Lettuce Lake Park

Our 1989-1990 foreign exchange student, Christiane Schoeller, is visiting from Germany along with her mother, Margret,  and her four year old daughter, Isabella. On Thursday of last week I took the three of them to Tampa's  Lettuce Lake Park for a small taste of the real Florida.

The Hillsborough River runs through Lettuce Lake Park, and widens slightly to form Lettuce Lake.

We rented a canoe and paddled around the area shown in the map above.

Cypress tree beside the river at the canoe launch area.

Isabella with her grandmother at the launch area.

A friendly park ranger helped us launch the canoe.

"Tini" in the canoe. Margret is in front of her.

Isabella

The observation tower, seen here, is reachable on foot by a boardwalk.

We saw a lot of wildlife on the river.

After an hour or so of canoeing, we walked the boardwalk.

"Tini" on the boardwalk

Isabella

At the base of the observation tower.

An interesting story about a rare case of an invasive species benefiting a native species.

Note the apple-size snail shell at the center of this picture.  The ground below the boardwalk is littered with shells like this.

At the top level of the observation tower.

Another visitor snapped this picture of the three of us.