Wifi at last pictures-

Aligator - Everglades

Aligator swimming across river in front of our canoe

Fire in campground- Little Manatee River State Park

Kitching Creek- Jupiter Florida

Bette Midler Look alike St. Augustine FL

Dog chasing squirel - collier Seminole State Park Naples FL

Red Shoulder Hawlk Collier Seminole State Park

Ponce De Leon life size at  4 feet 9 inches tall St. Augustine Fl

Shark valley- Florida Everglades





Castillo San Marcos St. Augustine FL.

Jupiter Florida

I still don't know what's happening to my blogs. I have been using an IPad app that allowed me to post pictures but for some reason the app isn't working properly. If we make it some where that has public wifi I will post some photos. We have lots of alligator pics.

After our two week stay at Collier Seminole state park we ventured off to Jupiter Florida. Jupiter Florida is located on the Atlantic Ocean about 90 miles north of Miami. It's basically a high end community filled with snow birds. The area is home to Tiger Woods and his 65 million dollar new home. Hasn't any told him that there is a real estate bust in Florida? I must say that the area is beautiful filled with lots of waterways to park a boat behind your house. The weather has been great except for one day that we experience a storm that had very high winds attached to it. Jack and I were out riding the bike when we were caught in the storm. The winds were so strong that we were pushed out of he bike lane and into the traffic lane. Lucky for us we were only a block from his sisters house, so we rode there and waited for the storm to pass. When we got back to the campground our shade tent had blown down, the BBQ had blown off the table, the out door carpet was blown 30 feet from the RV, tents through out the campground were blown away, one camper's tent was blow about 200 yards away from the site landing in a tree.

We are staying at johnathan Dickenson state park. The sites are great, gravel long enough to park at 45 footer and two autos, fire pits, and bbqs. Bath roans are new the only problem with the campground is all the trees were lost in a hurricane so there is no shade. Some day when the newly plated trees are large it will be a really nice park.

One morning rented canoes right here at the campground and pebbled down the Locahotchee river. The Locahotchee river runs through the camp ground and is one of Floridas wild and senic rivers. We had a great time seeming alligators swimming in the river, ospreys in their nests feeding their young, and lots of fish jumping out of river.

Beach, bike, paddle and good food that's Jupiter. We have had some good meals, one lunch at the Mantee island Grill in Port Salarno, a short ride north of the campground where JAck and I split a wonderful portabello sandwich that was made with artichokes, olives and feta cheese. Yummy. Tonight it's off to a place called Leftovers for an oyster salad that Jack has had when he's been down here visiting his sister. He says that it's the best meal that he's ever had. We will see......

For the last couple of days we have been just enjoying the beautiful Florida weather. Yesterday we rode the bike around Jupiter Island looking for Tigers house. Of course we didnt find it. Apparently you can't see thhe house from the street, on the other hand Jupiter Island is just beautiful full on huge houses all with lush tropical landscaping ocean views or Hobe sound views, or perhaps a golf course view. Great biking very little traffic and what traffic there is is moving slow. After riding we went back to the beach on Jupiter Island to fish. Well we didn't catch any fish but we did see lots of sharks jumping out of the water. It was quite a sight.

One day we went to a St. Louis Cardinal, Florida Marlins spring trainig game. The Cardinals play in Jupiter at a new stadium complex that has new housing, restaurants, golf course and even a Scripps research center. This will be our second spring training game having gone to a Red Sox, Braves game in Fort Myers. The game was fun. The Marlins and Cardinals share a nice complex.

Tomorrow it's good bye to Jupiter and hello to St. Augustine.

Aligaitors Everywhere part two

Shoot, somehow I lost an entire post regarding our stay at Little Manatee River State Park. To make things short the camp ground was nice but we left a day earlier than planned due to a forest fire. The fire burned between the campground and the ranger station. We departed Little Manatee in the middle of the night arriving at Collier Seminole State Park. Collier Seminole is located 15 miles south of Naples Florida just at the start of the Everglades.

The park is nice, very tropical in feel. The area is in a royal palm hammock, hammock being an Indian word for forest. The park, reminds us of being in Hawaii; Hawaii without a beach, instead we have alligators and bugs. Sites are small, parking the RV in dirt/ grass under oak trees and palms. Lots of shade which is great since temperatures are running about 80 degrees. The main activity here is canoeing the Black river. The river winds through the largest mangrove forest in North America. The park rents canoes or kyacks for $5.00 an hour or you can take a guided tour for $25.00. We were lucky and made friends with one of the camp hosts who lent us his tandem kyack. We had a great time paddling down the river. Lots of birds, we didn't see any gators. They are everywhere down here. Twice we rode our. Ike from the campground to Everglades City seeing more than 30 alligators in a canal that runs along the highway. After awhile alligator spotting became sort of boring.

Besides riding the bike, and canoeing, we also visited the Shark Valley part of the Everglades National Park. There at the Shark Valley we took the tram ride which follows a 15 mile trail through this section of the Everglades. Very interesting, beside seeing more alligators of various sizes, from babies to 15 footer, we spotted many varieties of birds including great blue herons, egrets, tricolor herons, wood storks, red shoulder hawks, osprey, and a turtle or two. The naturalist also explained the landscape, the various hammocks, alligator holes, sawgrass prairies and also the various animals other than alligator that live in the Everglades.

The Naples area is famous for their beaches, so we also spent parts of a couple of days at the beach and exploring Old Naples. The beach around the Naples pier is very nice with good public access points, nice sand and beautiful blue water. This time of the year the water temp is about 70 very nice. We also went to Marco Island's South Beach and Tiger Tail beach both nice beaches but public access points are few and far between. Florida likes to line their beaches with Condos that close off public access to the beach.

Other high points we had a very nice dinner at a German Resturant named Mozarts on Marco Island, we had drinks at Stans in Goodland which is a dive of a place and on Sundays Stan and his band plays music outside. Several hound red people of various ages from 21 to 80 hang out drink, dance and pretend in the case of the old people that they are young again. Stan's was very interesting.

Alligator everywhere, part one.

Shoot, I don't know whatsnhappening with any of my. Logs. I've written two logs since Orlando and neithermb blog seems to have been posted . Here I'm trying again. After Orlando we traveled to Little Manatee River State park which
is located 35 miles from Sarasota Florida. The campground here is small o ly 39 campsites, the park lies along the banks of the Little Manatee River. The main activity is canoeing the river. The plan was to spend three nights here but we shortened the stay to two nights due to a forest fire that went through the campground. Because it's been three weeks since wemstayed there I won't write much more on our stay. I'm posing this right now so I can see if it Posts.