Florida's Gulf Coast

The gulf coast is the western side of Florida. We have spent the entire month of January slowly moving up it from South to North. First we stayed in Ft. Myers so we could go to the Ding Darling Wildlife Refuge so Anne could get some bird shots. There was also a bunch of beautiful white sandy beaches to explore. The amazing thing about the beaches was the amount of shells they contained.

Next stop was a hundred or so miles north to St. Petersburg / Tampa. Here we attended the Tampa RV supershow! Wow what a lot of RVs to see. We went into dozens of new models and felt good that nothing was better for us than what we bought. Another day we visited Fort Desoto State Park. The water was very calm and the view over to the Skyline Bridge was gorgeous. They also have one of the best white sand beaches on the gulf coast. Anne dragged me to the famous Salvador Dali museum to instill some culture into me. The building was really neat but the paintings weren't that impressive for the $21 admission price.

Last week we moved up to the Crystal River area where the manatees head in the winter to hangout because of the warm spring water found here. We booked a snorkel tour and got to swim with the manatees. We even had a baby one play us, very cool!  We also visited the Homosassa Springs Wildlife Park where they had an old hippo named Lou. Anne loves hippos so she was pumped to see Lou

We bought some cruiser type bikes to burn around the campground on and general sightseeing.
Checkout Anne testing hers out.

More pictures here

South Florida

We spent the last two weeks of December at the very southern tip of Florida. Weather was awesome usually sunny and around 80 degrees.

First we camped in the Everglades National Park , where we rented a canoe. We took it out on to the bay and down one of the inland rivers lined by mangrove trees. Wildlife was everywhere and from the canoe you get a great perspective on it. We saw tons of birds, like pelicans, ibis, herons, turkey vultures, storks, ospreys and on and on. We also watched a dolphin play with a fish it had just caught, observed a little manatee eating plants from the rocks and docks, and saw a tarpin swim through the very shallow bay waters trying to get back out to sea. One thing that was weird were signs in the marina parking lot saying that the vultures will eat the rubber trim from you car windows! bizarre!

Next we moved down to the keys for Xmas. We booked a week at a nice RV resort called Sunshine Key as a gift to each other, rving is very expensive in the keys due to lack of land. Of course we went and saw the famous Key West and took a trolley tour around the town. It's very touristy but was cool to hang out for the day. The nicer place for us was Bahia Honda State Park. White sandy beaches, turquoise waters and waving palms, aahhhhhhh. We rented a couple kayaks and had a great day on the water. Also got some snorkel and swimming time in on another day.
Only downer was my so called waterproof camera leaked and is now toast, so enjoy this last video. :(

Happy New Year! Next we are heading to the west side of Florida in Ft Myers, Tampa area for a few weeks exploring what's over there. Stay tuned.

More photos here