Well, we're off the ship, the Carnival Glory. We had a great cruise but I was glad to debark yesterday. Too many people, too many days and I was getting claustrophobic. Our first stop after a day of cruising was Cozumel, Mexico and we had taken no tours that day. We had breakfast then debarked and took a taxi to the shopping district where we found the tequilaria (of course). We bought 2 bottles of our fav almond tequila liquor and then visited the Cozumel Museum.....very interesting! They had exhibits about the conservation of the natural beauty of the island. It was really heartening to see how serious they were about saving their natural resources. Had a nice Mexican food platter (again, we shared) for lunch in the museum. Next we stopped in Belize where we had taken a Belize City and Altun Ha temple site tour. Belize City was sort of a typical South American city, a bit sad and rundown but the temple was terrific. They were Mayan ruins and the site was quite extensive. They were uncovered when workers were digging for rocks to build a road. The temples were very tall but Ed and I both climbed to the top of one of them. It was awesome to stand on top and look out over the trees. Isla Roatan was next and we absolutely loved this place. It's off the coast of Honduras and actually belongs to Honduras. It's a beautiful, green, clean island and the people obviously take good care of it. We took a tour of the island and visited many areas, one of which was a place where they show native dances, crafts and food. I especially loved the coconut candy (sort of like a dense cake) and Ed bought a coconut pudding cake.....yum! Once off the tour, we bought tickets to ride a chair lift across a bay to a Carnival private island where we had lunch. We waded around in the clear blue water after lunch and longed for our bathing suits. In Grand Cayman (no tours) we walked around the shopping district and then found a young man willing to bicycle us around in his cart (for a fee!). He was quite informative about George Town, the main town of Grand Cayman. After the cart ride, we settled down for a very interesting lunch of conch (conk) chowder, turtle soup, conch fritters, shrimp, red snapper and local beer.
Next installment will be about the last two days that we've spent here in Florida City within a short drive of the Florida Everglades. The Everglades is a great nature area, lots of birds and other animals, exotic plants and water, water everywhere!! Off to bed now, it's late and tomorrow we're off to Key West!

Ok, this is the absolute last post before our cruise. We embark on our cruise ship tomorrow early afternoon but today I've been a busy girl!! This morning we drove around Miami Beach and almost made it to South Beach until I got fed up with the crowds. We came back to the hotel, ate some lunch and played some cards. Back at the room again, I started to look at brochures and then came up with a great idea!! We are booked into a bed and breakfast in Key West for March 30-April 1. Key West is the furthest south island of the Florida Keys (at least that's inhabited). Key West is approx. 150 miles from Miami and the drive out to it is beautiful. The highway runs along all the Keys and over water for miles and miles. When we leave Key West on April 1, we have quite a drive all the way back to Orlando to rescue Dude and re-inhabit the 5th wheel. What an April Fool's joke on us, eh?!

Lake Okeechobee

Blue Heron

Never saw one of them:(

Another one of them Alligators.

We sure looked for a panther, but to no avail:(

Here we are at AH-TAH-THI-KI Museum of Big Cypress.

Very Pleasant rainy day!

There are many strange (to us!) names here in FL. In the west, we have Spanish names on a lot of things....like San Jacinto, that seem strange maybe to people from the northeast. Here in FL are Indian names, like Okeechobee (big water), Caloosahatchie River, Immokalee (a town), Econlockhatchee (state park)...I love them but sometimes pronouncing them is difficult (even for me!). Two of our favorite names so far are in plain ole English...Burnt Store Rd (our theory is that back before the st. was named, a store burnt on it, everyone referred to it as "out on burnt store road" & so it became) and Fish Eating Creek (we have no theory here but would love to hear ideas from our commenters on this one). We love comments from our readers!!
You've all seen those "watch for deer" signs on the highways, right? Well, in the last week we've seen two signs that had us scanning the sides of the road for sightings...."bear crossing" and "panther crossing". Imagine hitting one of those in the middle of the night.....yikes!
My favorite Indian name so far is AH-TAH-THI-KI meaning place of learning. We went to the AH-TAH-THI-KI museum located on the Big Cypress Seminole Reservation in southern Florida. It's on the edge of the Big Cypress Swamp. There are many exhibits and dioramas showing Seminole life at the turn of the century (20th, that is!) and explaining how the Seminole adapted to the changing times. They consider themselves the tribe that never surrendered (unconquered) as they never signed a peace treaty with the whites and yet have themselves 4 or 5 reservations in Florida. In spite of a bit of rainfall as we left the building we ventured out on the 1 1/2 mile walkway through the swamp area behind the museum. Along the walkway are many signs explaining the names and uses of all the plants and trees in the swamp. We had umbrellas so walked at our leisure and read nearly every sign until they started repeating themselves. We learned about epiphytes, plants that grow on another tree or plant, usually without harming it. Many ferns are epiphytes like the air fern that people can grown at their desks!! At the halfway point of the walkway we came upon a sample village set up but because of the rain there were no demonstrations going on that day. They usually have people showing Indian crafts and even canoe building.
After the museum we headed a little further south to travese the I-75 or Alligator Alley as it is popularly known. I was driving (70 mph speed limit) and trying to go as slow as safely possible so Ed could spot alligators in the creek that runs along the highway. He spotted many but there was no place to safely stop and view them. We pulled off after spotting a sign saying that a panther preserve was ahead. We park at the preserve and decided to take a hike as the rain had stopped.......and we wanted to see a panther. No, we weren't worried that the panther would "get" us. I really didn't even think of that part of our folly.....for folly it turned out to be. We had already forgotten the recent (an hour ago) rains and set out on the trail full of the hope of seeing cool things. We set out on the long trail ( 1 1/3 mi) and after trudging probably about half of it, came upon a large swampy area right in the middle of the trail. We stood and pondered it a bit and then decided that we could get around it without too much difficulty. Well, we got our feet wet and it only got worse from there. We gingerly made our way through about 6 of those "wet spots" in the trail because by that time it was just as hard to go back as on. By the time we got back to the truck our feet were soaked and we had seen no wildlife at all except for a few butterflies. Still and all, we had a great hike, good exercise, and the scenery was amazing!!
We cut off the I-75 from there to head north again back to our 5th wheel and again the highway ran next to a creek. It was cutting through the Big Cypress Swamp and we spotted birds and alligators galore. We could stop as we pleased and did about 3 times but then got bored with getting out to watch gators. They do nothing but just lay there! Hollering at them doesn't help either (no, I didn't stoop to throwing stuff at them....who thought that??!!). We actually have gotten our fill of gator-watching for the time being.
The next day was "preparing to move again" day but after doing laundry.....again...we headed off to see if we could actually view Lake Okeechobee. We had to drive all the way to the town of Okeechobee on the northern end of the lake (we were camped on the southwest end) to catch our glimpse but we finally saw it in all its magnificent glory!! It is a biiigggg lake and surrounded by marshy mangroves and grasses...that's why it was so hard to find a way in down south as it's marshier down there. Okeechobee means big water, it's 730 sq miles (corrected) and relatively shallow (4-14 ft deep). It's enclosed by a 20 ft high dike built by the Army Corps of Engineers and has a 110 mile path along the dike all the way around the lake. We walked about a mile of it in different places (ok, it's a start!!) and saw many people biking on it. The lake is part of the Greater Everglades Ecosystem, an 18,000 sq. mile tapestry of rivers, lakes, sloughs (slews), swamps and estuarine bays flowing through the southern part of Florida. Ok, ok, end of lesson, but I find the amount of water here in Florida captivating because I come from dry southern California.
This will be our last blog for about a week as we're boarding a ship tomorrow to cruise the Caribbean Sea to Cozumel, Mexico, Grand Cayman Island, Isla Roatan and the South American country of Belize. We'll blog about our shipboard adventures when we return to the United States (and cheaper communication costs!). Bye for now and love to all!!

Here is a Herron "putting his toe in".

Greeter at Berts Bar

Manatee's at Lee County Manatee Preserve

Ed fishing, no bites

Lake Okeechobee is 750 square miles, it's 14' at its deepest point and is the second largest lake in the U.S. You'd think a lake this magnificent wouldn't be hard to find, right? Well, think again! We arrived at this campground in early afternoon yesterday, set up camp, ate lunch and immediately took off to see this giant, amazing lake. We headed south on Hwy 27 which sort of circles the southern edge of the lake according to the map. We took a turn at the first sign that said Okeechobee and several miles later found ourselves heading to the town of Okeechobee on a highway that was not very near to the lake....so we turned around. The next sign we followed said "Lake Okeechobee" with an arrow pointing to a left turn. It led to a marina that was on a canal that boats take to travel to the lake...and so on with the next two signs. There's an approx. 50 ft high berm that seems to encircle the lake so we stopped at a park next to the berm, grabbed Dude out of the truck and climbed to the top of the berm. We got a great view of the canal that encircles the lake! Off far in the distance we thought we saw a line of blue but couldn't be sure. There was no one near of whom to ask, "Where is the lake?". With evening coming on, we decided to return to the campground in time to have dinner before the jamming started in the clubhouse. On the return trip we passed again through Clewiston which labels itself "America's Sweetest Town". This label probably stems from the sugar cane fields and processing plants surrounding the town.
After dinner we moseyed over to the clubhouse where a jam session had started at 7pm. There were 12 people at the front playing all sorts of instruments. I saw two saxes, a violin, two banjos,
a harmonica, two guitars, bass guitar, a tambourine and two people playing spoons (yep, of the kitchen variety!). It was pretty good music too, you know, oldies but goodies with a Southern twang but toe-tapping and we even sang along to "You Are My Sunshine"! Ed and I rarely have time to join in the activities at the clubhouses but we spent an enjoyable evening listening to the talented folks last night!
The Fort Meyers, FL Staples store was our destination first thing this morning. Ft. Meyers is over on the west coast of Florida. We had two Staples coupons totalling nearly $20 that expire on Mar 31 and we were determined not to let those coupons expire before using them! After making our purchases at Staples we headed the truck towards Manatee Park which was about 5 miles away. The manatees spent cold winters in canals where the water is warmer. This particular canal was near a power plant and water from the plant keeps the water warmer. The park has a walkway that wanders along the canal where the manatees can be viewed and we spent a good hour just watching those huge lumbering beasts. Mostly they just hovered around in the water but occasionally one would roll over or come up for air. Interesting fact: The manatee's closest living relative is the elephant. Both species feed on large amounts of plants, a manatee's snout is like an elephant's trunk, both have toenails and the calves of both species remain with the mothers for a longer time.
Also in Ft. Meyers were the winter estates of both Thomas A. Edison and Henry Ford. Turns out they were good friends and so they lived near each other here in Florida. We drove by the estates but didn't stop in as it was already awfully crowded. Interesting fact: Ford was the world's first billionaire!
Drove out to Pine Island which is on Pine Island Sound just off the Gulf of Mexico. On the way back off the island we stopped at Bert's Bar (quaint little place on the water) and had lunch. We started with smelt (Ed says these fish are mostly used for bait) as an appetizer, prepared whole, breaded and fried. The first one I just popped in my mouth and discovered they also had bones in so I chomped it bones and all! Next one I gently pulled with my teeth and the meat of the smelt came right off the bones. Yum! We shared a grouper melt (like a patty melt only with fish) on flat bread with homemade chips. Oh, this was good! Oh, and a coupla beers too!

Here is the cat walk on the Cypress Swamp Trail. They would not let us take Dude due to the alligators in this area.

One of the many beautifuol ponds that we saw there!

The alligator was spotted by Betsy as we were on our way to the Highlands Hammock State Park.

This Oak tree is approx 1,000 years old.

Some of the beauty we saw in the park.

Here we are in Peace River.

Here is a picture of a stump that was on the trail along Peace River.

Here are some of the happy campers among with the trees full of spanish moss- Beautiful.

And of course Dude looking for another squirrel to chase.

It started raining Thursday night and didn't stop until there was a moat around our 5th wheel nearly 24 hours later. I was beginning to get a little worried that I'd get my feet wet just to get to the truck. Because of the rain, we changed our Friday plans and did our weekly housework early. It was also a good day to visit a museum so we went to the local Cracker Museum in Zolfo Springs. Here's the skinny on the Florida Cracker Trail: in the early 1800s cowboys from cattle ranches on the east coast of Florida would drive the cattle to the west coast of Florida along the same route as the highway now takes. The cattle would be loaded on boats in Tampa and about 85% of the cattle would sail to Cuba according to the museum curator. The term "cracker" came from the sound that the whips the cowboys used would make......a sharp crack. The sound was so loud that it could be heard miles away. The term later became associated also with the down- to-earth pioneer families that made their living from ranching and/or farming.
Saturday the sun came out and dried up all the rain!! So we hopped in the truck and set out for Highland's Hammock State Park. There are hammocks all over Florida and that doesn't mean there are a bunch of people lazing around swinging between trees. Here in Florida the word "hammock" means "A forest of broad-leafed trees surrounded by pinelands or marshes. The origin of the word hammock is obscure but you will find it a place of interesting plants and animals." It was truly an interesting place and one where someone could find peace and relaxation. But, of course, that's not what we found or did!! First we visited the Civilian Conservation Corps Museum where we found out that the CCC was created by FDR during the Great Depression in order to put young men to work in order to earn money to help their struggling families. There are several trails throughout Highlands Hammock that were worked on by the CCC and we started out to walk as many as we could with Dude as our faithful companion. On the Big Oak Trail we stood in front of an oak tree that was older than 1000 years. It was a pretty massive tree. Following Hickory Trail, Dude alerted us to a close-up encounter with another armadillo. This one was rooting around in the plants beside the trail and was not at all disturbed with our camera clicks or Dude's eagerness to play. We had to leave Dude behind to walk the Fern Garden Trail. It was a boardwalk trail with the possibility of alligator encounters and the rangers wanted to prevent pet tragedies. While on the Fern Garden Trail we did see an otter swimming around in a lagoon but no alligators. The Cypress Swamp Trail was another boardwalk trail so Dude was left behind again. It was my personal favorite of all the trails we walked that day. The boardwalk at one point turned into a catwalk with just two narrow planks to walk with handrail on just one side. This catwalk allowed a real close encounter with the swamp and made it quite an interesting adventure. The swamp is a beautiful eerie place full of strange sounds, breathtaking sights with palm trees, ferns, hanging Spanish moss, tall cypress and oak trees.
Today was mundane.....it was pack-up and laundry day. Tomorrow we move to Lake Okeechobee where we'll be close to the Florida Everglades!!

Here is Dude chasing leaves in the Gulf, while we were at De Soto National Memorial.

The Bridge from Bradenton to St Petersburg. This permitted boats from the gulf to get into Tampa Bay.

Hardee County Animal Refuge.
Bets does not look happy holding one of them Black Vultures.

Solomon's Castle, by Artist Howard

DeSoto National Memorial

Ed hitching a ride with Hernando De Soto

Florida is humid! The weather has done a 180 on us and changed from sunny, crisp and cool to warm (80s), damp, cloudy, rainy and windy. Today there was a tornado warning in one of the neighboring counties. The ranger told us not to worry about it but we did.....a little. We were leaving Dude behind in the 5th wheel and we wanted to be sure that he wasn't in danger!

Yesterday we traveled down the Florida Cracker Trail highway towards the west coast of Florida. We have some history on what the Cracker Trail is but it will have to wait until tomorrow's blog. The Cracker Museum was not open today but will be tomorrow and we will go see what it's all about. Yesterday, though.....yesterday we were going to visit the Busch Gardens in Tampa. We WERE going to visit Busch Gardens until we started reading the brochure a little more thoroughly and decided that Epcot Center had fulfilled our needs for amusement park thrills for at least a year or so. We had another brochure on Florida's Indian Heritage which appealed more to us so we programmed our GPS to take us to DeSoto National Memorial in Manatee County south of Tampa. There we found the most delightful trail that wandered thru a coastal preserve area. Once in awhile the trail veered out towards the water of a little inlet off Tampa Bay. The water was so clear and colored like turquoise near the shore. Dude enjoyed chasing wavelets and submerged leaves. He would put his snout right down into the water a couple of inches to try to catch them and then come up snorting to blow the water from his nostrils. After about a half hour of walking thru the coastal grove we came upon the exhibits of the historical site. The area had been one of DeSoto's camps as he explored, plundered and killed natives throughout Florida, Georgia, Arkansas, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana. It's really a shame how the early explorers and even, later, the Spanish priests treated the natives they found in this land. We read about how that for the native tribes, the day the Spanish explorers set foot on this continent was the beginning of the end of their way of life.

After spending a couple of hours enjoying ourselves in the sunshine, we head north to St. Petersburg by crossing a long graceful bridge across the mouth of Tampa Bay. It was really neat how right along the freeway on both sides there was a one lane road that could be accessed by offramps where people were fishing, wading, and relaxing in the sun. We drove off on one and wished that we had suits in the truck so that we could take advantage of the warm day. In St. Pete we drove to the pier area, parked and found a harborside restaurant with a patio where Dude could sit with us while we ate. We gorged on seafood gumbo with shrimp, crawfish, and sausage, salmon caesar salad, and garlic mussels!! Oh, and a couple of key lime martinis and white russians. Sorry, Dude, you can't have any!! We did walk for about a half hour along the pier after our meal to work it off and let Dude run off some energy.

We set off for home (the 5th wheel) by setting Madge (our Magellan GPS) to the "shortest distance" setting and let her guide us home along the back roads to avoid the freeway congestion. Along the way we saw a huge nest on a tall pole and either a bald eagle or osprey flying into it. A little further on, we spotted an owl sitting on a telephone wire. It's amazing that we ever get where we're going because of all the stops we make to "see" stuff! On the way thru rural central Florida to home, we passed oranges groves, cattle ranges, and phosphate processing plants. There is a lot going on in Florida that we never think about!!

Today we were going to visit the Cracker Museum to find out the story behind the Florida Cracker Trail and it was for some unknown reason closed but we were reassured that it would be open tomorrow. We always have a backup plan so we put that into action and reprogrammed for Solomon's Castle instead. We had no idea what this was. I found the listing in the GPS which is not always reliable. We let Madge give us directions and (not for the first time) she led us into the middle of nowhere with directions from her to turn on a nonexistent street. Well, we've learned patience and kept driving when....lo and behold!...there was a sign pointing down a street which was the same name as the street that Madge had wanted us to turn on a couple miles back. Funny thing was, Madge wasn't happy with this street and kept telling us to "make a U-turn". That's when I turned her off! Solomon's Castle turned out to be one of those really unique places that you're happy that you found. It was created by an eccentric Russian emigrant who built a "castle" out of cast-off old newspaper printing plates. They're light and flexible and still have the "old news" printed on the underside. The plates make the castle all silver and it has stained glass windows that Howard Solomon created. He's an artist, a carver, a writer and mostly a tinkerer. Most of the decorations inside are created by him and he's still alive and still tinkering. We saw him working away in his workshop which he apparently does most days. After our tour of the castle we decided to eat lunch in the Boat In The Moat Restaurant which he also built. The restaurant was started by his son and wife and the whole place is run mostly by family and friends. The food is all home-made and was absolutely delicious right down to the walnut pie (we shared!). To work off the meal we took off on the nature trail that wound around the castle next to a little creek and then over the bridge made by Solomon back into the yard area.

When we left the Castle and headed back to the RV Park we stopped in again to see if the Cracker Museum was open (it was not) and found an animal sanctuary instead. For a small donation we walked around the sanctuary and saw ostriches, a mountain lion, a bear, 3 fox, horned owl, deer, turtles and....alligators. The most interesting animal encounters, however, were not the ones we saw in cages. All around the sanctuary were black vultures. These are quite different-looking from the red-headed turkey vultures. They were perched in the trees and on the walkway railings. I walked up slow, talking to them and trying to make friends. They seemed to wait a little longer each time before they flew off. The closing of the sanctuary was the only thing that prevented me from bringing home a black vulture as a pet. A cat that looked a lot like our Spike, sleeping in a net covering over the otter cage, was the other non-captive animal we encountered. We actually didn't see the otters and I, according to Ed, missed seeing the cute little raccoons all curled up together but luckily, he got a picture!

We seem to be having lots of animal encounters lately. After the Kennedy Space Center, the next day we spent doing chores and hanging around the campground. On one of our walks we spotted several people standing around looking at something on the ground. We wandered over and saw a turtle that had just come out of hibernation. We knew that because it was still covered with the dirt from its burrow. As we watched a lady fed it some cantelope and the turtle seemed to enjoy the snack. Later that day we went to a local Presidents Museum. It was a cluttered collection of Presidential memorablia put together by a gentlemen who's been to every inauguration since Eisenhower. Apparently he's still collecting so the collection will have to move to a bigger building soon!
The next day we returned to Kennedy Space Center to finish seeing what we missed the first time. While there we spotted turtles, a heron and an alligator in an onsite lagoon. I enjoyed the animal encounters this time more than the exhibits! I packed a lunch and we drove to the Enchanted Forest to eat it. We worked off our meal by hiking around the forest for a bit and thought it really was quite enchanting. On the way home we stopped to view a group of turkey vultures hanging around to see if they would get lucky with some fresh roadkill. The sunset from the freeway was magnificent. The days are getting clearer, warmer and very pleasant to be out in!
Yesterday we moved south down the center of Florida. We're in Wauchula, FL now on the Peace River. Our campground stretches out along the Peace River and there is a lovely walking path along the river that our little Dudie enjoys immensely. There is always something to smell, lunge at, root around in and get excited over for him. I think he's enjoying himself. Today was another hang-around day. We're getting positively lazy with the warmth. Today and yesterday were in the 80s. Wow, we haven't experienced such warm weather since we left California. Wait, I don't think we had 80 degree weather in San Jacinto before we left home! This is nice!

Betsy n Ed in their new RV

Greeter at the Kennedy Space Center

The Discovery Shuttle that will take off 4/5/2010

Epcot Center

Dude was cold.

Bets n Dude a walking around the lake at Clearmont.