Aug 16 - FL

August 23rd, 2005 | By April | No Comments »

Day 15 - Today was not very eventful. We took the car to get it oiled and lubed, so it can feel refreshed and keep us going along the blacktop roads. After that we just trucked it up the highways towards Tampa, Fl – staying at Little Manatee State Park, this campground went on our favorites list. It was a very clean park with one of the cleanest restrooms I’ve seen. Everything was well taken care of with lots of thought put into keeping the grounds and facilities up and running. It also had a great community feel and offered canoe rentals and had accommodations and trails for horses.

There was, of course, another thunderstorm that night – I am going to miss the storms when they are gone.

There were signs all over this area saying watch out for golf carts, it was just north of our the campgrounds. It was kind of funny.

Waffle House is a great small semi-fast food place that seems more popular than McDonalds out here.

updated pics

August 19th, 2005 | By April | No Comments »

Okay - so all the pics (I think) are updated —

We are in New Orleans today and it’s dinner, or I mean, supper time.. So, the updated post of the past few days will happen in the morning w/ pics

Take care all - ap & ja

a note

August 16th, 2005 | By April | 3 Comments »

I will post a bunch of images next chance I get, that will go with all the events we’ve written about …. promise! Have a great day!!

Aug 15 - FL

August 16th, 2005 | By April | 1 Comment »

Day 14 – Early to rise were we and we drove out of the keys while watching the sunrise off the coast, one of the best mornings we’ve had. We made our way to Everglades National Park, an amazing ecosystem that is made up 1.5 million acres of S. Florida. How the whole water/river flows through the park is impressive and a natural wonder. It is a very interesting place to visit and everyone should experience it. Though summer months are not the best due to misquotes. We took a boat tour out on the Florida Bay and saw a bunch of birds, the fin of a shark, and a school of dolphins. We watched the dolphins off the side of the boat for about 15 minutes or more. They were very graceful and mesmerizing to watch swim. As we left the dolphins, one of them gave us a farewell and breached for us. After that we hiked along one of the many nature trails and boardwalks to view some very big alligators, and a swimming turtle, in the wild surroundings. It was a full and eventful national park day.

the school of dolphins that delighted us with their visit.

Didn’t see any Florida Panthers but we saved a small turtle from getting run over — he wanted to try and cross the road, but wasn’t making much progress.

One of the many alligators in the park, resting in the shade under the boardwalk - it was really hot

On the boardwalk at the Everglades Nat. Park

A cricket resting on the boardwalk in the Everglades Nat. Park.

The sunset at the north of the Everglades National Park in the Big Cypress National Perserve

Aug 13/14 - FL

August 16th, 2005 | By April | No Comments »

Day 12/13 - After another great night of sleep on my favorite couch, Jason and I headed down to Key West to visit the childhood home of our friend Tess, who sadly could not make it due to two huge exams she has to take for her PHD in a week, everyone wish her the best of luck!! — Tess, we missed you a bunch and wish you were there! As nice as she is, she hooked us up with her parents, Mimi and Simon, who live on Boca Chica Key. They were very gracious and let us stay in their rental vacation/retreat house next door. This was the most beautiful place I can think of when picturing tropical blue waters and peaceful islands. Right out the bedroom and living room windows was the light blue warm Atlantic Ocean. They are placed right on the water facing east, and have great patios to lounge on and kayaks to take out and explore the mangrove forest nearby or the ocean. If you are ever in the area or want a vacation in the Keys give them a call or email, they have great prices, package deals (anything from a trip on their lobster boat w/dinner to massages by the ocean), and retreats or just weekend getaways. Their information is Beach Music Retreats: email: simi01@bellsouth.net phone: 305-923-7800. I highly recommend it.

a cheezey grin and more importantly the view from the living room windows — see the ocean right there!! and the horizon, so beautiful and I already miss it…

Jason kayaking and the duck that joined us

Our first night there we went to downtown Key West to watch the sunset at Mallory Sq. It was fun, with tons of street artists doing some really silly and amazing things, and tourists from all walks of life. We had a relaxing dinner on a roof deck restaurant of Turtle Kraals that looks over the historic harbor and the lightening storm that was in the distance.

sunset festival at Mallory Square…

We stayed an extra day in Key West just to fully relax and enjoy not moving around. We did nothing all day and Jason made a nice meal that we shared in the evening in the wonderful company of Mimi and Simon.

The sunrise as we left Boca Chica Key.. worth the early morning

A few side pictures:

a storm that we drove into going to the Keys

this is how they get their electricity out — I find it a bit counterintuitive - always great to see how creative people solve problems.. I am sure we will see a lot more as we go.

Can’t live without cell towers — Florida is so flat you can spot each one… on the thought of flat Florida, going into Alabama there were some hills - it blew me away at first, I got so use to the flat water land of FL - literally water everywhere you look.

Aug 12 - FL

August 16th, 2005 | By April | 1 Comment »

Day 11 - We woke up in the comfy living room of Viviana & Gustavo’s in Kendall, Miami. It was one of the best nights of sleep I have ever had. One, the couch is extremely comfortable and two, I was so tired when we finally went to sleep that I had a solid nights sleep. They were very generous with their time and showed us all around the Miami neighborhoods and took us to South Beach for a dip and some snacks. Saw a lot drunk college students and was glad not to be in there shoes. Lots of art deco hotels and happy to be staying at our friends house. And the temperature was very humid and hot and was happy to use as much air conditioning environments as we could find!

It is strange to have so many beaches accessible and right on the city water front. Beyond that the merge of city and beach life, the beaches were so clean with crazy warm crystal blue water. The downtown area is really building up with the construction of new high-rise buildings, and you can see the future of the city is going to become more of metropolitan in the next year. They also showed us one of our first favorite snacks, a Cuban pastry with cheese, very delicious.

Gustavo also helped us get our website up and working, the website genius he is check him at www.virtualflux.com, so everyone thank him for being able to finally use the website – Thank you Gustavo!

Miami… beaches and city - a great mix

Miami…

Our gracious hosts!

Aug 11 - SC/GA/FL

August 16th, 2005 | By April | No Comments »

Day 10 – City Visits. Today we went to Charleston, SC and Savannah, GA. Charleston is very nice historic town with affluent stores and fancy houses, or should I say mansions. Unfortunately, it down poured when we first got there, but the storm let up after about 20 minutes and we went out and ventured around.

Savannah, I enjoyed walking around the city viewing it’s beautiful houses with iron work on all the stairs and balcony railings, very artistic, along with all the nicely manicured squares and parks. I certainly want to go back to Savannah and spend some more time exploring the streets.

When we hit Jacksonville, FL we had a decision to make: either camp out on the coast outside of Jacksonville with the great potential of having some thunderstorms during the night; or drive until midnight and stay at a friends house in Miami. We choose the later of the two.

The bridge into Charleston, Va - a rainey day..

The mansions by the waterfront downtown Charleston

The fountain at Forsyth Park in Savannah, Ga

Really cool mossy trees that are all over Savannah

Oops, I almost didn’t make the timer…

Aug 10 - SC

August 16th, 2005 | By April | No Comments »

Day Nine – We took the ferry, 2-1/4 hours long, from Ocracoke Island to Cedar Island and drove our way down to Myrtle Beach. Myrtle Beach was something else!. We went down US-17 South and found tons of interesting cultural events, it was marked on our atlas as a scenic route – it was scenic, but not in the way we would normally think. For one, I have never seen so many pancake & waffle houses in my life – at one point during the strip-mall of many breakfast houses there was an national house of pancakes, an Ihop, a national house of omelets & pancake, a waffle house, and one more (that I can’t remember the name of) all in one block. Than, there are the unforgettable Disneyland type miniature golf courses that could almost out number the amount of casinos in Las Vegas. They even had a few miniature golf courses in the sprawl next to the gas stations when leaving town, just in case you didn’t get a chance to play a few holes while you were at Myrtle Beach. And you can’t miss the ton of beach paraphernalia super stores and the 3 Hooter’s restaurants that lined the highway. All of this, and more, in just 19 mile strip. A perfect vacation scene.

We stopped that night at Buck Hall Campground in Francis Marion National Forest outside of Cape Rowain Wildlife Refuge. We planned on staying at the Myrtle Beach State Park, but their tents sites (which I was correct to being their over flow sites with no water and electricity hook ups - not tent sites) kind of spooked us out. Do you even walk into an area or place and look around and nothing feels quiet right or comfortable?? Yeah, that is what we were feeling when we drove through the campsite, and the ground was pretty wet which probably flood if it stormed, which was a 70% chance. When we went back to the office and told them we were going to move on, we found out someone got shot at the campgrounds the previous night. We’re glad to move on.

Aug 9 - NC

August 16th, 2005 | By April | No Comments »

Day Eight - Time for a normal room, we finally stayed in our first hotel room tonight, it was nice to be in a bed that didn’t have the height limitation of 4’-0�? and also to have a bathroom that was just yours, and not have to ‘go outside’ to get to it. Though, we still got a spider visit in our bathroom sink before we left the next morning – bigger than a Washington State house spider and nothing I wanted to deal with, a good inch and half in size, so I left it for the maid. That day and night was spent still in Cape Hatteras National Seashore and on Ocracoke Island. They have a pub on this island called Howard’s Pub that had over 200 varieties of beer and at least twenty of them on tap. It is a must visit if you go through there.

A pic on the free ferry to Ocracoke Island

Jason cutting up and eatting some Sprite Melon on the beach - really really good melon and seems to be only available in NC

Aug 8 - NC

August 13th, 2005 | By April | 3 Comments »

Day Seven – We decided to get our best experience at the Merchant’s Millpond State Park and rented a canoe from the state park to paddle around for an hour in the water-forest of cypress trees. It was an amazing and mystical experience to drift smoothly through trees and friendly dragonflies, and for some reason no mosquitoes. Definitely recommended it you are given the chance. So far, that was one of the best parts of our current traveling.

Outerbanks here we come. We drove our way into the Cape Hatteras National Seashore along the northern coast of North Carolina. Along the way we visited the Wright Brother’s Memorial, which was worth seeing. It is really great to be reminded how two people, when they really put their mind to something, can accomplish so much and even change the world just with their ideas and determination. We stayed at the Frisco Campground (really nice!) and had a perfect dinner that night. It was made from a bunch produce we bought from a roadside stand and threw together in the frying pan with some garlic and cheese. The air was warm (but not humid) with a bit of wind, no misquotes, and a relaxing atmosphere as the sun started to hide behind the horizon. Than, right as dusk set, we quickly found out why everyone else was in there netted picnic table rooms. The mosquitoes slowly came out, clinging on to our arm hairs as they were blown by us in the wind. These suckers were viscous and their needle mouths were very painful. We quickly tried to clean up from dinner (not having bug repellant, since earlier it seemed that the wind would keep them a bay, made us work extremely fast) and much to our surprise, right at full darkness they brought out the troops and punctured very vein of blood warm and flesh that was available.

During the middle of the night, besides waking up scratching my war wounds, an intense thunderstorm rolled off the coast and into islands. It sounded as if the thunder would flatten everything down as a train does when running over a penny. We stayed nice and dry in our tent with our extra tarp over the top – I just wish we could have watched the lightening. It sounded amazing and made me feel like a kid again jumping at the sound of the thunder.

Master Jedi (aka The Tortoise, not referring to his speed but his hardshell and cleverness!) & April at the beach campsite