April 2005
South Florida, USA
From 21 to 29 April we made a roadtrip through Florida with Amy's parents. We swam with dolphins, canoed in the Everglades, snorkeled the coral reef and saw lots of alligators. We also visited Key West, Sanibel Island, two national parks and NASA Kennedy Space Center.
|
1/31 On Thursday 21 April we flew from Amsterdam to Washington D.C. to Orlando with United Airlines and arrived at 8:00pm. Amy's parents Ramon and Mary picked us up at the airport.
|
2/31 The next day we left our Motel 6 in Orlando and drove down I-4 and I-75 to Fort Myers.
|
3/31 On the way we stopped at Oscar Scherer State Park, just south of Sarasota, where we had lunch at one of the picnic tables.
|
4/31 In the state park we did the Lester Finley trail where we saw lots of butterflies.
|
5/31 When we arrived in Fort Myers we visited Ramon's friend Donald and his wife Pat, who showed us their house on Fort Myers Beach and the beach.
|
6/31 On Saturday 23 April we left our Ta-Ki-Ki hotel in Fort Myers and headed for Sanibel Island, where Ramon used his metal dectector on Bowman's Beach and found 11 cents. That is us in the background.
|
7/31 After the beach we drove through J.N. Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge, where we saw Manatees in the distance and an American Crocodile, both endangered species.
|
8/31 We spotted lots of birds including this white Ibis.
|
9/31 We drove on to Captiva island where we did a cruise and spotted several dolphins and Osprey nests. We had a wonderful dinner on the island at the Bubble Room Restaurant.
|
10/31 The next day we drove the Tamiami Trail and did a short trail.
|
11/31 From Monroe Station we did the unpaved scenic loop road where we spotted many alligators.
|
12/31 We drove to Everglades' National Park's Shark Valley visitor center and made a small walk where we saw this large gator on the walking path.
|
13/31 On Monday 25 April we drove to Everglades via Coe Visitor Center and did the Aningha Trail by the Royal Palm area. We saw lots of gators, anhinga (pictured here) and turtles.
|
14/31
|
15/31 At Flamingo we had picnic lunch and rented a canoe for four hours.
|
16/31 We canoed down Buttonwood Canal for 2.5 hours and did not see much wildlife but two gators near the start of our journey.
|
17/31 On Tuesday morning we had an appointment at Key Largo's Dolphins Plus for our 8:30am structured dolphins swim.
|
18/31 Our swim with L.B., Ding and their baby Kai was most excellent. We did lots of tricks and even got a gift.
|
19/31 That afternoon we drove to John Pennekamp coral reef state park where Amy's parents had a glass-bottom boat ride and we snorkeled at Grecian Rocks on Florida's coral reef.
|
20/31 On Wednesday we drove from Key Largo to Key West and stopped at Robbie's on Islamorado to feed the tarpon (and pelicans).
|
21/31 Next stop was Bahia Honda state park, where Ramon metal-detected and we had a look at the butterfly garden and ate lunch under covered picnic tables.
|
22/31
|
23/31 After seeing Key Deer on Big Pine Key we arrived in Key West where we visited Hemingway House, where we had a nice tour and saw all the cats with extra toes.
|
24/31 On Key West we walked down to the southernmost point of the continental United States, just 90 miles to Cuba.
|
25/31 On Thursday we drove north and stopped at Biscayne National Park where we watched a couple of interesting videos at the visitor center.
|
26/31 We drove to Jensen Beach and went beachcombing by hurricane ravaged Gilbert's Bar House of Reguge. Ramon metal detected and we found some great shells.
|
27/31 On Friday we visited NASA Kennedy Space Center where we had the NASA Up Close tour.
|
28/31 We saw the Discovery space shuttle on its launch pad. It would be rolled back inside after a couple of days because the launch date had been delayed to July.
|
29/31 That evening we drove to Merrit Island National Wildlife Refuge where finally we saw roseate spoonbill.
|
30/31 At the Haulover Canal Manatee Watch point we were lucky to spot this group of Manatees grazing at sunset.
|
31/31
|
