Looking For Manatees

When I booked our current site, I knew that there were no manatees in the Little Manatee River because of a dam or something. But I knew that in our travels north next January, we would have several chances to see them at the springs we will be visiting. However, I was delighted to see a sign not far from us that said: "Manatee Viewing Center" along one of the highways we were driving down

I checked it out and found out the manatees like to gather near the warm water from the cooling outlet of the Tampa electric power plant, whenever the bay temperature drops below 68*. The power plant is where the Manatee Viewing Center is located.

On Tuesday I consulted Google to check the water temperatures. Although the web page listed Tampa Bay at 71*, we decided to drive over to the Center anyway.

We headed towards the chimneys puffing out steam.

We arrived just at the right time to catch a guide giving a short talk about manatees.

Then we went on to the viewing walkway. The guide had said there were a dozen or so manatees to be seen out in the water.

They were there, but all we could see was their huge bodies suspended just below the surface. Occasionally one would put his nose up for a breath, or dive down showing his fluke.

We looked over the side into a much shallower area, and could see one big shadow on the bottom. We waited and a large old beastie  came up for a breath of air from time to time. It may have been sleeping.

Then we saw two other shadows coming into the shallow area. One was much smaller than the other and as we watched the pair surfaced.

Both the mother and her calf were covered with barnacles. In the presentation we had listened to, we had learned that the barnacles were quite irritating, but would die and fall off when the manatee went into fresh water.

Craig said manatees are not very exciting to watch, but I think he enjoyed the beautiful day. I am looking forward to seeing them at the springs. Maybe we will get closer.

Some people like to collect T-shirts from the places they visit.  

I like socks!

What do you like to look for as a souvenir?

Where we will be November - Feburary

Several of my friends and family have asked where we will be in Florida over the next few months. We know some of the other RV bloggers will also be  here and if we happen to cross paths we would love to meet you. So, this is our route and list of dates.

Most of our reservations are in State parks. Where I have indicated no reservations, we will probably just hope to find an open spot in a commercial park along our way.

A. Nov. 2 - Nov 16: Little Manatee State Park, Just South of Tampa

    Nov16 - Nov 20, No reservations made, just making our way south and east and stopping where we want.                         

B: Nov 21 - Nov 29, Ft Lauderdale in a Commercial Park

C: Nov 29 - Dec. 13, Long Key State Park (Florida Keys!)

D: Dec 13 - Dec. 28, John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park, Key Largo 

    Dec 28 - Dec 29, No Reservations possibly go up to Everglades

E: Dec 30 - Jan 6, Jonathan Dickinson State Park

F: Jan. 6 - Jan 16,  Kissimmee Pairie Preserve State Park

G: Jan 16 - Jan 28, Wekiwa Springs State Park

H: Jan 28 - Feb 2, Visit our Friend Linda, or ?

I: Feb 2 - Feb 6, Manatee Springs State Park

Feb. 6 - Feb 10, No reservations, Traveling Out of Florida

J: Feb 10 - 14, Fontainebleau State Park Louisiana

Not on this map:

Feb 14 - Feb 16 Dick Albrittons for reroute of tail pipe

I am also going to put this on my sidebar as a page and update it as we go along.

A Day in St. Petersburg

As much as we enjoy hiking in the natural areas of state and national parks, we also like to visit cities and learn about them.

On Saturday we drove to Saint Petersburg. We went on a walking tour of the waterfront area, led by a guide from the Preservation Society. It is a great way to learn about a city. I found this one online. The tour lasted just under two hours. No reservations were required. We met at the entrance of the Saturday morning open air market, and the cost was only $5 each. Our guide was great. She was energetic and well informed. 

One of our stops was at the Fountain of Youth. Of course I had to get a drink. I could sure use a bit of help in that direction. The stuff must involve a time delay, because I don't feel any younger yet :-)

This was one of the modern buildings we saw. It is an apartment building that opened in 2007, just as the most recent real estate crash was going on.  At the time the developer lost a huge amount of money. Now the apartments are rarely up for sale.  

In the foreground is the old stadium that was used for the very first spring training for major league baseball teams.  It is now used for soccer, and it may be in line for destruction and redevelopment.





After a quick lunch at the Market, we walked over to the Dali Museum. During the week I had bought advance tickets for the opening day of the Picasso/Dali show.  I'm glad I did, because it got a bit crowded. In San Francisco, some of the special shows sell out for walk-ins.

Picasso was just a little older than Dali, and it was very interesting to see the influence of one on the other. Picasso's structural Cubism influenced Dali, and on the other hand the Surrealist movement affected Picasso's work. The show had their works that related to each other hung side by side and the audio tour explained them.

I really like audio tours. You can only read so much before it all becomes a blur.

Craig said the museum looked like a big concrete box that was being attacked by a shiny monster from beneath the Bay.

Like many art museums, the building itself was a visual treat. In the center was a three story staircase that ended with this feature far above. 

In the Picasso/Dali exhibit, no photos were allowed. This was taken in the Dali gallery and was one of our favorites.

Several Dali "elements" were on the grounds of the museum.  One of the benches featured a melting clock. Dali used this image to "illustrate how useless, irrelevant, and arbitrary our normal concept of time is inside the dream state". 

As we left the exhibit we were encouraged to write a wish on our wrist band and hang it on their Wish Tree.

Merikay makes a wish

Also on the grounds was this very large sculpture of Dali's famous mustache. It was just fun.

When we walked through the Market first thing in the morning, we were very impressed. We agreed it was probably the best open air market we have seen since leaving California.  But we were bummed by the fact that we had all-day plans, and didn't want to put fresh produce in the car for the afternoon.  So we've decided to come back here next Saturday and stock up on great veggies.  

Good plan! 

Where have you found the best farmers markets?  I'd love to know about them ahead of time and put it on my list!

Gamble Plantation; we're under attack

The Gamble Plantation house is just down the road (about 10 miles) from Little Manatee River State Park. On Thursday we decided to drive over and take a look.

We arrived too late for the morning tours, and too early for the afternoon tours.  So after buying our tickets we wandered around the grounds.

This was on one of the lawns.  We think that the long branch is for turning the sugar cane press that it's mounted on, and the big bowls are for cooking sugar cane juice.

I really like the big old trees and the Spanish moss!  During the tour of the house, we learned that this type of tree was not here at the time the house was occupied. At that time, all of this area was stripped to the sandy ground as a fire break. I like it the way it is now.

These plants were growing along the edge of a small water ditch at the back edge of the property.  Their leaves are enormous, as wide as five feet!

As we waited on the front porch for our tour, we met a very nice Florida couple who gave us some insight into places to go and see.

The Ranger-led tour was very good. He gave us good information about the history and the construction of the house. At $6 each, it's a good value.

On our way home we stopped at a Publix store. It has been interesting to explore the different grocery chains as we have traveled across the country.  It looks like Publix may be our Florida store.  

I discovered two great things about the chain. Craig doesn't like bread that has been enclosed in plastic. I found that if I asked, I could buy an unbaked baguette from the bakery, and take it home so we can have a fresh-baked bread for dinner.  The other great thing is that their customer service desk sells rolls of quarters.  These things may be trivial to the rest of the world, but to foodies like us that have to use laundromats, these are big deals! It doesn't take much to make me happy.  :-)

We're being attacked: our Alfa is under attack from a female cardinal. She sees her reflection in the windows of the rig, and keeps banging into the windows trying to drive off "the other bird."

I taped newspapers onto the windows to discourage her. I left them quite loose, hoping the movement of the wind blown papers would also discourage her. This evening she started flying up at the bathroom window. I guess I'll have to cover that too!  

Isn't nature fun?  Hope she appreciates the comics pages!

Swamp

Wednesday's weather was downright perfect for a day in a Florida park. Mid 70's, sunny, with a gentle breeze.

Highland Hammocks State Park was definitely not crowded. Tourist season doesn't start for a few more weeks. No problem parking, and we had the trails all to ourselves.  We seem to be "early snowbirds".  :-)

Palmetto plants are everywhere. Small ones, big ones, dense stands and individual plants. I was enchanted by the light shadows playing on this pair and just had to include it in this post.

There are numerous, short loop trails in the park. We walked several, and our favorite was the Cypress Swamp trail.

It started with a short sandy trail which lead to a sturdy boardwalk through the cypress swamp. 

These were the only birds we saw, but were delighted to spot a turtle at the same time.

This was one section of the boardwalk that I did not like very much, especially where it was over a wide section of the open river. It was a bit narrow, and had no railing on one side. I would not have been comfortable if there had been lots of other people on it.

When we looked over the edge of the railing, we saw the water surface was popping with striders. They were so small we could barely see them, but their actions caused many rings. In some places we could see leaves moving with the slight current, but in other areas the water was still and mirrored the trees.

[From Craig] We did see places where numerous water-rings were caused by insects, but the water disturbance in the picture above was much too extensive to be caused by them.  I think it was upwelling from springs.

The image below is of the water reflecting the trees and sky overhead.

We kept looking for alligators, either in the water or on the banks but did not see any. We spotted one armadillo in a drier area. 

And I saw this guy, a king snake, on the sandy part of the path. Craig was ahead of me at the time,  and I swear he came within inches of stepping on it! King snakes are good guys and not poisonous. I generally keep my eyes on where I am putting my feet because I am such a klutz. If I want to look up or about, I have to stop. Looks like that might be a good thing in places like this.

We took many more pictures, but I'm sure this will not be our only swamp experience to post about.

They call the state park system the "Real Florida."  We are pleased to be discovering it on our walks.

Little Manatee River State Park, FL

It was only a 128 mile drive between Tavares and our next stop, Little Manatee River State Park, south of Tampa. Last January when I was making reservations for our park tour of the state, I had very little to go on as to which parks to try for reservations. I went mostly by the map, with the goal of being in the Keys for the month of December.

We are pleased with our new home. A large shopping area is only about five miles away.

The space is level with just enough open sky for the satellite to work. We have power and water, and there is a dump station in the loop. There are only 34 spaces.  The nice big shower/washroom building with two washers and two dryers is out of sight, but quite near our spot.  The spaces are separated by heavy growth of native plants, giving each camper good privacy. Although most of the spots were full when we arrived Sunday morning, by mid week we are almost alone.

We went on a short walk (less than 3 miles) this morning through pine and oak forest and through some very scrubby land. We got a peek at the river, but saw no wildlife. We met one other couple on the trail, and they asked if we had seen any wild pigs. No, but after that walked through large patches of ground that had been freshly rooted up and showed lots of pig prints. Last night's dinner party perhaps?

My plan is to have a home base and explore from there. We will be at this very pleasant park for the next two weeks, and will be driving to the Tampa area, Sarasota, and some of the parks and beaches nearby when the mood strikes us. 

Any suggestions of things or places we should see?

Florida at last!

After a wonderful five weeks in the North Georgia Mountains we headed out, drove through Atlanta as mentioned in my previous post, and spent two nights in Warm Springs. We stopped there to see the facilities where FDR spent time relaxing and exercising in the warm therapy pools.  As a polio victim he was the prime mover in establishing a treatment facility there.

He also built a small home there that was called the Little White House. It has been preserved and is open to the public.

All of the items and furniture in the house are just as they were when he was there.

This is the chair he was sitting in when he had the stroke that killed him.

We had watched the PBS series about the Roosevelts and enjoyed this look at the place and the things that meant so much to a great president.  We could use another great Democrat like him.

On Thursday we finally made it to Florida! Our first stop has been in Tavares at the home of our old friends Linda and Karl. 

For my California mountain friends:  Linda is as pretty and energetic as always. She is still a prolific artist and is constantly creating new things.

On Friday night we went to a costume street show. 

Karl,  Linda, and Craig 

Now here's the challenge:  What is Craig dressed as?

Hint, he has snow flakes stitched to his T-shirt.

I went as the same sort of mystery creature

We had lots of fun having people guess what we were that night, and many got it right.  I came up with the costume idea in just a few minutes as I accompanied Linda to a dollar store. $5 for 2 costumes.  

The next day I removed the beaks and eyes from our caps, and the snowflakes from our shirts. I will reuse them at Christmas.  Part of the RV way: always try to find more than one use for anything you keep in the rig.

On Sunday Linda took us around town for the area's annual Garden Tour.

Although it was sunny, a cold front had moved through and it was quite cool and windy. We are still new enough to Florida to be enchanted by the Spanish Moss in the trees.  Linda explained that it is a problem, because if there a hurricane comes through, the moss becomes saturated with  rain and makes the tree limbs very heavy and more vulnerable to falling.

The gardens we saw were very nice. We have some very nice plant photos. But I tend to notice the fun and unusual, like these guys I spotted on a small beach garden. 

 Not all flamingos are pink in Florida!

On our last stop on the tour we encountered this critter:

I wish I had put a coin down next to him to show how big he was. Our friend said they actually get much bigger that this one and can be a pest. 

Yikes, keep the doors closed on the RV, or get a saddle and we can go for a ride.

All too soon it became time to say "goodbye" and move on down the road. We hope to be able to stop here again for a few days at the end of our three month tour of Florida. 

It's always good to see special friends.