Nature at its best!

Our Monday morning bike ride took us to the town of Celebration. As you may know our bike rides tend to include a final destination at a local restaurant. Today, like all of our bike rides in Celebration, we ended up at the Celebration Town Tavern. The Town Tavern features fresh New England fish delivered daily. Ah, the taste of New England!

Our ride, normally ten miles, takes us past many of the exclusive homes that make up Celebration. Yep, there's a number of them for sale. They say, if you can afford the monthly maintenance fee, you can afford to own one of these homes!

Along our route, we paused a moment or two to enjoy a couple of the "local inhabitants." First, while peddling along the wooden bike path that traverses an untouched section of town, we encountered this fine feathered hunter... This statuesque hawk kept a weary eye on us as we made our way past him.

It's always exciting to catch glimpses of the local Florida wildlife. Our bike troupe of "snowbirds" are constantly on the lookout for wildlife that we just don't see in our home states. Of course another critter we're always on the lookout for is the alligator. Cooler temps keep these preditors out of site. But when the sun works its magic one can easily find one of these guys warming him/herself out in the open...

This fine looking four/five foot young 'gator hung around for all of us to observe and photograph. We were only about ten feet away from him/her. Our observing area just happened to be on a house lined street. This critter was visiting one of the many man-made ponds that are part of the charm of Celebration. Yes, in hot/warm weather, you really need to pay attention to your walk places, ponds, etc. There are a number of varieties of seriously dangerous critters here in the south.

We left our "friend" to his sunbathing and rode on our way! Oh, this guy/girl will eventually be moved from the area by the officials.