Day 7- La Chua trail and Lake Alice

June 21, 2009

Since it was Sunday we took it easy and went to church with Brad and Camille. We napped a little and relaxed in the afternoon while it cooled down and went out to see some nature in the evening. The first stop was La Chua trail. One of my "must see" list items for Florida was a real alligator. I've seen plenty of alligators in the zoo, but I wanted to see an alligator on it's turf- out doing it's thing. We were told that we MIGHT be able to see one on this trail, and when we showed it we had 20 minutes before the park gate would close and lock us in. After a short walk down the boardwalk on the banks of a swamp, we were having no luck and I tried not to get my hopes up too much, until Daniel and Brad started calling from up ahead that they had found one. Pretty soon the trail took us off the safety of the boardwalk and out into the bushes where I'm sure some alligators were hiding! BUT, I HAD to see one so we continued onward. It was a really creepy feeling watching the alligators swim around in the water. At one point we were standing on the ledge a couple feet above the water and looking over the weeds that were blocking out view, to the other side where a coupel alligators were laying in the shade of the weeds. It suddenly occured to us that if they were lyeing over on the other side, there were probably a few right underneath us!

There was a lookout point a little bit ahead (through more scary bushes) and we were running really low on time. Daniel and Brad took the kids back to the car while Camille and I trudged forward to see if there were anymore. We saw three close together- so close in fact that as I held my camera up to catch a picture, one bumped into another and one jumped up into the air snapping it's mouth closed. It wasn't really close enough that we needed to worry about him getting up (and we were back on a boardwalk at this point), but it scared me so bad I jumped back and dropped my camera back to my waist and missed a great photo op. SO I hope you enjoy the pictures that could have costed me an arm or leg to get :)

This is the swampy area by the La Chua trail. This was the beginning, before we saw any alligators but this is how the swamp looked pretty much all the way around.




These next pictures were sent to me by Camille. I hate being in pictures, but these are some of the few I have on me in them for the trip- so thanks Camille.

Here we all are (except Brad) in front of the swamp.

This is when Camille and I ventured up the trail to find more alligators. (The bump in the background is an alligator.) By the way see my cute earrings? Kaitlyn made those for me.

Here I am in front of the swamp- a little freaked out that an alligator could be right behind me. (See the alligator on the banks of the other side.)



and a couple of the alligators we cought a glimpse of.

After we ran out of there (since we were out of time and didn't want to be locked in the park with the alligators), we went over to the University of Florida campus to Lake Alice. This lake was really pretty, but don't be fooled. More alligators reside here.


This picture is not cropped and I don't have my zoom lens on. He was literally that close to us. I'm pretty sure he was waiting for one of us to fall off the ledge for an easy dinner.

And here we are in front on Lake Alice. Once again the little bumps in the water are more alligators.

One more thing..... Click on this picture to enlarge it and look at my face. This wasn't from misters, and this was taken around 8:00-9:00 and I was still THAT sweaty! I'm glad to be back to the dry heat of Utah!

Day 6- Itchetucknee Springs

June 20, 2009

Some of the things we did in Florida, I'm not sure I would do again. Like swimming on Daytona beach. It wasn't until after we spent a full day swimming in water that went WAY over my head (to get to a sand bar a couple hundred meters out) that we found out how common sharks are in that area and how common shark BITES are in that area. Well here is another one. I still cringe at the thought of what we did this day- you'll understand a little better when you see the days to come. I told myself I would never swim in ANY water in Florida that wasn't a swimming pool or an ocean.

When swimming in the Itchetucknee springs came up, I thought I must be misinformed about alligators. It is a state park and so I felt like it must be safe.This is the Blue Hole spring (not my picture). Itchetucknee springs was really crowded so we walked a little further down the trail to this one. (Can't you see that huge WELCOME ALLIGATORS sign??) We didn't either and jumped right in. As soon as I got in I started feeling really anxious- and every little log I kicked left me with a minor heart attack. But then I figured it I really did just kick an alligator it would have taken off my leg- and I would convince myself to swim longer, until the next panick attack. (I have a self diagnosed anxiety problem which leads me to do a lot of ridiculous and parranoid things in Daniels eyes.)


The water was very cold and Chase braved it longer than I thought he would, but wanted out after a short time in the water. Part of me breathed a sigh of relief, yet I still would have gotten back in if he would have lasted a little longer.

And this is the spring that was too crowded for us. It looks a little less alligator friendly, but still...

Day 5- Kennedy Space Center

June 19, 2009

.... and Daniels birthday!

This was definitely Daniel's day- it's the one thing that he really wanted to do when we first started talking about going to Florida. I must admit it was much different and MUCH better than I imagined. I was thinking like an air base museum, but it was much more interactive and interesting.

Most of the time was spent on buses for a driving tour with stops at different areas.The first stop was to the viewing of the rocket launch pad (excuse my non-scientific rocket language).







We were on a layered pavilion building pretty far away so they had binoculars that we could look through. Thankfully, my camera has it's only little version on binoculars. This is the actual launch pad and the rocket in there is the actual space shuttle Endeavor in it. The shuttle was scheduled for take off two days before we were going to be there and we were a little disappointed. It was then rescheduled for 4:00 in the morning on one of the days that we would be there. After seriously considering getting up at 1:30 in the morning to drive across Florida and be near the Space center to see the take off, we decided against it. I knew we would regret it forever, but as luck would have it, we don't have to regret it because it was once again rescheduled.


Here you can get an idea of how far away we really were.
This is the massive transportation for the rocket. It takes the shuttle from the area where it is fixed and maintained. It drives 1 mile per hour. See that little shadowed truck back behind the arrow? That was actually parked UNDER the mover- just to give you an idea of the actual size of that thing.


This building houses some of the other shuttles not in use, I believe they said Atlantis and Discovery where in there at the time. This building doesn't really look like anything too spectacular but see the flag on the front? They told us that they blue area on the flag is as big as a basketball court. That makes that building HUGE!
Because we rode the bus around we could take Chase's stroller so they provided these blocks, I mean strollers for us to use, Chase didn't mind.


This is the souvenir we bought for Chase. When we went to sea world and came out of one of the exhibits in a gift shop he was in heaven. He ran from bin to bin grabbing one of each of the stuffed animals saying "goggy, goggy" until his arms were full of stuffed animals. We didn't have the cash and had agreed to not use the debit card so we sadly had to put them all back. So when we got to the space center and found more "goggies" we let him pick one out.




Can you guess what we did after we finished the day at the Space Center? No, we actually didn't go swimming. This was the only day on the whole trip besides Sunday that we didn't swim. We headed for our next destination- Brad and Camille's house.

Day 4- Daytona beach

Today was going to be a disneyworld day, but after the horrible heat exhausting day at sea world we chose to stay at the motel and have another beach day. Finding cheap hotels on the beach was one of the best ideas we had for the trip. We could just walk out the door and be on the beach.

Camille left us all their beach gear for us to borrow including their boogie board. We put it to good use and had a lot of fun.










One time when I went to boogie board I accidently pointed the board downward as I jumped on the wave and it caught in the sand and the wave crashed over me. I came out of the water and was spitting because I got the nasty salt water in my mouth. Chase thought that was pretty funny and started spitting himself.

And then he would laugh and laugh.


Chase liked the pool better than the beach so when we would finish up at the beach for a lunch break, nap break, or at the end of the day we would take a dip in the pool to rinse the salt water off. Chase learned how to climb out of the pool himself.


And to jump in off of his feet.





That's pretty much what we did for the whole day. Beach, pool, eat, sleep, beach pool, eat, sleep.

Day 3 -Sea World

I'm having technical issues with my photoshop computer, but I wanted to get these posts up before too much time goes by- so once again the unedited pictures (and some are PRETTY bad.) I know you don't care, but I do :)


June 17

We spent the day at Sea World in Orlando. Florida is unbearably HOT when you can't swim or get wet. Even though we were surrounded by water we could barely stand to walk around and we were all soaked from sweat (something we would have to get used to for the rest of the trip).


Here is Chase ready to start the day at sea world. Notice how his hair is ALREADY sweaty.




Much to my surprise, Chase actually loved watching the shows.
The picture above is of him watching the sea lion show (pictured below). It was a pretty funny show and Chase could help but join in the laughter.


After a few exhibits and a couple shows we headed to the big Shamu show.
Chase loved all the "Goggies". We had only been at sea world for about 2 hours when he tuckered out. Chase has NEVER been able to just fall asleep anywhere. He ONLY sleeps in his crib or in his car seat on a drive. This is part of why the flight didn't go well- tired + ornery+ unable to sleep = screaming child on plane. Well, at the Shamu show he fell asleep.

...and continued to sleep all the way until lunch.

We splurged and ate dinner at the Shark's underwater grill. We got a front row seat right up against the glass.


Chase and I after dinner in front of the sharks.


You know your a picky eater when you have to order off the childs menu because you don't like a single thing on the grown ups menu. Oh well, it was much cheaper that way.

Chase's favorite part of the dinner were the shark gummies that came with our Kid's- meal dinners.


This was Chase's favorite show. The Pet's ahoy. They had dogs cats and rats preforming this show and he loved every second of it.


The best idea we had for the trip was taking the camelback. We debated about it since we weren't planning on hiking much, but we used it EVERY day.





The final show we caught was the dolphin show and we were all tired and headed out.

This is Chase when we got back home for a nap time. We reserved a crib and turns out the hotel didn't have a crib reserved for us (or so the lady told us) so we blocked off a corner of the room with tables and chairs and folded blankets up for padding and he slept really well. In fact the next day they brought us a crib and we decided our little make shift bed was a better idea.

We stayed that night on the beach in Daytona. After Chase woke up we went out and swam some more and I gave my camera a little rest.

Day 2 has concluded....

and we are leaving the beautiful clearwater beach tomorrow. We have enjoyed ourselves here. This is the view out the window in our motel room.

And this is the view off the balcony. The motel is on the beach, but it is in a little bit of a gulf (hey we're not THAT rich!)



And this is the cute little car we have rented for the week. A little honda civic.



Chase loves it here almost as much as we love it. When we come inside, you can find him pressed up against the window, watching the people playing in the ocean outside.



Today we met up with the Brians. We havn't seen them in about 2 years and havn't ever seen little Cammi. We had a blast, so much so that I didn't hardly take my camera out and get pictures, but no worries, we will see them again.


Camille snapped this for us. I cropped Chase out because we wasn't looking at the camera and was looking a little goofy. It was the end of our trip and he was ready for a nap.


Kinda mean, but I had to take a picture of him in the car ride home. He was so worn out from all the fun at the beach.


After the Brians left we went back to the motel for Chase to take a nap and then we went back to the same beach. Camille was nice enough to let us borrow her beach gear and toys.
And I got my chance to play around with my camera and the beautiful sunset.


When the sun went down and it was too dark to swim in the ocean, we headed for the pool. Chase is a little fish and loves the water. This is his new little trick. He sits on the edge...

.... and then pushes himself into the water. He even loves it when his head goes under the water for a couple seconds.

and that concludes day 2 and the Clearwater Beach part of our trip.