Holidays in Florida

I am a little late on my holiday post.. 

Remember back in May of 2021 when everyone was getting vaccinated and we thought we were at a turning point. Everything seemed so hopeful. So we planned a trip to Costa Rica for December. I mean it's not like we were immediately jumping on a plane.. we were giving it a decent 6 months. And then Delta happened. So we canceled that. In November we went to Antigua and it was all so safe we thought we'd give December another try and booked Jamaica. And then Omnicron hit. And Jamaica unlike Antigua did not have any vaccination rules.. it was pretty much anyone can come kinda situation so we canceled that as well. 

And then me friend passed and we thought.. life is too short. We aren't going to make any rash decisions.. we are going to continue to take all the needed precautions but we will still go somewhere. But where? And with that we ended up in Florida. Probably still not the safest place but we were staying within the country and we avoided all the major tourist spots like Miami, the Keys though we did make a quick stop in Orlando and kept most of our activities outdoorsy.

But before Florida we went skiing. I was still on the fence about how much I actually like skiing and I did a lot less than the boys but I did some. So first a skiing pic.. then I'll get on to Florida.

 Ah now on to Florida. We flew into Jacksonville, rented a car and drove down to St. Augustine. Once in St. Augustine our first stop was lunch. 

We stopped at Mellow Mushroom to grab some pizza and the headed to the St. Augustine Alligator Farm Zoological Park founded in 1893. This park is the only place where one can see all 28 species of alligator, crocodile, caiman and gharial. We didn't expect much from the park.. it was for the kids but we were amazed by the sheer quantity of alligators/crocodiles that were in the park.

There was a lighthouse nearby but we decided not to visit.. we only had one day in the city and wanted to spend sometime in the historic district. We did go and drive on the beach a bit, we had never done that before.

Afterwards we checked it to our hotel, The Bayfront Inn. It was the perfect location, very walkable.. after checking in we walked to the historic district. Around the holidays St. Augustine celebrates the Night of Lights. It looks absolutely magical.. which is probably why to our dismay, the historic district was packed with people!! 

We strolled for a bit.. we had the most amazing tacos at Burrito Works Taco Shop.. bought some unfortunately mediocre macarons at Le Macaron French Pastries and called it a night.. we had an early morning ahead of us. 

The next morning we were up and out early.. grabbed some bagels at Everything Bagel on the way to eat in the car.. the banana peanut butter one sounded good and this is what we got! They were incredible.. but the portions.. my god. This was our breakfast and lunch. 

They haven't really understood the point of binoculars yet.. lol

Our destination was Blue Springs Park where we went kayaking with manatees!! We also saw a multitude of birds and even a gator or two. We booked a tour with the Paddling Center. 

That blob is a manatee right next to my kayak. Our guide said they sometimes are so friendly they will pop out and put their face against your kayak.. I had my fingers crossed but unfortunately this was as friendly as they got. 

The birds were magnificent. But I had to kayak so I couldn't take as many pictures as I'd have liked.. else I kept ending up as the caboose, also didn't want to drop the phone in the water. But here I was lucky.. perfect timing. 

We decided to spend the night in Orlando. So after we checked in and freshened up we headed to Disney Springs. 

Can you believe the size of these things.. the kids weren't even close to finishing them and ate the rest for breakfast the next day.. It took H two breakfasts to finish his. M and I shared one. They were from Everglazed.

The irony of this picture..lol. 

The kids also got their names made it art.

The next morning we were out early again.. we needed to get to Clearwater for some dolphin watching.  We went out with Encounters with Dolphins and had a brilliant time. The last time we went dolphin watching we didn't see any. We have also been whale watching once.. before the iPhone so there aren't many pictures and my memory is fuzzy but I think we saw some. The tour operator was a hoot. 

At the half way point we stopped on a little island where people could swim or snorkel. It was too cold for that but some people still ventured in. They had also scattered about gold coins for kids to find 'pirate treasure' and I found these precious tiny shells. 

Afterwards we had a great lunch at Pearly's Beach Hut. It was just a walk away and had a great outdoor space. 

By the way.. it was so freaking hot in Florida.. 

We hadn't had our full of animals yet so next we headed to the Seaside Seabird Sanctuary. It is a non profit that opened it 2016. They rescue and treat over 3000 birds each year. Some even come to them from other states.  

This place was amazing and a little scary. There were some birds in enclosed habitats but there were many birds that were free and roaming. Some were not even patients but just came to hang out. Every few minutes one (the black vulture) would swoop and fly from here to there.. I may have squealed a couple of times. 

There were so many pelicans, one eagle, a couple of owls, egrets and so many others.

We finally headed to the hotel to check in, showered, changed and headed back out. This time to St. Petersburg.

While looking for parking in St. Petersburg we stumbled upon these chair sculptures called Face the Jury, by artist Douglas Kornfeld.

We walked around for a bit till dinner. We had reservations at Tropez St. Pete. The food was great.. look at this satisfied customer.

We walked down the St. Pete Pier for a bit but the kids were tired now, until they spotted the playground of course. In their defense it was a very cool looking playground.

The next day.. our very last day we headed to Fort De Soto Park. The plan was to bike the park but it was so so hot. So instead of individual bikes we rented a surrey. Afterwards we headed to Tampa Bay. We had lunch at Burger Fi and took the free trolley to Ybor City. 

What we didn't know was there was going to be a parade that day, it was New Years Eve.. so not only was it extremely crowded, most of area was roped off as well. 

We grabbed some ice cream. They had some extremely unique flavors and while my Chronic Popcorn was good M's Guava Pastelito was very very bad. The kids were smart to stick with more traditional flavors. And then we were back on the trolley and to our car. 

We were checking out very early the next morning so we went back to the hotel to get a head start on some packing.. and got dressed up for our New Years Eve dinner. We drove down to Davis Island for a meal at a very quaint little Italian place, Oggi Italian. As charming as the restaurant was the food not so much. 

All in all we had a great time.. it was a wonderful little break.. 

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