Paddling through the Mangroves

"Dear Blog," said Glenn,

"You're trying to kill me."

More on this sentiment in a moment. First, some peaceful images from around the homestead.

 A lazy Saturday morning

This is Henry - a Chinese Elm Bonsai that Glenn received from me as an early birthday gift.

Hi, Biscus!

This is my new Hibicus - a very happy plant. I discovered that Hibiscus flowers only bloom for one day and then fall off, and new ones bloom the next day. Aren't you learning a lot from this blog?

Here are some other happy plants in our yard.

I'm not a plant, but I'm just too cute!

Ok, so after a quiet start, Glenn and I headed to Weedon Nature Preserve in St. Petersburg to go kayaking through the Mangroves.

I should mention that it has been spectacularly hot. So hot that birds are just bursting into flame in mid-air. (POOF!) //singed feathers float to ground

Glenn and I were given a map, a 2-person kayak, and wished good luck before setting off into the Gulf of Mexico. We were told the trip would take about 3 hours and was 6 miles long.

About five minutes in I said my arms were tired from rowing and Glenn agreed. This did not bode well. Did I also mention the heat?

So anyway, also just a few minutes into our trek I see a big dorsal fin headed right towards us in a rapid manner. Kayaks are low in the water so you are quite close to the action. I was terrified that a shark was about to bite our kayak in half, but it turned out to be two dolphins who swam right next to us for a moment before swimming away. They were both bigger than the kayak so it was still a dramatic moment. Poor Glenn could not get to his camera in time, so you will have to take my word for it.

So for a long time, we had to paddle over these huge open expanses of bay in the blazing hot sun, but eventually we found some respite in the mangroves.

Here's one of the signs showing where you go in, and you can see, there isn't a lot of headroom.

But inside these mangroves, it's almost like being on another planet.

I don't think you can see them in the pictures but all the trees were covered in thousands of little black crabs. We also saw some other wildlife.

We actually saw two of these Night Herons (above), which were about two feet tall and completely unfazed that we stopped just a few feet away to snap some pics.

We also saw a bald eagle sitting on a sign, but he flew off before we got close enough to take a pic.

The other thing that was highly entertaining as we had to go across the big open expanses of water was that we had never seen so many jumping fish in our lives. Big fish. Jumping like 3 feet out of the water. It was like our own fishy fireworks show.

Obviously, it's hard to capture a fish jumping, but they were all over the place. The people at the kayak place said they were probably mostly mullet, with some bingo and ladyfish.

And, since we're showing all the wildlife, here is a gopher tortoise we saw inland...

So about halfway through the trip we were exhausted and hot and sore from rowing, but you pretty much have to just keep going anyway. Ultimately, we finished in a little over two hours (we made good time), but I don't think we could have gone for five more minutes.

This was around the time that Glenn said the Blog was going to kill him.  :-)  Soon, we'll be jumping out of airplanes for your entertainment.

That night, we decided we had earned a nice meal out, so we went to Caretta's on the Gulf, a fancy restaurant in the Sand Pearl Resort in Clearwater. Very nice.

Sunday, we resolved to have a quiet day at home, although Glenn still cut the grass (did I mention the heat?!) So Sunday night, we decided to go for a long drive and head to Siesta Key in Sarasota (about an hour and 15 minutes away) for dinner.

The village of Siesta Key is still cute, but it was packed with people. Ugh. It took us forever to find a place to park, and then we had a fairly poor dining experience.  However, there was a dog at the bar - and that made things a little better.

But Siesta Key Beach really is quite lovely, and yes, of course, we went to see the sunset. I hope you folks aren't sick of sunset pics yet, because we aren't sick of taking them.

So that's it for this week, folks. Hope you all have an awesome week and Fourth of July holiday and I'll be back to share more with you soon!

The Wild Life

Hi Everyone and welcome to this week's blog -

The weekend got off to a inauspicious start - mostly due to the blonde dog misbehaving. (I know - it's hard to believe!)

1.) Mojo decided to pretend she was the "Hey, Kool-Aid" guy and just came barreling through our screen door, which I then had to repair in the 90+ degree heat. Deuce decided to help.

2.) Mojo caught a possum. There are no pictures of this, but rest-assured, we all had a chaotic and drama filled afternoon as I tried to keep the angry dying possum from biting the dogs or visa versa. Sadly, the possum ultimately did not fake his own death. No dogs or humans were injured.

Saturday was mostly spent doing work around the homestead. But, in the interest of doing something blog-worthy, on Sunday we headed to Boca Ciega Millennium Park in Seminole. The park is on the Great Florida Birding Trail, and in 2007, they had a major discovery of fossils there - including the bones of a Mammoth and a Giant Sloth.

They also have a big observation tower there, overlooking Boca Ciega Bay. Here are some pics from there.

There were also lots of tiny crabs.

As well as this guy. Not sure what kind of bird this is. Maybe a night heron?

Anyway, it was a very hot day, but we had a pretty walk before we got lost off a trail and Glenn got chased by a bee.

Hello there!

Blue heron

After this hike, we both went home and took a nap (and then walked the dogs, ugh!) and then headed back out. This time we went to St. Pete Beach. We haven't gone there since we moved and were happy to discover it is only a half hour drive, because it's one of my favorite beaches down here.

Love this pic!

So that's it for us this week. Things definitely improved after the possum incident. Hope you are all well!

Vegas, Baby, Vegas!

Hey all, and welcome to our special Vegas edition of the blog.

Glenn and I got up at 3:45 am last Thursday and flew across the country to stay at the Aria Resort in Vegas with our friends, Matty and Julie.

Aria is one of the newer hotels/casinos on the strip and it is beautiful (and it smells like vanilla.)

I stole this pic but the rest are ours. :-)

Lobby

Courtyard between Aria and Crystals Shops

Inside Crystals. (Yes, Mom, that is an amazing Starbucks!)

And here is the whole gang...

This was the view out our window.

This building (below with the Zarkana poster on the front), called the Harmon Tower, has an interesting story. It was built to be a hotel / condo as part of City Center and was supposed to be 48 floors. They got to floor 26 when they had inspectors come in and they determined that the building was terribly unsafe - any earthquake would immediately flatten it, and it was too unsafe for anyone to live in. So, instead of fixing it, they are now in the process of tearing it down.There are over $400 million in damage suit claims associated with this mess.

So anyway, some highlights from the trip. Friday the 13th ended up being a very lucky day for Glenn and I. He spent the morning at Planet Hollywood (while Julie and I went shopping) and won a bunch of money at blackjack. Later, Julie and Matty went to watch one of the World Cup games, so Glenn and I were on our own.

We ate at Mon Ami Gabi for lunch at the Paris - one of our favorite restaurants in Vegas (and they have a great gluten free menu).

Here it is from across the street - see the little red umbrellas?

So then we went over to Bellagio.

(We actually went and saw the fountain show on another day, but I'll include those pics here as well.)

The view inside the Bellagio is not too shabby either.

 

Ok - so anyway, the most exciting part of the day was when Glenn and I went over to our old stomping grounds - the Excalibur - and played some roulette. Glenn and I both like betting on number 17 (for our anniversary), and 17 hit 5 times in 7 spins. So, in about 20 minutes, we made $1,400. EEEEEE!

That night we had dinner at Julian Serrano's - an amazing tapas place at Aria, and then went to New York, New York to see a Cirque de Soleil show. (We also won at Blackjack there!)

The lucky Budda is behind us.

Sadly, there are just too many things to share without being a total bore. So I will jump to our last night in Vegas. Matty and Julie had left, and Glenn and I went to dinner and then headed over to the Wynn.

Come Lose at the Wynn!

We had horrible luck at the Wynn. In fact, we had three dollars in chips that we cashed in at the Cashier's desk. The guy asked if I wanted a security escort. Haha! But we got some nice pics...

So anyway, there are still a ton of pics, but I've got to wrap this up. Sorry it is so long. Vegas is so fun and action-packed, but also a bit exhausting. We are glad to be home.

Speaking of which, Glenn got some surprisingly good pics out the window of the plane as we flew over Pinellas County on our return trip, so I will share those as well.

So that's it for the Vegas edition of the blog. Hope you are all having a great week!