Peace and Quiet in the Prairie

Friday, January 15, 2016

January 5^th we drove the 40 plus miles from the Fort Pierce Flying J to Kissimmee Prairie Preserve State Park. Returning for the fourth winter, this time as volunteers, felt like coming home to a wild place that we love. The 54,000 acre preserve feels open and welcoming, reminding us of the wide open spaces of the Southwest.

The entrance road is the only 2-wheel drive road in the park

The old Peavine Trail quickly turns into a swamp buggy trail.

For the first time we were located in the Equestrian Camp. The park has become so popular that this campground has been taken over by ordinary campers, and the horsey people have problems getting a site, especially if they do not reserve ahead. The shower house is located down the road at the Family Camp, but we can use the laundry and showers there when we need to. We get to enjoy being on the end of the row of campers with a live oak grove next to and behind us and the wide open prairie in front of us. The female wild turkeys waddle through regularly, and we have seen deer, and lots of birds around our site. We've had Sandhill Cranes across the road and a crow that makes sounds like an owl. There are baby alligators just down the road.

Our daily 1/2-mile commute

The Ranger Station

The first week here I spent hibernating in the rig recovering from the bad cold I picked up in Maryland. Greg recovered faster and bugged the rangers for jobs. Once he told them about his scientific background they realized he had some useful skills. He got to ride with the park scientists on the swamp buggy to check out the western end of the Preserve where he hadn't been before. They visited the old cowboy hammocks, the wooded groves where they camped while herding cattle on the acreage. The prairie is being transformed back to as close as its original state as possible, before it was drained for cattle raising.

Scouting new tour routes in the swamp buggy

Driving through waist deep water in the swamp buggy

Native palms growing along old drainage ditches in the dry prairie

This is the largest park in the state system, but it has very little visitation, so its mission is not so much recreational, but restorative. This is the only place on earth that this dry prairie ecosystem exists, and is home to the last remaining Florida Grasshopper Sparrows. This is also the last place that the Carolina Parakeet was seen before its extinction in 1918. Although it is called a dry prairie, it is a very wet environment with lots of boggy areas and sloughs. Alligators, otters, and wading birds thrive here. Unusual species of birds light here including the Crested Caracara, the national bird of Mexico as seen on their flag.

Carolina Parakeet Memorial

Greg has been given various outdoor jobs as well as responsibility for maintaining the rental bikes when the current volunteer leaves at the end of the month. He was also given his “special job” of pulling up the Sida bushes. They are an invasive species that are not yet on any official threat lists, so the rangers want to get a head start on trying to eradicate them without waiting for USDA to list them.


I finally felt well enough to drag myself into the office on Monday to start learning my job. The administrative office and visitor center are together. With only 6 full time paid employees and various others there on grants, whomever is in the office grabs the phone calls or greets visitors. That's why having volunteers to do those things is so helpful. It frees everyone else up to go outside and do the work of the preserve. Natalie, the administrative assistant is the only office person, so she has been training us newbies to handle the desk. It really has been an advantage to have visited before so I am able to answer visitor's questions about the park. The rest of the time I am checking campers in and out and fielding phone calls.


Greg and I are each required to work 10 hours a week in order to pay for our campsite. Since we are in such a remote area, (Okeechobee, the nearest town, is an hour away) there aren't a lot of places to go, so volunteers tend to work more than their required time. Even if we work more hours, this is such a low stress place that we will still be able to relax and recover.


Weather has been a big issue so far. With the El Nino winter forecasters are predicting 70% more rain during the current dry season. Every few days a front rolls from the west across Florida and we get drenched. The last one spun off a tornado. Today's created tornado watches for our area. With the highest area on the preserve 70', six to seven miles east of us, it takes a while for the water to slowly drain out west of here in the Kissimmee River, so there is a lot of standing water, and the hiking trails are mostly underwater.


Wednesday we drove 2 ½ hours to the Tampa RV Show to interview for summer jobs. We had good interviews with BethPage Camping Resort in Urbanna, Virginia and will start working for them as workcampers beginning mid-May through Labor Day. I will be working at the check-in desk and Greg as a Host. Then we have another family wedding the end of September and have already put in an application to work for Amazon again this Fall in Campbellsville, Kentucky. With a few gaps here and there, that should round out our year!

Greg posing in front of a new RV with a price tag of $2.3 Million

Is this RV decor titled "Nightclub" or "Brothel"?

Great RV shower, if you tow a water tanker!

We are very envious of counter space for cooking

The sun is about to set behind the live oak trees and the frogs in the puddles and drainage ditches have started their chorus. A few female turkeys (the “ladies”, as Greg calls them) ran past while I was typing, and our fellow campers are starting to create dinner, or starting happy hour! This time of year the campgrounds are mostly full of quiet retirees enjoying the peace of the natural environment. That includes us! Goodnight from the prairie...

Big storm moving in...