When my wife and I travel, one of the things we enjoy most is learning about places we have never been before. That includes learning to identify and reading about fish, birds, plants and animals we see on our trips.
This is a Florida gar, which we saw in the Everglades. It can be found in fresh waters in Georgia and Florida, often in shallow waters. It has an air bladder which helps them survive in poorly oxygenated water.
God has given us such amazing gifts in the world we live in.
We weren’t sure what we were looking for when we found this lake. We had hoped to be able to hike from the middle of a longer trail that led to the lake, but there was no parking. The map showed a short trail leading to the lake from another spot, but found no parking there either. It was obvious other people had driven their cars off the road, so we did the same and came to a parking area beside this lake. It is not obvious from this camera angle, but it was less than a quarter mile across the lake. Despite all that, I think this was the prettiest view we had the whole trip. Beauty is sometimes found at the most unexpected times.
Pine Glades Lake, Everglades
We saw this Great Blue Heron (and many other birds) biking around the Shark Valley Tram Trail in the Everglades. There is really nothing about a bird standing still that suggests an ability to fly. And yet these birds are capable of great flight.
People are often capable of unexpectedly great things as well.
This is a view from the Shark Valley lookout tower in the Everglades. Shark Valley is named for two of its estuaries, the Shark River and Little Shark River, home to several shark species.
This is not what I expected the Everglades to look like. I picture waist-deep water and thick trees. But the Everglades could be thought of as a massive river of grass (covering over 2 million acres), with a combination of sawgrass marshes, freshwater ponds, prairies and tree islands. Water flowing through the Everglades filters down into the Biscayne Aquifer, which supplies the drinking water for eight million South Floridians.
Water, all around you, slowly flowing. What a wonderful metaphor for the Holy Spirit – all around, moving in ways that we often don’t even perceive.
This photo of cormorants sitting in a tree was taken at the Florida Everglades. These birds eat small to medium sized fish which they catch by swimming under the surface of the water. They are amazing swimmers; under water they propel themselves with their feet with help from their wings; some have been found to dive as deep as 150 ft.
Both cormorants and anhingas (another underwater swimmer) can be seen drying their wings out in the sun because their feathers get waterlogged and make it difficult to fly. I remember the first time I saw a bird (probably an anhinga) sitting in a tree with its wings outstretched. It struck me as almost bizarre, because I did not know it why it was doing so.
The same thing happen with human behavior. We view the actions of others as bizarre or inappropriate. Often we don’t know a thing about them or their background.
Signs Along the Way 