Day at the Beach!

great blue heron

to be honest, I never thought I'd enjoy living in Florida, but I've found many advantages, such as living so close to the beach! Never in my life have I spent sooo much time at the ocean, and I really, really love it.

today in particular, we stopped at the local beach and just hung out all day. I myself didn't get in the water, but Joshua had a blast splashing around. I found myself wandering around along the shore, snapping pictures of anything that flew by. :)

Manatee in Crystal River

Apparently, something I didn't know, was that the West Indian Manatee has called the gulf coast it's home. It's a very common sight to be walking around town, along the water, and seeing groups of manatee basking in the afternoon sunlight.



(They travel in pods, which is a large group of manatee, that you can see on the right)

Manatee are Herbivores (like me!) In an aquarium, it's common to see the manatee being fed lettuce, but here in the wild they mostly just munch on sea grass, freshwater plants, and other algae.
The manatees can be found in the warm waters of shallow rivers, bays, estuaries, and coastal rivers.



Numerous times upon watching the manatee, I have seen them "playing" in the water. They'll do barrel rolls and sometimes I've even seen younger manatee swim after one another. They are generally very (extremely) huge animals, and they tend to move rather slow. These gentle and cute manatees can weight up to 1,000 lbs or more, and are an average of 10+ ft. long! The females, quite surprisingly enough, are actually bigger than the males. It's uncommon to see them out of the water, but occasionally the manatee will swim to the top, exposing their nose to the surface to inhale air, before going back down.

Manatee Springs State Park, FL

We've officially left and moved away from Georgia, which means I am happy yet very, very sad. :(
but nonetheless, life shall continue to move on, as it always does. quite frankly.
















Our stop for this weekend was Manatee Springs State Park, which is located in Chiefland, Florida! I unfortunately got sick a few days before moving here, to the point where I couldn't breathe through my noes, my eyes were pink, my head hurt, my throat hurt, and my body was weak.

Which is odd, because I eat like a rabbit. I am super duper healthy and nothing fights down the walls of my immune system! Or at least, not usually, so when I suddenly became sick this suckkkeed.



The first day we arrived at the state park, I just slept, and when I wasn't sleeping I was watching supernatural and eating soup. I was a mess. We also had no wifi, internet, water, or television here. (At least we had electricity!)







Something I loved most about this place was how our campsite was literally dead center in the woods, right in the trees. We're surrounded by birds and forest and deer and that just makes me so incredibly happy.





Also, hence "manatee springs", the park has numerous outlets to the ocean-fed river, which is currently home to tons and tons of manatee at the moment.

The water is over 70 degrees year round and is perfect for swimming! (I can see why the manatee are currently living in these waters) not to mention how crystal clear it is, you can see every fish in this water! How awesome!





The next day, after taking a long hot shower and blowing my nose a few dozen times, I was finally able to make it out the house, despite the fact I felt so sick, I just couldn't miss this day.

The sun was shining and the air was nice and cool. Dad and I went for a walk on the wooden bridge, it goes for almost a mile through the woods, and is alongside the water.














We happened across a hawk, and got very close to it, which is the highlight of my life right there because I mean how often do you get this close to a hawk and snap such an amazing picture.

I loved seeing all of the different animals - such as turtles, manatees, butterflies, hawks, squirrels, blackbirds, fish, and the list goes on.

Lizards

Here is the thing about Florida that really surprised me: Lizards.

I'm from the midwest, and the only reptile you are bound to see is a snake, perhaps the occasional frog or even a turtle...

But apparently, lizards are a very common sight here in Florida. While staying at my aunt's condo, I noticed dozens of these little lizards just running around, and needless to say, I was just shocked.





These little guys are called Brown Anole, and they do this really cool neck thing:

Luckily they aren't bothersome at all, and don't really care about you or I.

Though I've found they are very difficult to capture...

who would have thought those little legs could move so fast?

Downtown Sarasota, FL

We ventured to downtown Sarasota, where the beach was. Also - we discovered a super awesome park! Although Joshua and I are becoming big kids (I'm still denying it) we still played at the playground.



It was suuucchhh a fun day! I loved seeing all the
cool-awesome-interesting birds at the water,

I loved the statues in the park and even the awesome old trees.

Plus, I discovered something interesting. There was these green birds in the trees, like jungle birds or something, the kind of bird that should be in south America right now. It was crazy!


 I've been sad about my aunt being in the hospital, and it made me even sadder to see her in that hospital bed. I honestly can't explain the heartbreak that runs over you, but I know damn well it hurts like lemon juice on a fresh wound. And, it doesn't help I've been battling depression for so many months now. Smiling has become a chore, but today, at this park, it wasn't. I was happy, even if it was just for a little bit.

Amelia Island, Florida

Our destination today was the beach, which seems to be the place we are always going lately, but let me tell you a little something. My dad was forty five years old the first time he ever saw the ocean. Needless to say, we're making up for lost time. I think he's trying to compensate for all the years he never saw the sea.

For lunch, our sandwiches have a label, with a word to distinguish whose it is.

Mine of course:

Surprise, surprise...

oh and hey, we found a sharks tooth for the first time!

And I got Joshua to smile for a picture!

And of course, dad is completely and utterly lost in the endless amount of shells that wash up to the sandy shores.

 This dude was pretty awesome, so was this dude:

Kathrine Abbey Hanna Park, FL

Today we went to Kathrine Abbey Hanna Park in Jacksonville, Florida. :)

I was suuuppper excited for today, just because it was so nice to get out of the camper and go for a little drive.








The park has several large lakes, along with beach access to the ocean, yay!

It is currently the 'off-season' here in Florida, therefore the kayaking and boat rentals weren't available today, but we had fun walking around the trails and eating a picnic lunch!

I've seen alligators in aquariums and at the zoo before, but I've never actually saw an alligator in the wild before!

Not until today, at least. I ended up wandering on my own for a bit, I tend to go at a slower pace than the rest of my family, considering I'm always stopping to take pictures of flowers, or something another that catches my eye.













So anyways, here I am walking down a path, and there are some people not far from me, one of them suddenly says, "do you see the alligator?" I walk faster over towards them, only to look over and see a gigantic alligator just hanging out on a log. I pretty much freaked -





my heart was racing, pounding out of my chest even. I felt so nervous and yet excited,
I was shaking all over. I ran back to find my family and I shown them the alligator as well, it was pretty awesome :)

Afterwards, we even saw an armadillo!!






Later on we drove over to the beach, and spent a few hours walking along the shoreline.

That's where we saw a group of dolphins! It was so amazing, I've never seen this many wild animals so up close before now!! :)

I didn't get a picture of the dolphins, by then it was getting clouded and dark and it started raining, so we had to leave.

I had such an awesome day, I really loved this park and I hope we come back here again sometime!