This is definitely a nice, quiet state park. There are twenty campsites in the regular campground and about that many in the equestrian campground. The park is 18 miles off US 98 and the same distance off US441. If you make the trip, be sure to have all your supplies as Okeechobee is the nearest town with shopping. When we were driving from Highlands Hammock, we spotted several pull-offs for Hickory Hammock Reserve, South Florida Water Management District. We took a day to drive out and explore those areas and to find some geocaches. Two of the parks have camping, but no hookups. We also saw the largest bat house we have ever seen!
We found the geocaches and then headed into Okeechobee to find a place to eat lunch. We chose Parrot Island Grill. It turned out to be an excellent choice. Bob and I both ordered fish and chips. Once we were finished, we realized we could have split an order. We each had six large grouper fingers--more than you usually get in an order of fish and chips!
After lunch we drove back to the park and rode our bicycles around the campground.
Our next day we stayed in the park and hiked another trail. There are many miles of trails in the campground, but there is no easy access to most of them. We hiked south from the campground to the edge of the park. There were many wildflowers and birds along the way. The pink wildflowers were in the drier areas of the prairie.....
...and the irises were in the swampy areas.
This meadowlark kept landing on the trail in front of us. We finally got a good picture before it flew away the last time. We were both on the lookout for a grasshopper sparrow as they are endangered and Kissimmee Prairie is their primary habitat.
On the nature trail to meet our main trail, we found an interesting oak tree with exposed roots.
Another afternoon we road bicycles to the intersection of Peavine Trail and Military Trail. We spotted two alligators, a northern harrier
and some sandhill cranes.
From a distance, we could see a large vehicle on the side of the trail. As we approached it, we found out it was a machine to clear trees. It pulls the trees up by their roots.
We spent one more day out of the park geocaching along US 441. Some of the geocaches were in spots that were too wet for us to claim them. In one field there was a family of sandhill cranes. The chicks were very young!
There was a cache somewhere on this sign, but it eluded us.
On our way back to the Solei, we finally spotted a photogenic crested cara cara. We saw one in this area each day, but it always flew away before we could get a picture. This one landed in the road and waited for us!
Of course, one afternoon I took pictures to complete the tour of our new coach. At the front, the passenger seat turns around. The right arm rest pulls up to make a table for my computer.
Here is a view of the pantry and the refrigerator. Some people opt to get a washer/dryer in this closet, but we wanted the extra storage.
These drawers are on the driver side bedroom slide. Yes, that is a large television in the bedroom.
We chose the queen size bed to ensure we got larger night tables on the side. With the king size bed the night tables are not large enough to hold a bottle of water.
The end of the coach is nothing but closets! We have so much storage we don't know what to do!
And that concludes the tour of the interior of our new coach. We are really enjoying all the space we have now that we didn't have in the Windsport.
After five days, it was time to say goodbye to Kissimmee Prairie Preserve State Park. Our next stop....Patrick AFB.
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