Taking a Winter Break in Florida

We spent a delightful three weeks in Florida -- two weeks at Fort DeSoto Park near St. Petersburg and a week in Leesburg north of Orlando. The weather was cool on the water with most days very windy, but we still did a lot of bike riding and walking, bird-watching, and shelling along the beach. We found a dozen intact sand dollars which we've NEVER found at the Outer Banks except in the shops. We also found two little starfish and a wide variety of other shells: scallop, clam, oyster, little conchs, and tiny cats paws, etc. If I could find my shell book I could identify them, but alas it's not where I thought it would be. Maybe I gave it away in a purge. I tend to do that.

We had a Great White Egret in our campsite almost every morning and could look out on the boat channel at the White Pelicans and the Great Blue Herons. One morning a Snowy Egret graced us with his "golden slipper" feet giving me a smile.


A squirrel thought the open door of the camper was an invitation to lunch so he came right in, but immediately left when Larry gave him his walking papers. Several raccoons also visited, but we didn't encourage them.

In Leesburg we went to a lovely place called Venetian Gardens. It was loaded with ibis, herons, cowbirds, ducks including a colorful duck I'd never seen before. We saw another unfamiliar variety of ducks in a small pond near a friend's house we visited. She called them whistlers.

We had a great time, but I would never want to live in Florida -- too many old people. We see enough of that when we look in the mirror. We saw hardly any children at all, not even at Mass, and we went to three different churches. Even the daily Mass at the parish with a school had no one but oldies in the pews. Funny -- as a young mom I often went to daily Mass with babes and pre-schoolers. Don't mothers do that these days?

One thing about the area was the many thrift stores with absolutely wonderful treasures! I'm guessing that kids come down to clean out their parents' houses after they die and just gather up a large portion and send it to the Salvation Army or Goodwill. Every time I go into a thrift store it reminds me not to get attached to my stuff because a lot of it will end up there. I guess I'm a realist. At any rate, I did some early Christmas shopping and think the recipients will be thrilled!

Unfortunately, while we were in Florida my computer crashed. I now have a spanking new Mac (which I love), but I haven't figured out to do a lot of things...like transfer the photos from my phone to the computer. Hence, the squirrel above is from another camping trip. I would have liked to add some photos of the birds we saw and the shells we collected, but alas that will have to wait until I learn how to do it.