We drove so many miles and still have so much more to see. Next time I think I would like to fly into Miami and stay in the south and explore the Keys and the Everglades. Before the heat of the summer sets in! Key West is 1,699 from the Equator. (If you calculate it as the orthodromic distance on the surface of a sphere) (I'm not a brainiac, this was on the website I checked and I wanted to sound smartiful)
Our biggest road trip took us south from Palm Bay to somewhere around Port St. Lucie diving west to cross Florida at the northern tip of lake Okeechobee. We are spontaneous people. We drove off heading south and then started talking about what our destination might be. I said "Lake Okeechobee!" Why? Because I liked to say the name. I learned a lot of cool things about it when we stopped there. It's the second largest lake in the United States. The deepest part of it is a mere twelve feet. How odd. I like odd things. It's chock full of alligators, but we didn't see any. I created a new insult for people: That guy is as dumb as a pier diving skinny dipper at Lake Okeechobee!
We stopped at a little place there and met more nice people. The cafe was empty, and the owners gave us free books, a free extra drink, and showed us the blueprints for the house they were building. Good times! Then we had to decide where to go next. So we looked it up and found a beach called Caspersen, famous for being the shark's tooth capitol of the world. Well that sounds adventurous, it's on the west coast of FL.
We didn't find any teeth, but we had a great time looking. It was chilly, but the sunset was wonderous. Everything we did near Sarasota was extra fun.
I wanted to check out Venice, but when we woke up the next morning it was intensely foggy so we drove through Tampa (go Buccaneers, the day before the Superbowl!) to Ocala, then to Gainesville and back south to Orlando, arriving back in Palm Bay that evening. In time for dinner: we found a restaurant that served us scrumptious garlic shrimp dishes.
Side note, Ocala was the busiest and least appealing place we visited (so much traffic!). Gainesville was very quaint and had a different kind of feel to it. I really liked it.
This first picture is Okeechobee. The area around it was pretty barren. I think we saw our first alligators while driving there, a flash of gators as we barreled on by. Ron was disappointed at the lack of gators, actually.
No shark's teeth in our path, but the big rocks are full of shell fossils and things.
This is the gulf of Mexico, and the water here wasn't warm yet either, not in February. The lighting from the setting sun was great to work with.
Interesting rock formations, I can't wait to go back some day.
A lot of shells to examine on this beach. I need more than two hours, and can I also request warmer weather?
Remarkable sunsets, my favorite thing!
Awesome beach and sunset. Tasty food at a fun restaurant with upbeat loud music. What a day!
I could write an entire blog on the cool last-minute hotel Ron found called Kompose. The lobby was so artistic and fun. I took so many pictures, and here are a few.
This is us waiting to take the elevator.
On the walls are small animal heads with sayings underneath like a tiger and it says: I am me. This is the hallway to our room. Each doorway was lit up.
How do I explain all the cool things about this room?? First of all it was all unpainted cement, with some flooring. It is long and narrow and behind the bed is a wall of window. The fridge is on the bottom left of this picture, it's the kind with a glass window for a door, and it sits on the end of the counter to the sink. Very efficient.
This is interesting stuff. First of all the mirror, which has a circle in the bottom corner. That circle is an extra well lit built-in magnified mirror. So brilliant, why aren't all bathroom mirrors like this? Except this one can be seen from the rest of the room, not in an enclosed bathroom area. Another interesting thing is the pane of glass on the left of the mirror, which is part of the shower stall. Which you can also see from the rest of room! Except there is a switch you can flip and all of a sudden it becomes opaque. Like magic. And that's not all folks. One more odd thing. See the next picture.
Let me tell you what you are looking at. It is a small space for a toilet on the left and next to it is the shower stall. The trick is, there is only one sliding door that can finish covering the toilet area, but that leaves the shower stall open. What? Why? Everyone in the room has to really like each other and/or trust each other deeply. And have good communication skills. Or not have any boundaries, I suppose. What a novel concept.
This last picture is how dense the fog was as we drove across the Manatee River.
This shows the yellow cables that I think go across the meridian of the bridge. This was some of the worst visibility I have ever encountered. It was eerie, and very otherworldly. Is that a word? Yes, and it even fits, I had to look it up. "Relating to an imaginary or spiritual word". It looks like what would be seen while crossing worlds between the physical and the spiritual. Between matter and the pure energy spectrum. What a trip. I expected to come out of the mist into an alternate reality. Florida must be a great place for writers!
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