Doreen and Laura's Excellent Adventure: Exploring Florida

February 13, 2019 - March 24, 2019

OMG - You're excused if you think we were drunk! Just wandering in the wilderness!

This time period took us to various places in central part of Florida. Roughly the trip went as follows:

Davenport, FL to Bartow, FL where we had the roof of our motorhome repaired.

Bartow, FL to Tampa, FL where we visited our friends Claudie and Linda in Safety Harbor.

Tampa, FL to Saint Petersburg, FL where I again visited my cousins Helen and Bonnie.

Saint Petersburg, FL to Dunnellen, FL where we visited two women we met in Nova Scotia last year.

Dunnellen, FL to Brooksville, FL where we enjoyed some down time.

Brooksville, FL back to Bartow, FL where we had some additional work done on our motorhome.

Bartow, FL to Clermont, FL where we visited our friends Robin and Lee, David and Dave, Nancy and Diana and we also reconnected with our camp hosts from Woolastook Park in New Brunswick - Cheryl and Blaine.

Clermont, FL to Hillsborough River State Park, FL where we visited our friends Alice and Bill.

Hillsborough River State Park, FL to Arcadia, FL where we once again visited our friends Elsie and Fred.

Arcadia, FL to Fort Myers, FL were we came to do some shelling on the local beaches - esp. on Sanibel Island.

BARTOW, FL

We both still find the Spanish "moss" hanging in the trees a bit creepy.

Bougainvillea is blooming everywhere in a variety of colors.

We think this is a Tabebuia tree. Bright yellow blooms an a bare tree followed by leaf growth.
Very showy although this one is a bit sparse.

TAMPA, FL

Mango tree just over the fence at our campground in Tampa.
Sure would love to be able to grow one of these!

SAFETY HARBOR, FL

Philippe Park in Safety Harbor, Florida.

ST. PETERSBURG, FL

Glass scultpture by Chihuly in Saint Petersburg.

Another Chihuly sculpture.

more works by Chihuly...

DUNNELLEN, FL

Rainbow Springs in Dunnellen, Florida.
The spring puts out 490 million gallons of fresh water a day!

BROOKSVILLE, FL

Part of our campground in Brooksville, Florida.

CLERMONT, FL

Lee, Robin, David and Dave (aka "The Daves")

Just a small dinner at Robin and Lee's.
L-R: Diana, Nancy, Dave, Lee, Robin, David and Laura.

HILLSBOROUGH RIVER STATE PARK, FL

Small rapids on the Hillsborough River.

Lots of kayaking fun can be had on the Hillsborough River.

Since we last saw Alice and Bill in Jacksonville, Alice made each of us a pine needle basket from needles she collected herself. She is amazingly artistically talented. I wish I had some pictures of the stained glass windows she's made. You may also remember she's the one who made us the little alligators I showed you several entries ago.
THANK YOU ALICE! WE LOVE YOU!

ARCADIA, FL

Barred owl at the Peace River Wildlife Center.

Brown Pelican with only one wing. Many such birds of various species live at the Wildlife Center.
Thousands of injured or abandoned animals and birds are brought to the center every year.
Over 79 percent of them are released back into the wild. Those that can't fend for themselves remain here where they
represent the difficult issues wildlife face in the wild.

Fred and Elsie and I wait for a St. Patrick's Day parade to start in Punta Gorda, Florida.

The parade begins and the unmistakable sound of bagpipes fills the air.

We found this T-shirt for Laura while we were waiting for the parade to begin.

You know you've met a serious sewer when she has a (computerized) sewing/embroidery machine
like this one and a box of thread which contains only her blue and green threads (see below)!
Other boxes contain other color combinations!

I asked Elsie for a demonstration of how the machine does embroidery!

The machine gets it's instructions for each pattern from a computer program which

you purchase or trade with friends. The user instructions come in a separate .pdf file.

The starting materials are locked in place in the embroidery hoop which is attached to the arm you see at the left of the picture of the sewing machine above.

The machine (which self threads!!!!) does all the sewing on it's own, stopping when you need to cut material off or add material on or change thread colors.

The machine is sewing the pattern onto the assembled materials.

Elsie is cutting material off as directed by the instructions.

Elsie is adding material to the bottom of the project. She uses the blue tape to make sure the material doesn't move during the next sewing operation.

The finished product.

THANKS FOR MAKING US THE YIN/YANG COASTERS ELSIE!
AND FOR THE EMBROIDERY DEMONSTRATION ON YOUR FABULOUS SEWING MACHINE.

FORT MYERS BEACH, FL

Bowman's Beach on Sanibel Island, FL

Lots of people look for beautiful shells on Florida's many beaches.

The wrack line (aka high tide line) on Bowman's Beach.

Alligator skeleton in the visitor center at the J.N. "Ding" Darling National Wildlife Refuge Center.
Notice how similar the structure is to our own bones. This is especially true in the legs and feet/hands.

American White Pelicans relaxing in the J.N. "Ding" Darling National Wildlife Refuge Center.
We had hoped to see a bunch of Roseate Spoonbills but they must have been hiding the day we were there.