We spent the afternoon with Jeff and Tracy.  They have a cute new dog, Pugslie.

Doesn't Jeff look great?

We went to Titusville to visit The Astronaut Hall of Fame. 

But the next day was much better.  We went to The Kennedy Space Center.  We got to walk around the Atlantis.  Wow!

One of the rockets from the 60's.

The rocket garden.  This is a cool place to visit.  Kids would love it here because there is lot of interaction displays.  There is two 3D movies as well.  Really cool.

Then we went to St. Augustine.  The oldest town that has always been occupied. This is our guide, Gary, who took us all over the city.  The short lady is Pat, our Wagon masters.  Or at least half of it.

This is the fort in the city.

This is the original gates from about 1700.

We even went to the fountain of youth.  It's a spring that the Indians lived by when the Spaniards got there.  The water tastes really bad!!!

Yesterday we stopped by the Okefenokee Swamp.  The water looks black.  We thought we'd see more grasses like the Everglades.  But its not anything like it.

Spanish Moss is all over the trees.  We saw gators, soft shelled turtles, and birds.  We saw sand hill cranes there.

This is yellow club.  It grows in the lily pads.

Today we are in Brunswick, Georgia.  We drove over to Jekyll Island for a tour of the island and brunch.  This is a 300 year old Live Oak.  They're all over the island.

This is the "Club House"  Its a hotel now.  Very rich people built the club house in the 19th century to spend the winter season here.  We had brunch here.  YUM 

Our wagon masters celebrated their 35th anniversary today.

 

 

We go to Savannah in the morning.  We only have nine more days of this tour.  It's been fun.  And yes Mendy people watching is magical in Key West.  We saw spring breakers in string bikinis and of course the pirate dressed in red and sparkles.  We sat in a sidewalk café and watch to our hearts content.  Its the driving in Key West that's the scary part for me.  We didn't drive we took a trolley and walked everywhere. 

 

That's all for now; I have more laundry to do.

Love, Mom and Dad

KeyWest and Miami

This is the southernmost point of the USA.  There was a ton of people around the buoy so we took the photo from across the street.

This is a pick-up that some "crazy" decorated with shells and stuff.  The folks of Key West are sure different.  We saw a guy dressed up as a pirate with glitter and gold boots. 

We ate in a sidewalk café.  Almost everything is outside.  Cool

After we left Key West we took a bus trip of Miami that took about 10 hours.  I'm glad we don't live in Miami.  The traffic is awful.

This the inside of a big house that was built in the 1920's.  The guy who built it only lived in it for a few years.  He passed away about two year after it was finished. This is part of our tour.

This is outside of the big house on Biscay Bay.  He had a barge built out in the water for parties etc.  Life is hard.

We saw the Disney boat in Miami.

Some fancy hotel built in the 20's in Coral Gables.  I can't believe the money around here.

Last night we took a Jungle Queen cruise down the Nu River.  It's only 7 miles long.  And we went under four draw bridges.  At the end of the cruise we had dinner and a show.  It was fun, and we didn't get back to the RV park until about 11:00.  The traffic was heavy down near the ocean because it's Spring Break.  There is lots of young people around looking very sunburned.  

This is the Jungle Queen at night.

I still can't get over the orchids growing in trees.  It is subtropical down there.

 

 

 

We are in Kissimmee right now.  We got here about 3:30, and don't leave until Tuesday.  We hope to visit with Jeff this weekend.  That's all for tonight.

Love, Mom and Dad

South Florida

On our way to Homestead from Ft. Myers we stopped at the Miccosukee Indian village to see a gator show and have an airboat ride. FUN!

They raise gators there.

This is a native who is very daring around the animals.

Scary

Your dad got to hold a baby gator.

Then we got into an airboat and got a cool ride through some of the Everglades.

This is the boat that the other half of our group rode in.  Our boat had two engines.

The next day we had a tour of an orchid farm. I took a bunch of pictures, but I'll only show you one.  This is the green house.  The orchids grow in trees down here.

Then we went to a bonsai farm.  It appears that bonsai means "tree in a pot."

This one costs about $18,000.

A common bouganvilla.

again

Yesterday your dad and I had a free day so we went to the Everglades.

These are anhingas a diving bird.

Black Vultures

Blue heron

A broad tailed hawk (I think)

Wild gator

Egret

We drove 40 miles down into the park to the  end of the road.  As you can see this is the end of mainland Florida.

 

 

 

We have had a very busy few days.  It's hot down here but at least a breeze is almost always blowing.  In the Everglades we saw a ton of birds.  It was amazing.  I guess they came down to get out of the cold.  On one of the walks we took yesterday we must have seen a dozen wild gators. They just lay in the water and snooze.  I understand they don't require much food.  The Indians said they feed them every two weeks.  There was suppose to be crocs at the lands end, but we couldn't find them.

 

We are on Key West for the next three nights.  Our campground is right on the water.  Well that's all for today.  More next time.

 

Love, Mom and Dad 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Manatees

When we were in Tampa Sunday, so we drove to Apollo Beach's Big Bend Power Plant to view Manatees.  Wow!!!!  There were so many in the channel next to a warm water outflow.  I swear we could have crossed the channel on foot just by walking on their backs.  Amazing.

Those little black patches are either noses or backs of a ton of manatees. 

This is a mom and her calf.  The baby rides on the mom's back a lot.

The water kind of obscures how big they truly are.

Yesterday we went to the Edison/Ford Estates here in Ft. Myers.  That's were we got most of our steps.

The patio next to the cement pool.  WooHoo.

One of three living rooms in the compound.

This is an enormous fig tree. The roots make little troughs to collect water for the roots.

 

We have a free day today and we aren't sure what we'll do.  Maybe just chillax.

 

Love, Mom and Dad