Well, the kids needed to visit their Aunt Karen on Duck Key so I decided to embark on an orchid hunt on my way north.

I had a big grin on my face for my entire visit. I leave with a few lovely plants and lots of inspiration.

I sat out for an entire hour around midnight looking at this moon. We have plans to go attend the theater of the sea!

Theatre of the sea- a super cool rescue facility!

We want to stop in at the Seminole Heritage museum on our way south, but it’s inexplicably closed. Instead, there’s this:

The Hard Rock silhouette near the silent museum we are actually interested in makes me a little sad.

Sunshine RV is a neat place.

We decide to go to Bahaia Honda State Park.

Mike is a junior ranger now too!

A successful day was had by all!

There is a stiff wind, all the time, down here. This is from all the tropical activity this year. It sure makes summer in South Florida lovely!

C.B. Smith is a charming place. We arrive, and our sites are on a small lake!

The water park was phenomenal.

Today we wake up in the REAL Florida!

We arrived pretty late last night, and on the 4 mile drive into the wild, there was a racket of frogs, cicadas, and other night creatures. I found it reassuring, compared to the relative sterility of Clearwater.

Becoming a junior ranger involves a LOT of reading, observation, and writing answers to tests. Each park you visit has a passport stamp you can get once you complete the activity sheet!

We also went for a geocache hike/bike. So fun! Here’s the app:

https://www.google.com/gasearch?q=what%20is%20a%20travelbug%20portal&tbm=&source=sh/x/gs/m2/5

We hiked through a lot of sooty scrub. They had done a controlled burn the week before.

We also found a neat shortcut path through scrub woods, and an intimidating looking beetle.

There was also an intimidating pit bull in the next campsite over. The owner was nice enough, but he warned us that the dog was in rehab and was other- animal aggressive.

We’ve decided to check out today but hang around town to see the rocket🤞🏻🤞🏻🤞🏻

We do a little more beach- ing and bike-ing, then it’s time to break camp!

We get gas and groceries, and go back to jetty pier to boondock till the 4:40 launch.

This time the kids decide to sell Sno-Cones.

Sno- Cone Sales were brisk.

Again, after several delays, the launch is cancelled. We found a good restaurant and had a nice dinner.

The drive to the next campground went late, and we arrived about 10pm.

Hopefully they will launch later today.

Meantime, more lovely beach!!

Jon discovered a weird foliage tunnel in which someone had set up feeding stations for cats.

We head back to the pier for a second try at viewing a launch. After several delays, the launch is again scrapped.

We want to see the Starlink rocket go up. Jetty Park is right across from the launchpad.

Jetty beach is wonderful! They kept postponing launches because of weather like this:

I don’t get over to the Atlantic side very often. Each time I enjoy the chilly water as though I’ve never been there before! Jetty beach is world- class.

Don’t worry, they didn’t go out into the water. Shore waves were plenty fun.

My campsite is extremely cool: I am parked inside a sea-grape grotto.

I sure would love to know what these are .

We rented the clear- bottom kayaks. Which turned out to be scratched up foggy- bottom kayaks.

The river was also stocked with a foreign animal- big blue Tilapia! Somebody at the FWC thought fisher-folks would like that.

As we were yakking around I overheard a young redneck telling someone that Tilapia were nasty bottom- feeders and not good to eat. Silly redneck! Everybody knows that’s what we say about catfish!

I did not stop to consider how kayaking might feel until we had to kayak back up river to return. It was less than helpful that Joey was helping me.

Our reward was a beautiful experience with a mama and a baby manatee!

Here we come!! The Summer 2024 RV trip has started. This time I’m traveling with the Dicksons!

The first thing after we arrive is they come over to visit in my camper. Michael was pretty excited. Michael found my chef knives, and pretending to be an adept sushi chef, sliced his finger.😟

Poor Mikey.

We made a jump-rope from the dog lanyard. Kept us having fun for 2 hours!

Katie loves this toy. She keeps volunteering to carry it like an adult but I know she really likes to play with it.

It has been raining so we went later in the afternoon. I continue to be astonished by Florida’s natural springs. Silver Springs State park is highly protected- you can rent a kayak or take a glass- bottom boat ride, but no swimming!

The springs put out 80 MILLION gallons per day.

Another fun thing about Silver Springs is its Hollywood history. Many films were made here, including Creature from the Black Lagoon and Tarzan.

In the mid – 1930s, the Hollywood Tarzan movie machine and an early tour operator released rhesus macaque monkeys. Cuz they could do WAY more dumb things back then than they do now.

The monkeys multiplied, and when a group of them finally aggressively chased a family, the park shut down for awhile to control them.

https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/publication/UW412

We decide to kayak tomorrow .

I have just gotten home. SO much fun! This morning Paula and I sat around for a couple hours drinking tea and sharing watercolor paints. I got to admire their garden this time:

And we staked out the ambitiously large new butterfly garden out front! This will reduce the grass Marty has to mow. Their property is huge- I’d guess a couple acres- and they keep it very nice.

The butterfly garden /lawn reduction will be a “long haul” type of project, but they will not regret it. Here’s mine right now:

Back to why my face hurts. On my kitchen counter is a mountain of mail

And some little gifts for me, from Susan and Odette:

And what a sweet note. Susan, I will treasure the memories too. And this:

Sissy and Monkey stayed at my place a couple days, what a nice hostess gift!

What a nice homecoming!