Yesterday we travelled down from Georgia to Hillsborough River State Park, which is situated about 20 miles north of Tampa, near the town of Zephyr Hills (famous for its bottled water). The journey itself was long and uneventful apart from negotiating some thunderstorms – which fortunately had passed by the time we arrived at the campsite. It was getting towards sunset as we set up camp – the site itself is set in amongst the longleaf pine trees -a very peaceful location and with so few people staying there it felt almost as if we were out in the woods alone. This was the first time we had put up our new tent, and the concern was would we get this done before darkness set in – but fortunately it was easy to set-up and we were done well before the night skies were upon us. So ,tired from a days travel, we settled in for the night only to be rudely awakened by crashing noises from the undergrowth outside and sounds like a person 
walking right outside our tent. So suspecting either racoons, deer or a local inebriate we went outside armed with our Maglite torch. What we found was an armadillo, who seemed totally impervious to us approaching him or shining lights into his eyes. We later learned that these prehistoric looking creatures are more or less blind, deaf and somewhat dumb. Having said that they are cute and Emily thought they looked a bit like Shrek with a goaty beard and with cute little ears. So we went back to bed and ,now knowing what the noises outside were ,we settled down for the night.Today was a quiet, relaxed day; the only thing we had scheduled to do was do a Ranger guided tour of Fort Foster, a replica of an 1837 fort from the Second Seminole War. The Seminoles were
the local native American Indians who were resident when Florida was ceded to the United States from the Spanish. The Seminoles were not overly happy with giving up their lands to the settlers so they attacked them, and to protect the settlers soldiers were provided by the US Government. Three forts were built on the road from Tampa to Ocala, one of which was Fort Foster (the original of which was burnt down). There were six of us on the tour with the Ranger, a lovely lady called Kate, who on the route to the Fort gave us the background on the ecology of the area. The Fort itself had been beautifully reconstructed and had been set-up to show how the resident soldiers had lived during those times.
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