Little RV on the Prairie

We needed a place to hunker down for a few days before our 2 week stay at Jonathan Dickinson State Park.  I figured that after Disney World we would need some down time and plenty of peace and quiet. That's how we ended up at Kissimmee Prairie State Preserve for a few nights.  :-)

Located near Okeechobee, it's a 54,000 acre state park and it is very, very quiet!  After driving miles and miles on state and county roads and seeing virtually nothing but potato and cabbage farms, there is a 5 mile dirt/crushed shell road to get to the preserve.  Despite it's location in the middle of nowhere, it is well worth the visit.  We spent three days at the prairie hiking, riding our bikes, geocaching, viewing wildlife and enjoying down time.  There was also a night sky program being offered by one of the volunteers.  We stopped by one night and enjoyed his presentation.  He had a huge telescope and was showing us different things including Jupiter.  It was so clear and you could see the rings on Jupiter as well as it's moons.

We also enjoyed meeting Al and Karen and spent two afternoons at their site chatting and getting to know one another.  Hope to see you "down the road" again!

The last night that we were at the prairie, we saw the coolest sight.  We were actually watching TV when a "live" blurb came on with a countdown of a NASA rocket that was being launched over at Cape Canaveral.  As soon as Dan saw that, he headed outside to see if we could see it.  As soon as he indicated that it was visible, I went outside to join him.  It was an absolutely amazing sight seeing the rocket come up over the horizon and then head up into the night sky.  It was actually carrying a tracking and data relay satellite. It sure is something that I doubt I will ever forget.

I didn't take any pictures at the prairie as I was still having problems with my camera.  There's a speck of dust on my lens on the inside of the camera and (at that time!) had not had a chance to try to fix it.   :-)

We really enjoyed the prairie and hope to visit again!