do you burn more calories walking into a stiff wind? If not, you should, because it’s hard! We walked over 8 miles today on a loop trail that occupies a small corner of the Park, in 15-18mph mostly sustained wind. The entire Park is over 53,600 acres, which translates to about 84 square miles. Cleveland, Ohio is 82. So in other words, this Park is pretty good sized!
As we were watching some baby gators gathered on mama’s back, another couple came up and said that they’d seen three otters playing in one of the “pond” areas. We just came from where they spotted them, but we didn’t see anything. ☹ And who would ever guess that mama gators would be so attentive to their babies to have them ride on their backs like that? Pretty cool!
Part of our hike was more wet than we’d anticipated, but we managed to get around most of it, however, at one point, we had to turn around and go a different direction.
It was hard to take because the wind was blowing so hard.
I couldn’t even shield against it with my body!
Who comes up with these things?
That means you have to carry it all several miles to get here. Yikes!
We saw one camper though. Brave soul!
We thought it was dog fur when we first saw it, but as you can see, the hair is very coarse.
We’ve not heard anything about there being hogs around here. . . ????
They were really rustling with the wind! Love that sound!
The tiny frog and many tadpoles were living in that little puddle.
We saw a beautiful and interesting things along the way – like wide-open spaces, palm trees, prairie lands, turkeys, itty bitty frogs, blue crab legs, and a gob of hair. All thanks to our Creator God who loves us enough to provide things for us to enjoy!
What a wonderful way to spend a day!