When a creek floods

I live near Nashville TN, and we have had our share of flooding this spring. There is a park that I run the trails on most mornings. For the past seven weeks, the trails have been underwater. Here's a photo of the aftereffects. 

It all started about 10 weeks ago with rain upon rain. The park started to flood into the baseball/football fields and trails. Amazingly, fishermen started to fish in the park. Check-out these photos. 

This bass boat is basically in the outfield of a baseball park.

The trail runs just beyond the bass boat with the creek on the other side of the tree line.   

A Great blue heron roaming the sidelines.

Here's what the trail looked like after the water subsided, 4 to 5 inches of mud. Spring has sprung all around except here. It almost looks like a bomb went off. 

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My mini vacation to lemon Bay.....

A few weeks ago, I took a mini vacation to one of my favorite places, Manasota Key, which is located near Englewood Florida. I got to do a little kayaking on Lemon Bay and took a few photos. This is a beautiful area, however there has been an outbreak of red tide in the last few months. It has had a major impact with large numbers of fish and waterfowl killed. The area is now slowly recovering and trying to get back to normal. I placed a red circle on this map around the area that I visited.

We stayed at my mother and father-in-law's place, an over 55 retirement community called "Gulf to Bay". It's a pretty cool place. The island is about 800 feet wide at this point and you can walk from the bay to the ocean in about 3-5 minutes. I've visited here for the last 30 years and it doesn't change much.  This photo is looking directly east into Lemon Bay. 

Look how calm the water is while my daughter and her boyfriend paddled a two person kayak in the bay.

My wife and I, paddled over to one of the nearby islands. It was a very enjoyable trip, especially thinking that the temperature back in Nashville, my home was in the thirties. 

I love looking mangroves. The mangrove roots extend directly into the salt water. All kinds of young sea life live in the mangrove swamp. I've seen oysters, sponges, shrimp, and small fish. Sometimes when you quietly paddle next to the mangroves, you can see some amazing sea creatures, but this time I didn't see any. 

The waters here are full of fish. I've caught all kinds of fish over the last thirty years. This year was different, the red tide made catching fish very hard.

Looking out in the bay, I can still smell a slight scent of the red tide, it burns my nose. You must admit, this is a beautiful sunset.  One thing for sure, the red tide hasn't ruined the view.

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I call my maps treasured maps because most folks have that special body of water that they treasure. These maps make great gifts for the lake house owner, lake lover, or fisherman. I have over two hundred on my website that can be purchased right from the site, or I can do custom and personalizes lake, river or bay maps, too. If you would like to see more and read about my treasured maps go to LeoLakes.com.