day 7 ~ Busch Gardens, Tampa

A final day of photography and my obsession with feathers peaked today at Busch Gardens.
I took my time leaving Orlando this morning because it was so cool and windy. I got to Busch Gardens in Tampa around 11 o'clock. My admission was included with my visit to Discovery Cove yesterday. I wasn't sure what to expect there and was happy to find lots and lots of birds, some as part of displays and some that were wild.
Now I am at the Tampa airport (enjoying the free wi-fi) waiting for my flight back to New England and the real cold & snow. I just uploaded today's pix (again unedited) to picasa: http://picasaweb.google.com/mousewus/BuschGardensDay7#
Happily I still have 4 days before school starts again.

Day 6 ~ Discovery Cove

The cool temperatures returned over night ~ still better than the snow that arrived at home!
When I got to Discovery Cove around 10 this morning the thermometer in the car had gotten up to 50. I wasn't sure how the day was going to go because Discovery Cove is all about swimming and I am all about being warm :-) Thank goodness for wet suits - I had a wonderful time and got some pictures that I really like. I apologize for putting them all up on picasa without editing... to see them click on Day 6 ~ Discovery Cove above ~ you just have to go through them and ignore some of them.
I started off in the ray pool where you stand and watch the rays swim around you. You can touch them if you want and if they come close enough - several did. This was the first time I put the new camera and the water and it did well for me.
Next I moved over to the coral reef pool with my mask and snorkel. Because I was focused (no pun intended) on taking pictures of the fish I didn't even think about the fact that I was snorkeling and it was easy. The wet suit certainly added buoyancy, it was hard to get my feet back down at times.
After circling the reef I moved ino the pool that feeds the tropical river - that water was the warmest. There is a gentle current that lets you drift slowly along, some people snorkeled as they went, some swam to go faster. A little way down the river you go through a waterfall (not happy to get my head wet because the wind made it cold, oh well) and that puts you into the aviary. I didn't walk through the avaiary - I was able to see so many birds from the river. I discovered that taking pictures while floating has it's challenges because it's hard to steady the camera.
After that I took a lunch break. Everything is included in your admission (except photos that they take). Then I sat in the sun and let the wet uit absorb some heat.
Next was my dolphin experience. After a brief orientation your group of 8 goes to the dolphin lagoon with 2 trainers (and 2 photopgraphers), there can be about 8 groups running at a time. It's all well organized. You wade out to about waist deep to meet your dolphin. You touch the dolphin, kiss the dolphin, feed the dolphin a fish, give the dolphin some hand signals to do some tricks, then you swim out and the dolphin tows you back towards the beach. You're in the water about 30 minutes. No jewelry or cameras are allowed because the dolphins might swallow them if they fall into the water so I wasn't able to take any pictures of the expereince. I stayed and watched the next groups to get pix of the 4 dolphins all jumping at the end.
Staying in Kissimmee tonight. It's a much nicer motel than last night.

Day 5 - Ding Darling

Finally had a warm day, or at least warmer than it has been. I still had long sleeves on all day. I did the driving today when Blair and I headed to Sanibel Island and the Ding Darling Wildlife Refuge. It is an incredible place to see birds. There is a one way road around the refuge with a 15 mph speed limit - we drove. There is also a guided tour, or you can bike the road (biking is big on Sanibel), or you can walk. You can stop and park anywhere along the way to get out and look around and take pictures. We saw lots of impressive camera equipment in the past few days! There were a few times when I wish I had a better telephoto lens, but if you have one of those there are other shots that you miss along the way. My favorite might have been the roseate spoonbills in flight, but great blue herons will always be special.

We stopped and had a short visit with Holly & Tom (Blair's sister). I don't think I'd seen them for 30 years. They have a lovely home on Sanibel for the winter and another home in Maine for the summer. We used to summer together in Duxbury.

Spending the night in Tampa - not an impressive motel. I was going to stay here tomorrow night too, but changed plans again and will stay in Orlando. Today's weather was a on shot deal, another cold front is coming through overnight. Oh well....

day 4

click on 'day 4' in the title to link to photos (they are all unedited)
The weather continues to be cool, happily the sun was out today so it was pleasant. I am running out of clean warm clothes and may do laundry if this continues.
Blair and I started today by strolling Manatee Park in Ft Myers. It's located next to the power plant and the manatees come in to the canal for the warm water. We saw lots of manatees because of the weather.
We spent the afternoon taking a swamp buggy eco-tour at Babcock Ranch in Punta Gorda. It was a great place and our guide was terrific. We learned a lot about the history of the area and the wildlife that lives there now. Hard to take too many pix because we were in the bus not walking - but there are lots to see on my picasa page. Got to see alligators in the wild and a young one that the guide uses for demonstration. They have 2 captive southern cougars - both were once owned as pets, because their owners had them declawed they can't go back to the wild. I had never heard of cracker cattle before. This is another place I would recommend to anyone visiting in this area.
We ended our photo day at the beach. Lots of shore birds, including a great blue heron that seemed to be posing for us. We stayed and watched the sun going down - which caused the temperature to go down too!
Now I need to organize all my things because I will check out of Ft Myers tomroow and be in Tampa tomorrow night.

day 3

click 'day 3' above to see all the pix!
Spent the day at Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary in Naples which is run by Audubon. From their web site: "A 2.25 mile raised boardwalk takes visitors through 4 distinct environments: a pine upland, a wet prairie, a cypress forest, and a marsh."
It is a wonderful place to spend a day - to see plants and wildlife and to take photos. Blair taught me how to use more of the settings on my camera to adapt to the conditions and adjust the shots. I took almost 200 pictures - most of them are in my latest picasa album, my favorites are on my fb page. One of the great things was how helpful other visitors were - when someone saw something they would take the time to point it out to others who were passing by on the boardwalk. When Blair's lens cap and lens cap rolled off the boardwalk a visitor happily climbed over the side to retrieve it! Luckily we were in a dryer section of the sanctuary at the time. We talked to him several more times as we walked the loop - he used to work for National Audubon in Ohio. Almost all the visitors had cameras - some were making the walk with big cameras with even bigger lens on tripods. For wildlife we were lucky enough to see painted buntings, oven birds, red bellied woodpeckers (who do not have red bellies), red shouldered hawks, egrets, a snake, racoons, a turtle. There were lots of bromeliads, resurrection ferns that had been brown earlier this week and after yesterday's rain were open and green. When something interesting is spotted an employee comes and velcros a sign to the railing so you can try to see it - that's how we knew about the poisonous saddleback caterpillars that were camouflaged on some leaves! In one place there was a spotting scope for visitors to use to see a heron that was perched on a branch over the cypress swamp - guess they don't move much during the day. There were volunteers strolling on the boardwalk too - they were happy to stop and chat and answer questions. Found out from one of the volunteers that the wood storks that used to nest there might not be back this year because the fish that they eat are in short supply. It was too cold for us to see alligators today - they were all staying out of sight. Blair said it was more crowded than usual at Corkscrew - didn't seem too bad to me.

link to more pix

I figured out the way to add links to these posts that will take you to the pix...
click on the name of the post that is in green :-)
or you can copy/paste this url:
http://tinyurl.com/aquariumpix

day 2

Hmmm - the sunshine state? not today! I adjusted my plans this morning when I woke up and checked the weather - cloudy, cool, with rain on the way.
So I departed Orlando and headed to Tampa where I spent several leisurely hours at the Florida Aquarium. It's a very nice aquarium - lots of exhibits, well laid out, clean and new feeling, friendly staff, and reasonably priced. I loved all the seahorses - such curious little creatures. All the pix from today were with my new camera. It was the first time I've really used it and I'm pleased with the results although the battery started to fade by the end of my visit. I did Penguins: Backstage Pass. Got to go behind the scenes with 7 other visitors to see black footed penguins up close and learn more about them from one of their handlers - fun stuff. Penguins are amazingly soft to touch.
When I was ready to go the rain was pouring down outside. Hooray that I remembered to pack an umbrella in my suitcase and I thought to put it in my backpack before I left the parking lot. By the time I got back to my car my shoes were soaked and my pant legs were wet almost up to my knees. The thermometer in the car showed it was 44 degrees - I was happy I had found an indoor activity for the day.
Now I am in Ft Myers for a few days. Coming a little further south it is warmer ~ it was 66 when I arrived. My friend, Blair, and I went out for supper and had a chance to catch up. We will meet up in the morning for some photography - not sure where yet, depends on the weather.
http://picasaweb.google.com/mousewus/Day2FloridaAquarium#

to see pix of day 1

not many pix from today, but there will be more each day (I hope)
http://picasaweb.google.com/mousewus/PhotoFunTripDay1#

La Nouba

I will go see Cirque du Soleil anytime, any place!

I'm in Florida!!!!

My trip was totally hassle free! Very little traffic getting to the airport despite it being commuter time, when I got to security there was no line, so I ended up being cleared through security 2 hours before my flight. I had a middle seat on the plane and happily had quiet young ladies on either side of me. My suitcase was one of the first ones on the baggage carousel. I was happy with my JetBlue experience. Short line at the rental car counter and the lovely lady there gave me directions to the hotel.

Got to my room just after 5 so I quickly put down my things and headed to Downtown Disney. at 5:30 I bought a ticket for Cirque du Soleil's La Nouba and went right in to the 6 o'clock show. I'd seen the show 3 times before, but I had a new appreciation for the flying trapeze act now that Jon is doing more flying.

Settled back in my room now. Not checking the weather for tomorrow - thinking I may get wetter than expected at Discovery Cove.

Not sure when I will get to Ft Myers tomorrow - late afternoon or evening. Hoping to find the Holiday Inn while it's still light out.

travel day

Yesterday's storm was a miss so things are looking good for my travel plans today. JetBlue's web page says my flight is 'on time' and the original flight that I was nervous about is 'canceled' so the hassle on Monday has yielded a positive result, plus I got to sleep later.
On to Orlando...

and then...

I had to change flight plans again because the non-stop I switched to earlier this evening has already been canceled because of the weather forecast. So now I have a non-stop to Orlando on Thursday, instead of Tampa.

weather woes?

I just changed my flight plans because there is a 'powerful Nor'easter' coming our way this week. I'm flying after the 'winter storm watch' for Wed/Thurs and non-stop instead of changing planes at JFK.
Now I'm watching the forecast for rain in Orlando on Friday...