Day 9: Bayshore Live Oak Park

It's still the 9th here. :p

I didn't get to the beach, sorry! But this is a small park that's two minutes from my office. :) It's very nice, and a good place to walk if you have company.

This actually is nowhere near the park. This is a house that's on the way I take to school every week. It's *gorgeous* to my eyes and the kind of classic Florida house I'd like to live in one day. The flag you can see flying is the Florida state flag, by the way.

On to the park! This is the view from one of the side streets. From here you just pull straight across into one of the parking lots. They have three because the park is rather narrow but very long. It runs along most of the north side of the harbor up to the bridge.

There are benches all over the park, donated by different groups or people in the community. They've been painted by different people. I particularly like this one. I'd say it was done by kids, but it's better than my own 'art' so what do I know? :)

A view of the harbor. You can see, in the distance, the other side. That's Punta Gorda, the original town in the area. Where I work, Port Charlotte, used to be a part of it until it broke off. The same with the city I live in now, North Port. It used to be 'North Port Charlotte'.

Technically there're no beaches in this park, but there are small areas of sand. :) Someone took advantage and built themselves a small sand castle sometime this morning. It'll be gone by now, the tide hitting the 'reset' button.

A little shore bird. There are always a bunch of these guys running around and they don't hold still. So the pic is a little blurry, sorry.

Part of the park. This is about as grassy as it naturally gets in South Florida.

Mangroves and then another little beach-y spot. People come here to fish all the time.

In spite of the instructions and the convenience of the little baggies (and the trash cans that go with them), you still have to watch your step in the park. Not only do some people just not pick up after their pets, there are always feral cats and other wildlife that leave their business in the grass. Though to be honest, the cats are rather neat about it. They at least bury it in the sand.

A sail boat on the harbor on the Gulf side.

Those are just rocks down there, but I took the picture to illustrate a point. The harbor water is not particularly clear, though it is clean enough to swim and fish in. We have a 'Freedom Swim' every Fourth of July where people swim the harbor. They start on the Port Charlotte side and end up at Fisherman's Village which is a resort on the Punta Gorda side. Anyway. Visitors sometimes don't realize that the harbor is home to sharks and alligators, and foolish ones will sometimes mistake a gator on the bottom in the shallows for a rock.

One of the fishing piers in the park. If you look beyond it you can see the bridge the crosses into Punta Gorda.

More mangroves. I was trying to get a shot of the Osprey's that were hunting in the park but they stayed too high up for me to get a good shot. This was taken from one of the grassy areas that they have for picnicking.

The 'Outdoor Classroom' in the park. They have a 'Pavilion' further down in the park but I didn't go that far. People can rent them for parties or other events, but during the normal course of things you can also just go and sit there and eat or take a break. The 'Classroom' has a big fireplace and everything for the winters when it gets chilly.

I just love the way Banyan trees look. Almost like you could peek in between the twists and see a whole secret world.

A bench celebrating the founding of Charlotte Harbor.

Just a little information about the history of the harbor. They left out the part about how we used to have pirates. :)

One last shot on my way back to my car. That's another fishing pier and a bench to just sit and watch the world go by.