Sunday, March 4, 2012

Sunday, March 4, 2012

Paul's parents are renting a condo in Florida for two months this winter and so we went down to join them for a few days.

Today we took the Coach Safari which allowed us to see a lot of wildlife even though the temperatures were a bit cool and windy for the animals (67*F but sunny).  We saw lots of alligators, mostly female alligators with their pod of many baby alligators.  Here are a few pictures:



How many baby alligators can you find?

We also saw many birds:


Great Blue Heron 
Great White Egret

Turkeys

Vulture

Bald Eagle

Sandhill Cranes
Anhinga
An interesting bird was the cattle egret which follows cattle around and eats the bugs that are stirred up while the cow is grazing.


The turtles were also neat.  We saw a soft shelled one along with some hard shelled ones like cooters.






Monday, March 5, 2012

Our first stop today was Clearwater Marine Aquarium in Clearwater, FL.  This is the aquarium where Winter in Dolphin Tale lives and where much of that movie was shot.  If you haven't seen the movie I highly recommend it and if you are ever in the area, this Aquarium is a must see for animal, dolphin, and turtle lovers.  Their focus is rehabilitation and as a non-profit all money earned goes directly into rehabilitating sick and injured marine animals.

Winter wasn't very active today but here is a picture of her.
The sea turtles were fun to watch.



There were also sharks, stingrays and some other fish.  To end my thoughts on Clearwater Marine Aquarium, here is a photo that those of you who saw the movie may enjoy.


For lunch we stopped at Frenchy's Salt Water Cafe an excellent recommendation from a local.  It's focus was seafood as you may guess and the fish tacos I had with cajun grilled red snapper were very tasty.  Paul had a cajun grilled red snapper sandwich and said it was incredible.  We highly recommend this restaurant.

From there we went to Clearwater Beach which had a fair number of people considering the cooler weather (high around 73*F).  I picked up a few shells and we walked along the water.  I had rolled up my capris but still got them wet.  I guess the water was just too irresistible.  We also saw a few birds which were not afraid of humans and so I could get quite close for some nice photos.  



Lastly, there was a cute tiny critter that I only had time to take one picture of before the waves pulled it back to sea.  



Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Today we visited Hollis Garden in Lakeland, FL.  It is a beautiful garden set on a pond and it is completely free and open to the public.  The flowers and plants are beautiful.  Here are a few pictures of the garden and it's plants.











Here are pictures of some cute little critters.


In the afternoon we headed to Keele and Curley Winery in Plant City, FL.  The winery started with a blueberry farmer who needed something to do with the blueberries he had left over at the end of the season. It took several years to perfect their blueberry wines (they have a dry, semi-sweet, and sweet blueberry wine) and since have added many other fruit wines and fusion wines (80% grapes and 20% other fruit).  I had the opportunity to taste all of them and left with several bottles of wine.  My favorites included the Dry Blueberry, Key West - Key Lime Fusion (with sauvignon blanc), and the Peach Chardonnay.  If you enjoy fruit wines, it is a great winery to visit.


Wildlife around the condo

The condo Paul's parents are renting has a balcony overlooking a large pond and we have enjoyed watching the wildlife.  Here are a few photos.