Zooming in on one of the many gorgeous beaches of the Gulf Coast of Florida:
Photos chosen for this week’s Photo Challenge: Muse – illustrate a subject that keeps drawing you back – the endless blue of sea and sky.
Tag Archives: Florida
How to Survive an Alligator Attack
Meet them when they are babies . .
Handle them when they are young and have a souvenir photo taken . . . .
Handle them when they are older and have a souvenir photo taken . . . .
Ignore the signs . . . .
Make eye contact . . . . . .
Observe them in the wild. See that big boy?
He’s a little boy. Big mama is behind him . . . .
Make them smile . . .
Make them laugh . . . .
Get into a conversation with them . . . .
Make sure you can trust your brother . . . . .
Don’t let them get hold of your arm . . . . .
Great idea Jude! When people say, ‘What happened to your arm?’ I say ‘Well . . . . when I was in Florida I was attacked by an alligator.’
Much more fun than saying, ‘I’ve had an operation on my wrist.’
No one believes me but it’s good for a laugh.
Whoohoo!
From East – Wild Bill’s Airboat Tours on the Withlacoochee River in Florida . . . . .
. . . . to West – jetskiers on Lake Powell, Utah . . . .
. . . . this week’s entries for the WordPress photo challenge of Motion.
As pretty as a sunset . . . .
. . . . . sunrise at Long Key in the Florida Keys:
. . . . . and no I did not pop over there this morning. Photo taken December 2009. I knew, of course, that it would eventually come in handy for the WP photo challenge this week of Early Bird.
It wasn’t difficult to rouse myself for this photo op. I had the beach to myself, a lovely cup of tea and a spectacular show to watch put on by Mother Nature. The only problem was that the heat and humidity kept fogging my camera lens having just stepped out of the air-conditioned RV. Have you experienced that? It was a new one on me.
Photo Challenge: Zigzag
Can’t resist a photo challenge!
Today’s challenge ZIGZAG comes to you courtesy of Florida.
My favourite (publishing from England now, must use English spelling) boardwalk in the whole wide world (what little I know of it) , a zigzag path at Destin:
Zigzag ripples left in the sand by the retreating tide at Destin:
Zigzag reflections in the Withlacoochee River (cool name, kind of makes your tongue zigzag when you say it) taken during an airboat ride:
Photo Challenge: Twist
A twist on playing on the beach:
Decorating a Christmas tree!
Building a snowman!
Press the blue button to join the challenge:
Travel Theme: Close Up
For a bit of light relief from my airport security issues (for you and for me) I have joined in a Travel Theme: Close Up with Ailsa of Where’s My Backpack by way of Hey Jude of Travel Words. All are welcome to join in. Visit Ailsa’s site to see how it’s done.
My close ups hail from Florida, California and Arizona.
I’m always drawn to pelicans. Hold that pose Mr P.
Flowers draw my eye and my shutter finger. This orchid in Florida is one of hundreds of flower photos or as himself would say, “More bloody flowers!”
The Portuguese Man O’War is a jewel on the beach but don’t touch!
Smile please! You’re on “Carol’s Camera!”
Who can identify this? it was on a recent post.
Thanks for stopping by.
We’ll be back to the regularly scheduled program tomorrow.
******
New List!
It has occurred to me that Jimmy and I may not be thinking along the same plane or are even on the same planet. We rarely do are should our Quest be any different?
“The List” of requirements for the perfect place to live, which we had agreed on, has been thrown out as being ridiculously unattainable so now we’re drifting aimlessly, mentally and geographically. We each speak longingly of our nirvanas but these potential home bases may be more pie in the sky than pie on our plate and his is probably apple and mine is pear.
When I say Let’s live in California he says I don’t think we can afford it. When he says Let’s live in Florida I say I don’t know if you can stand it. And that’s the end of the discussion. If you can call that a discussion.
As we’re not the best at communicating, at least in any constructive way, it seems appropriate at this point to put into writing our options. Perhaps the unspeakable possibilities will spur us into taking action about settling down. These are our realistic and unrealistic prospects:
- Do nothing. We are fed, clothed, warm, mostly dry and have beds, in fact have everything we need all in the one small room.
OK. So our space is a bit bigger than this! (Columbia River, Washington State) (Photo credit: Wikipedia) - Move into an apartment once again with a view to buying a house at some point.
- Move into a single wide and keep the travel trailer for a means to escape bad weather.
- Spend a little time with family in Washington State and Florida then tow back to California to look seriously at different areas, cost of living and apartments.
- Research cost of living in California thoroughly online before wasting a few months realizing we can’t afford to live in Malibu.
- Pack up our meager collection of furniture and belongings stored in the U.S. into a U-Haul and travel in tandem back to Florida where we know we can find a nice apartment and the cost of living is affordable but we don’t know if our 50°N latitude bodies are ready for 25°N latitude heat and bugs.
- Keep traveling in our shoebox and looking for an unconditionally perfect place to live.
- Return to the UK.
- Live in France.
- Check out Hawaii.
- Sink our house fund into a new big shiny RV and new car. DO NOT TELL HIMSELF I EVEN SAID THAT.
- Give up all our worldly goods and join a religious commune.
There. That should focus our minds. There are some pretty scary prospects there.
Even more worrying is that it is only No. 12 that we would both find completely alarming.
I’ll get back to you when we’ve had a proper grown up discussion about it.
What Happened to Nebraska?
Instead of the balmy east coast summer we’d expected halfway through our second circumnavigation of the U.S. we’d endured gales and torrential rain from Maine to Delaware.
Maine-iancs at the seaside. We were wearing sweaters!
Delaware fishermen are all at the pub. Note the heavy sky.
After a serendipitous trip to the grocery store for dinner fixings and wine, we found ourselves marooned within half an hour of our return as rain lashed down and filled in a moat around us at the Cape Cod Seashore.
The de-humidifier, my special spaghetti and meatballs and a bottle of red wine kept us from caring too much.
Summer turned to autumn while we were in England and on our return we just caught the end of the leaf show on a trip through the Smokies; only a few tenacious leaves had clung to the trees for us. The rest made a carpet of gold for our drive from Nashville to North Carolina.
The southeast coast was unbearably humid for two people used to the weather of a northerly latitude on a par with Calgary. Thanksgiving in Fort Lauderdale was uncharacteristically muggy, as were the Keys where one felt wrapped in a warm wet cloth each time we stepped from our cool trailer cocoon.
Views from our idyllic but sweaty campsite:
Evenings ‘round the campfire on Long Key, which we felt were compulsory on our sublime beach front setting, became an endurance test. Covered from head to foot and slathered with insect repellant against the sand flies, we steamed as though in a sauna in the stifling night air.
“I don’t think I can stand this!” himself exclaimed on emerging from the air conditioning in full bug-proof regalia.
“I’ve already lit the fire,” I wined.
“This is ridiculous.”
“Go back in then.”
“No. I’m here now.” The seductive flames were already leaping and I knew he wouldn’t be able to resist sitting and staring at them. Our bodies would slowly warm up, become clammy and acclimatize.
Lighting a campfire in the sultry heat of the Keys was ludicrous, but bites and sweat apart, the night sky, the low rumble of the surf and a backdrop of firelight reflected on the ocean was enchanting. Shooting stars, satellites and one sighting of the Hubble were our entertainment,
“There’s one!”
“Where?”
“There! There!” until the sand flies penetrated our defenses and we dived into the cool depths of the trailer.
From the time it took us to get from Key West to Destin on the Panhandle, the temperature plummeted and in “tropical” Florida the iguanas, torpid with the freeze were dropping out of the trees like they’d been shot. They weren’t dead. Apparently they’d come round and amble off once the weather warmed up.
We shivered through Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas and Texas. Tumbleweeds hopped around our fenced in campsite all night at Amarillo, with one giant tumbleweed landing at our door in the morning. Like daft tourists we each posed next to it, shivering, for a photo.
Cadillac Ranch, Amarillo TX. Cold!
Tumbleweed, Amarillo TX, Colder!
It was at this point that we’d planned to include Nebraska in our tour and see the sandhill cranes at the Rowe Sanctuary on their migration north but atypical cold and snow kept us on a more southerly route.
We were only 500 miles away. Good decision? There was more disagreeable weather to come.
Derek the Laptop is Home from Rehab
The diagnostic testing was inconclusive so there is no treatment plan. Derek is slower than ever and I can only conclude that he’s sulking. The tech was too kind to say but my diagnosis is senescence as many of you have suggested although there was a degree of prejudice against his kind where a preference for an Apple exists.
Derek will be destined for an old people’s home while I find a toy boy, technologically speaking that is, but until we decide Which Way Now – USA or Europe – we will hang on to Derek as well as Bill and Bob the naughty 2G phones that refuse to play with the new cell phone tower next door.
Derek thanks everyone who has shown concern for his welfare but has been quite distressed at the number of people who feel I should trade him in for a piece of fruit.
Now he’s been mesmerized by this slide show of white-tailed deer at Ochlockonee River State Park in Florida:
