Florida Part One

by Kate (and Mom)

Thursday found us at the beach. It was supposed to become sunny by mid-morning, but the sun didn’t come out until late afternoon. It was tons of fun but we all missed the sun.

First we got out and looked at Turtle Beach. I’m not sure why we didnt stay there, but we didn’t; we went to Siesta Key Beach which is the #1 beach in the US.

Yeah, we’re from IL!

We found all sorts of cool little creatures which included shells, a seastar, sand dollars, and sea urchins.

Jesse’s Challenger.

The sun finally came out!

Friday we started off by going to Myakka State Park. We went on an air boat ride on which we saw lots of birds and alligators.

We saw lots of alligators on this airboat ride – a local lady sitting beside me said she had been on this tour six times and had never ever seen as many alligators as we did. Our captain said he did this tour last week, and on one trip, they saw none; so we were thankful we could see so many. Our captain also shared lots of interesting information about this lake. The most impressive to me is that this lake, all 1000 acres of it, was entirely rainwater. At its deepest point in the middle, it was about six feet deep; most of the lake was about two feet deep! At one point I looked over the side and could see the sandy bottom about a foot down. Pretty neat (if I didn’t think about the alligators floating around us…).

After the ride was over, we had a quick lunch before going on a couple of little hikes.

Little lizard thingys were all over.

First walk was the Canopy Walk which was pretty cool.

We sorta broke the rule about only four people on the bridge at a time.

On the Canopy Hike there was a 76.1 foot wooden tower to climb.

The view from the top was awesome, but the pictures don’t really look that neat.

Next up was a Bird Walk Boardwalk.

Way off on the other side of the lake we could see the airboat we had ridden earlier.

Next stop -

We were going to a library to look at a big fish tank that they have, but it was closed; so looking through the window had to do.

The last stop Friday was going to the beach to watch the sunset.

The tide was coming in and the waves were pretty big; so Jake and Ben decided to go play in the waves. They didn’t have swimming trunks so their jeans had to do the job.

The sky was beautiful.

After the sunset we went back to our house, swam, had supper, and then watched Ol’ Yeller.

Saturday morning we woke up early, planning to find a warmer sunnier beach an hour and a half further south. The closer we got to Naples, the more disappointed we were as the fog just did not dissipate like we were hoping it would. After a quick meeting of the board of directors and a phone call to Grandpa Kaisers who were in Fort Lauderdale, the unanimous vote was to keep trucking across the state for another two hours and join them in their warm sunshine. And were we glad we did! We drove in fog until we were 25 minutes or so from Fort Lauderdale; but once we finally drove out of it, we never saw another cloud ALL DAY except when we were packing up the van to head home. I didn’t get many good pictures, but the waves, sun, and blue sky were perfect and well worth the 3 1/2 hour drive it took to get there. We brought a healthy dose of the sun home with us; I was oh-so-glad I had picked up some aloe gel that morning “just in case.” Well yes, we used LOTS of sunscreen; but when one is pasty Northern white to start with, it doesn’t take much to fry one to a crisp cherry red! Well the aloe gel has helped immensely; and I really haven’t heard much complaining at all about sunburn. I think everyone had too much fun to regret anything by complaining! The water was warm, the sun was blazing hot, the waves were huge (well to us they were anyway), the sand was much nicer than the “#1 beach” @ Siesta Key, and we all had a blast!

Thanks so much G & G, U. Jerry & A. Marcia, and Mike & Carmen for letting us share your beach home for a day. We enjoyed it greatly!