Campground Wildlife & a Beautiful Bike Ride

Well it has finally fully warmed up here in Bushnell. It was close to 80 degrees yesterday and an absolutely gorgeous day. The campground is teeming with bird life and is quite loud in the morning with chirps, calls and a host of other aviary conversation. We took a quiet walk around the campground in the morning and ran into this bird just hanging around the grounds.

At one end of the campground, some type of working farm abuts the property. An enclosure for mules (or donkeys, not sure what the difference is, or if there is one) serves as the dividing fence between the two properties. Yesterday morning all the mules were up against the fence, hoping for a second breakfast from the campground folks.

Looking for an extra morning treat

This one is for Jesse Gravel who wanted pictures of cute animals we see!

Lazy mule morning

Later in the afternoon, we took a long bike ride to Floral City, Fl, back to Bushnell, and then back to the campground. 8 miles of the trip was on the beautiful Withlacoochee State Trail, a 46 mile paved bike trail that winds its way through Citris, Hernando and Pasco Counties. The bike route we took started at the campground. We rode 9 miles on back roads to get to the Withlacoochee trail and then 8 miles on the trail to reach Floral City, FL. We stopped for a snack and a drink and walk around a bit then decided to take a different route back.

We rode approximately 12  miles back toward Route 75 in Bushnell and stopped at a Subway for a sandwich before riding the last 8.1 mile leg of the trip back to the campground through a series of small country roads at dusk.  As we had only left for the outing at 2:30 in the afternoon, we arrived back at the campground just as night was falling at 8PM. All told it was a 38 mile ride. We saw a wide variety of animals over the course of the day, including pigs, goats, llamas, horses, mules, cows, dogs and of course, plenty of bird species throughout the day.