Happy New Year! 🎉

We wish everyone a Happy, Healthy New Year 🎊.

Hard to believe that it is 2015 already! 

Peace & Love 😍

Jeanie & Carp 

New Adventure!

OWe arrived in Palmetto, FL on 12/27 & will be here for five nights. The name of the campground is Frog Creek RV Resort      

There is a creek in the campground & we have been told that there are alligators in the creek however they rent kyacks & canoes to campers.  We will give it a try this week.

Today we took a ride to Sarasota to the Ringling Brothers - John & Mable Ringling Art Museum & their mansion. The grounds we beautiful & the architecture was magnificent.  We toured around the property & the art museum inside & outside. Beautiful!  Pictures to follow. 

CadZan - Means House of John where John Ringling & Eife Mable lived. 

John & Mable's mansion.

Back of the mansion right on the Gulf of Mexico. Beautiful setting. 

This is the patio which goes the length if the mansion.

The windows in the mansion are all stained glass which were chosen by Mable Ringling.  She also chose & oversaw every aspect of the mansion. 

Carp standing behind one of the awesome trees that are on the grounds. 

Of course I had to have my turn too! 

Carp rest on the limb of one of the giant trees. 

Great branch for setting on! 

Carp looking out over the water that is the back yard of the mansion. 

Outdoor gardens at the art museum. 

Statue of David overseeing the gardens.

Statues lined up on the roof of each side of the outdoor garden on the art museum. 

Magnificent!  

Enjoy. We had a wonderful day!  

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to everyone & a very Happy New Year!  

We have been at this same location for two weeks & not a whole lot to do around here so I have not had too much to post. 

We will be on the road again tomorrow. 

Peace to all! 

On The Road 12/17/14

We left the Everglades on 12/17 & ventured north of Tampa to Hudson, FL where we will be until 12/27. 

Due to fact that Christmas is this week we decided to do a little decorating of the RV. Unfortunately, Santa left his outfit @ him. 

Take care! 

New & Different Events...

On 12/15 we left the Keys & headed North to the Big Cypress National Preserve in the Everglades. In the campground we did not have internet connections so unable to post to the blog. It was so beautiful in the Everglades with tons of different kinds of birds & alligators, panthers & manatees.

Picture of our campsite in the National Preserve.  Across the street the was a body of water in the middle of the campground & all camping spaces were around it. 

Crane looking for breakfast. 

Alligator under  some downed branches hiding. 

Giant alligator & smaller one basking in the sun. When the alligators are basking they are digesting their food. 

Manatee coming up for a breath of air. 

Manatee just under the surface of the water.  This area was behind the welcome center & folks could go out on a boardwalk to see the manatees. 

Yes, panther warnings. Unfortunately or fortunately we did not come across one in our travels, although we were looking for them. 

This bird is drying out his wings & they sit in the tree with their wings out.   

These areas right next to the highway are called strands & this is where we found birds & the alligators. 

We saw common vultures as well. 

On the second day in the preserve we took an airboat ride through the glads. It was awesome. 

Awesome. We saw some more alligators in the glades as well. 

We learned that gators are very territorial & they will not allow another gator near their spot. 

This tree with birds resting was in the glades as well.

Lots of gators. 

We had a wonderful two days exploring this awesome part of our country! 

Boat Parade

Tonight we went to a boat parade in Marathon. They had boats all decked in lights for Christmas & they were judged for their decorations.  

It was very windy & cold but we stayed long enough to get a few pictures. 

Finally A Beach Day

The weather finally warmed up after a cold snap. We headed out to the beach for some relax time. We went to the Sombrero Beach here in Marathon. The beach was on the Atlantic side of the key & it is a public beach. Beautiful white sand & not busy. Extremely clean. 

They even had swings on the property so I was able to swing for a little bit. I love swings. 😃

We took a long walk on the beach and saw some jelly fish in the water while we were on a dock.

Enjoy!   

Jelly fish in the water! 

 

Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville

Today we went to Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville for lunch. They had live music today. 

We had a really extremely windy night last night. We thought that we were going to blow away, but today was still windy, but not as bad as last night. The prediction for this week's weather is to be cooler than normal. This morning it was in the 40's.

Enjoy the pics. 

Live parrot sitting on this ice cream truck. The owner charges people $10 to take a picture of the parrot sitting on people's shoulder but we did not want to have the parrot sitting in our shoulders. 

Roosters roam freely all over Key West.  

Live entertainer. He was good. 

Inside if the restaurant. 

Sunday 12/7

Hello Everyone, 

Today was a slow day catching up on food shopping, cleaning and resting up. It was sunny today, however, somewhat windy. Hopefully tomorrow will be a little calmer weatherwize. 

Key West Day Two

I

Our day started out at the Fort Zachary Taylor Historic State Park in Key West. Zachary Taylor wa the 12th President of the United States from 1849-1850.  

Typically there is nothing going on at the Fort,however, we got there at a good time. There was a Pirate Invasion at Fort Taylor Historic State Park from December 5th to 7th. 

They had Civil War tents step up inside the outdoor open space of the Fort with recreations of the Civil War era.  Folks were dressed up as pirates & they had landSea pirate battles. The battles took place down near the beach & sail boats with folks dressed in pirate garb would fire onto the land and the canons on land would fire back. 

Just as the festivities were ending a Carnival cruise ship passed by & there was loud music coming from the docks & folks were waiving back to shore.  

We caught the sunset & ended our day at the Southernmost point in Fl. 

Enjoy!