The East Coast

Last weekend we finally began to explore the rest of the state of Florida- beginning with Miami. We didn't reserve anything ahead of time, which worked out great for us as we got a great deal just off the beach in an old hotel that was built back in 1939. We spent Saturday walking around South Beach, enjoying the clear water, and getting our fill of Cuban food.

This is the hotel we stayed inn- (get it?)

The view of the beach from our room-

The entire area kept is original architecture, which made all the street scenes very uniqe and colorful.

So far, this is the best Florida beach we have seen yet. The water was clear and clean, the waves were larger than in the gulf, and the characters on the beach really kept us entertained.

Saturday night after dinner we sat outside our hotel enjoying some mixed drinks and desserts.

Sunday morning we spent a little while out on the beach before check-out time, then headed into Miami to see the Bayside Marketplace, which my Dad worked on back during construction. He tells me I saw it back when I was 9 months, and as far as I can tell, it hasn't changes a bit.

Following another great Cuban meal, we headed on back to St. Pete via Alligator Alley. Not much to see on this drive...

-Grant

Mom's Visit & Dana's Birthday

Last weekend my Mom (this is Grant typing) came to visit us from San Antonio. We had a great weekend showing her around our corner of Florida, visiting the beaches, restaurants, and of course our gator friend as introduced in the last post. Mom flew out Monday, but before she left we spent the morning kitten shopping for Dana's birthday while she was hard at work at the VA.

We started the trip with a run back up to John Chestnut Park, which we had pictures from in the last post. We wanted to show my Mom an alligator, and luckily one was there ready for us. He actually hung around longer than last time, and we even got to see him swim away.






A few other critters/plants in the park...





The next day we spent some time down at the beach in Sarasota, then made our way back up to St. Pete for dinner. We ate at Crabby Bills and were able to watch another great sunset on the beach.



On Monday, Mom and I went kitten shopping while Dana was at work. We were able to find a cute little gray one that has been a lot of fun (except for the constant meowing...) Happy Birthday!

-Grant

John Chestnut Park

So the last time we posted it was Dana's weekend work that had kept us from having new exciting pictures to put up- this time I am to blame. After weeks of late nights working I have finally reached September 15th, and will actually get to leave work while the sun is still shining. What a novel concept.

Last weekend I was able to leave work one afternoon just in time to go home, grab the camera and Dana, and head up to John Chestnut Park; which lies on Lake Tarpon a little north of us in Clearwater. I was told by someone at work that there were some gators there, and I had been dieing to see one in the "wild" (since then I have seen 3 from my office window).

While we were able to see a gator at the park, we also saw a lot of other various animals- much to our surprise. And mosquitoes. A lot of mosquitoes. Remember when I said I just had time to get home and grab the camera and Dana? Yeah, well.. we missed the bug-spray.

Alright, on to the good stuff... lining the ponds in this humid hole of a park were these signs warning us of the monster gators that, at any moment, would rush from the water and eat you...

As you can see, it was truly frightening...

(yeah, I know... we are easily entertained)

In reality though, the gators seem to be pretty calm and elusive. Or we lucked out- cause we pretty much just walked the banks of the ponds hoping to stumble across one of them; and probably could have been eaten at any time.

After a few minutes of looking at the stagnant water and swatting away the pesky bugs we finally saw one. He, or she, was pretty small.. maybe 2 or 3 feet long. Regardless- we saw an alligator in its natural habitat.

While walking through the rest of the park we stumbled upon some more wildlife...

A fish that was munching on some weeds:

A mama squirrel that was much more aggressive than the gator ever imagined being:

A big dumb bird:

And, finally, a huge monster buck:

In the middle of the mosquito fight and the wild animal stalking I also took a few other random pictures that I thought were worth sharing...

-Grant

Cape Canaveral

Dana has been working the past few weekends, so we haven't been able to do much traveling lately. She had this past Saturday off, so we decided to make a run out to the east coast of Florida to visit The Kennedy Space Center and check out the beaches. While planning the upcoming day's activities late Friday night, Dana found that there was a rocket launch planned for the next morning. We decided since we were going out that way anyways we might as well get up and be there for the launch. The only downside- the launch was at 7:07 am, we live 2 hours away, and it was already 10:30 or so at night. That didn't stop us, however, and we headed out of St. Petersburg at 4:30 am to get there in time. It went as planned(after Dana woke me up like 7 times), and we were sitting out on a dock about 13 miles away with 20 minutes to spare. While waiting, we got to view a beautiful Florida Sunrise...

Within a few minutes the Atlas V rocket launched as scheduled. The fireball at takeoff was easily visible from the 13 mile distance, and about a minute later the rumble from the blast was pretty amazing. I can't wait to experience this when there is a shuttle launch(Nov. 1).

The next picture is zoomed in at the trail left behind by the rocket. The sun just rising lit it up beautifully, and the sun rays shining through were amazing... the pictures don't really do it justice.

Here are a few more shots of the dock that we were at while watching. This was in Titusville, FL.

Next, we left Titusville and went to the Space Center to tour their visitor center and complex. That was a pretty neat experience, there is so much history at that one site. The first picture is of the launch complex that was used that morning for the Atlas V launch. The second is of the retired Enterprise shuttle. You are able to go inside of the bay of it with a view inside the cabin. It surprised us how small the shuttles actually are, especially the living quarters. The last picture is of Dana with one of the two current shuttle launch sites behind her. Good times.

-Grant

What I Miss About Texas: Part 1

Howdy people! Just a quick hello from the Sunshine State. Actually, the sun has been out way more lately (and work is totally getting in my way...). Here is my top 5 list of "What I Miss About Texas."

5. The Lone Star mentality. We Texans are proud of where we are from. I didn't know what the Florida flag looked like til yesterday (oh, and the Tejas flag is waaaayyyyy cooler).



VS.

4. SALSA! Let me re-phrase: good, hot salsa. All we get is what I make, but I think I'm improving with each batch.

3. Dry-ness. It is ALWAYS humid here. Like really, really humid. My hair looks wet when I come inside sometimes. It's a little gross.

2. Texas country music! Some Cory Morrow or Randy Rogerss not on a CD would suit me fine right about now. On that note, Shooter Jennings (Waylon Jennings' son) is going to be in St. Pete in September and I cannot wait. It may be more Southern Rock, but hey it is as good as it gets here.

1. My People! I miss everyone...

Here is a picture of my ladies and me...

Mi familia.

-Dana