We tried something a little different. We drove to the Circle B Bar Reserve half way between Orlando and Tampa on Lake Hancock. The drive into the Reserve is shady and beautiful because of the huge oak trees draped with moss. Very swampy!

As soon as we parked, we saw an armadillo just 10 metres in front of us rooting for grub. He pushed tunnels in the soft ground with his snout. We saw hundreds of these snout-tunnels all over the Reserve!

Just 40 minutes after we left Reunion Resort we stepped out onto the environmentally-friendly parking lot pavement. What’s special about the asphalt? It’s made out of very porous material so rain water seeps into the ground instead of running off of it. That was just one of the good-for-the-environment water conservation tid-bits we learned while there. The Circle B Bar Reserve is a former cattle ranch that is now 1 267 acres of protected land in Polk County. Freshwater marsh trails, birds, gators, snakes, hardwood swamps, oak hammocks and a lot of green and hot. But first we walked through the Polk’s Nature Discovery Centre at the mouth of it all.

It was a creative little building that educates visitors about the ecosystem of Central Florida with displays, videos, workshops, activities and things you can touch. We spent two hours at the Circle B Bar Reserve, and we saw a lot of armadillos, alligators, waterfowl, pretty flowers and slow-moving, happy people.

It was a nice, small, day-trip adventure!