FL Day 4: May 26

In the morning at Wekiwa Springs State Park, we went on a five-or-so mile hike. We saw lots of little tiny frogs and an alligator in a lake. We also saw some deer, a hawk, and another gopher tortoise.

After the hike, we packed up the tent and went swimming in the springs. The green slime was nice. I love swimming in natural water.

We then left heading south-west and arrived at Oscar Scherer State Park. This campground is on the west coast of Florida an hour-or-so south of Tampa.

We checked out the beach in the evening and saw some ibis. I love the sound of the waves and the feel of the ocean breeze.

FL Day 3: May 25

Leaving Little Talbot Island, we took the scenic route through downtown Jacksonville.

We arrived at the Kennedy Space Center early in the afternoon. We didn't realize that it would cost us any money until we saw that admission was about $40/person. After a few minutes of fretting about it, we decided to do it anyways since we made the trip down there to begin with. Also, after doing it just this once, we won't have to worry about going there for the rest of our lives since we already did it.

My favorite part at the Kennedy Space Center was the bus tour. I enjoyed listening to things that the driver was telling us. The government owns all of this land which is mostly untouched, so we saw plenty of wildlife including alligators, bald eagles, and egrets. The bus dropped us off at various places on the base where we took a look around at big buildings and equipment.

These horrid vultures were everywhere.

After the bus tour we went on a ride "shuttle launch experience." This was pretty fun. Finally, we saw a 3-D I-MAX about astronauts on the moon.

We have been very fortunate this week as it only rained while we were traveling in the car or lightly in the middle of the night as we were sleeping.
We eventually arrived at Wekiwa Springs State Park, north of Orlando, to stay for the night.

FL Day 2: May 24

Note: These blogs will only show my favorite pictures and pictures relevant to the story. There is a slide show of all of the pictures in the blog side-bar. Click on it to see all of the pictures of the trip. I'm practicing making myself look fabulous in pictures. But Steve is not. Though, he is practicing taking the good pictures. hehe.

Anyways, It stopped raining as we entered Florida. We then arrived near Jacksonville to Little Talbot Island State Park.

Most of Florida's state parks have an office or a "nature center" full of mounted animals.

Once we got to the site, we set up the tent and laid everything out to dry. We then went on a short hike.

On our walk, we saw many fiddler crabs and a gopher tortoise.

We saw some little lizards by the restrooms. We were gawking at them in front of some dude. We later figured out that the lizards are actually all over the place, just like squirrels are here in Maryland. So, we probably looked pretty silly.

This was one of my favorite sites of the trip because not only does it have the beautiful palms and spanish moss and so forth, it has an ocean beach within walking distance from the campsite.

We did another short hike in the afternoon where we saw a very sad looking palm tree.

We returned to the beach for a night walk to look for turtles but since lights weren't allowed and we didn't want to blindly step on little creatures, we decided to sit on the boardwalk and watch the waves and talk to each other. I really liked that moment. Since we didn't think that we'd be able to see the turtles anyway and it was getting close to bed time, we left the beach before it started getting too dark.

We saw something running in the dark along the road. We thought that it was an armadillo but it disappeared before we could get a closer look at it. We also saw tons of little frogs/toads.

During the night were heard something moving around next to our tent. We looked out and saw that it was another armadillo. We heard it circling the tent for quite a while. The next morning I figured that it was enjoying the little ant hills.

FL Day 1: May 23

One thing to help you stay entertained in the car on the way south is to count the number of "South of the Border" billboards that advertise this weird place south of the border between the North and South Carolinas.

We planned on staying at Skidaway Island right outside of Savannah, GA, but by the time we got there, it was all full. We called around and ended up staying at a KOA right off of I-95.

We got rained out early the next the morning as the tent floor was getting everything wet. The propane tanks for Cindy's camp stove were empty, so we ate sandwiches for dinner. We also neglected to bring a hammer for our tent stakes, so we borrowed one from the nice man from the next tent.

They had a "bird sanctuary" as they set out a pile of bird feed in the morning. In a cage, they were actually raising baby mute swans. These swans are originally from Europe and are an invasive species here in the U.S. as they are competing against the native tundra swan. This place is actually raising an invasive species.

We went to a Waffle House for breakfast the next morning. From a nearby Walmart, we bought some propane, a hammer, and some milk. Steve found a tree frog on the floor. I set it free in some nearby trees.