The Florida recap

Florida was wonderful! Sunshine, flowers, etc. It was a tad chilly since for the most part the temperatures stayed below 70 and it was extremely windy but that didn't stop Sam from swimming -- in the heated swimming pool.

We headed to Key West for a day but hadn't realized it would take us nearly two hours to get there. We tried the beach but within two minutes of setting down our towels the wind started to blow and it started to pour. We decided to explore a bit and it's a very quaint and beautiful place full of roosters. They're everywhere and quite used to being chased by small children.

The high point for Sam was feeding the tarpons at Robbie's Pier. The fish are huge -- they can get up to 150 lbs or so -- and they line up waiting for people to feed them. When they're full they move out of the feeding area and other tarpon take their place. They're surprisingly orderly. The pelicans, however, are great opportunists, snatching fish right out of people's hands and catching fish being thrown to the tarpon. There is someone there with a pole chasing them away at all times and still, they're right there taking the keys out of your pockets in hopes that they're edible.

We did a glass bottom boat tour of a coral reef from Pennekamp park. We saw a sea turtle and a stingray as well as a nice variety of coral and fish. And a tee shirt.

On our last day we'd planned to spend a little time in Miami Beach but when we got there police were everywhere. VP Biden was in town for some meeting and there was an impressive line of police motorcycles.

Flights went just fine for once and as we were lined up in the gateway for one of our flights Sam started singing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" and was highly embarrassed and hid his head in my leg when people clapped at the end.

Snapshots of the trip.



But you really need to see the tarpon feeding to believe it.


And the pelicans. They're everywhere.