A Week in Florida

Florida's been quite the experience.  We arrived exhausted after over fifteen hours of driving.  We've been staying with Jenny's mom in Saint Pete's Beach, and her grandpa was here until Monday as well.  Her mom's been very accommodating and generous, both taking us out to dinner and cooking delicious meals at home.  Her place is basically across the street from a beach, with another waterway (the "intertidal") behind it.  It's surrounded by palm trees, and the porch is frequented by anoles which have been too fast to catch.  The beach is great for laying out on, but not really my type - too many people and too few rocks to find animals under.  Still, there are so many shells that I found quite a collection on my ventures there.  With all my trips to Florida beaches, I've collected 29 of the 54 mollusks listed here , plus several not on that list, like tusk shells and quahogs.  I also found a large fish braincase, and today found some confusing white shells I later identified as heart urchins.  The local avifauna is similarly extensive, with pelicans, doves, parrots, mockingbirds, great blue herons, laughing gulls and others all frequenting the city.  Then today at De Soto Park we saw a night heron, ruddy turnstones and a black oystercatcher.  Exciting!  Besides beaches, Jenny and I went to the aquarium at Tarpon Springs.  We were able to feed and pet nurse sharks, cownose rays and skates, and hold horseshoe crabs and pufferfish.  Jenny didn't enjoy feeding rays and skates as much as she did the deer.  haha  Tarpon Springs is a fun little Greek town, and I took advantage of the opportunity to order calamari.  There was an extremely catchy Greek dance song playing in the restaurant, but I fear I'll never hear it again since the words were in Greek, the staff didn't know the song, and searching through Greek dance songs online seems hopeless.  Sigh.  On Saturday we went to Disneyworld, which I found pretty fun, but not worth the $75 entry fee.  Only a few of the rides were entertainingly fast, with the others being pretty corny for a person my age.  Jenny says Disneyland is better.  I did get to eat funnel cake there though, which is one of my favorite snack foods.  Jenny's boyfriend Ayman visited us for a few days over the weekend and accompanied us to Disneyworld.  He proposed to her while here and I wish her the best.  My Uncle Rick also stopped by to visit, since I hadn't seen him in quite a few years.  But while many days here had some major event, I've spent most of my time just relaxing in the sun with a good book.  I finished a religious history book about Peter, Paul and Mary, a scifi/horror collection by H.P. Lovecraft, the scifi classic Ringworld, and am halfway through another scifi novel, Pushing Ice.  The internet's allowed me to catch up on some blogs I frequent, but I've been spending relatively little time online since I'd rather enjoy Florida.  Weather's been near universally great (60s-70s) and even the day it rained was entertaining due to all the lightning and wind, and still warm enough to be comfortable.  It's been nice, but I am ready to get this show back on the road.  Tomorrow morning we leave for my friend Adam's place up in North Carolina, then we tour Washington DC and stay with my relatives in Maryland.  We'll see if we have wireless in either place, and if so, you may see another blog entry soon.