Fort Pierce Florida

We learned that Fort Pierce was where the UDT (underwater demolition team) were first trained. The UDT were initially trained to be the advance force to make holes Germans’ beach defenses to allow for the invasion of Normandy to be a success. The UDT continuously evolved and ultimately became the Navy SEALs. The National Navy SEAL museum is located in Fort Pierce on part of the former grounds of that training facility. We enjoyed the museum so much we spent over 4 hours there – long for us to be in a museum.

We headed to Lake Okeechobee to check out a battlefield from one of the largest battles of the Second Seminole Wars. We learned that in the early 1800’s the US government began actively pushing the Seminole out of Florida. These actions resulted in 3 wars with the nation, the first from 1816-1819, the second from 1835-1842, and the third from 1855-1858, By the end of the third, all the Seminole were forcibly relocated to reservations in the southwest, with the exception of small numbers that escaped into the everglades. We spotted this Ladderback Woodpecker at the battlefield.

We managed to find Lake Okeechobee, although that shouldn’t have been too hard. The lake is the largest freshwater lake in Florida, and is the 8^th largest in the world. Circling much of the lake is the Florida Trail, a National Scenic Trail, that runs the length of the state.

As we were making the Woman happy by hiking a few miles of the trail, we managed to see a number of birds that we really like. We spotted the typical Egrets, Ibis, Great Blue and Little Blue Herons and a number of Osprey. Our favorite part of the hike though was coming across a few Sandhill Cranes – bonus!

We will often mosey around in what appear to us to be really old cemeteries. The Riverside Cemetery in Fort Pierce seemed to fit the bill. In addition to a number of stones that predated the Civil War. But I found this one quite intriguing. Not only did Lacy J Harris seem to outlive her husband Joseph B Harris, but she’s still going strong at the ripe young age of 138!

Talk to you soon.