Camping near Lake Okeechobee
Early Monday morning we headed northeast for about
50 miles to a camping area near Lake Okeechobbee, which is the
tenth largest lake in North America at 734 square miles. Historically,
it drained into The Everglades, but that changed when The Army
Corps of Engineers started building dikes around it starting in
1915 and now there is a 142-mile-long levee around the whole lake
with side outlets on the east and west.
Our campground was in the DuPuis Management Area, which is an
area managed by the South Florida Water Management District and
the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. What was
unique was that it was a combination of regular campers like us
and people who bring their horses camping. And our camp host was
a woman who lived in the back end of her horse trailer and had
her two horses with her. There were not many other campers for
the four nights we stayed there. There were no electrical hookups,
so we used our solar panels for power.
Tuesday morning we were out on the trails before dawn. There were
several choices for trails to take, but they all started here.
Some parts of the trails were on sand roads, while others were
softer paths. The trails were quite long and were set up for horses.
On this day we were headed for a lake.
 
 
Our adventure shot on the road and a sample of the high piney
woods with some palm trees thrown in. We hiked for several miles
and were back in the van for lunch and to put up our feet.
The next day we drove 27 miles to the Lake Okeechobee Lake Park,
which is at the northernmost point on the lake. There's a dock,
a boat ramp, and parking. Some people brought their bikes here
to ride on the levee.
The native moon vine (Ipomoea alba) is a white morning
glory that blooms at night...
... the flowers were closing up for the day. They are pollinated
by moths.
It was surprising to us that there is significant wetland habitat
here, in this mostly controlled environment.
 
Black-necked Stilts (Himantopus mexicanus)
Sand Pipers, probably the White-rumped Sandpiper (Calidris fuscicollis).
We drove a couple of miles back along the edge of the lake and
stopped at this sluice gate. There are a number of them around
the lake to control flooding. We decided we'd do our fast walking
for a couple of miles on the levee from here.
Looking at the back side of that same gate and the waterway created
by the releases from the lake.
Three miles later, we returned to the van which we parked in the
only shade in the parking lot. There was a good breeze, though
especially on top of the levee. We opened the windows and fixed
our lunch to enjoy here with the view of the lake.
The camp host's horses. Sometimes they were in one of the corrals,
other times they were loose in the campground.
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