Last two months at Alafia River State Park

Florida smells so sweet.

February has to be the best month to be in Florida so far. Both strawberries and citrus fruits have ripened and are being harvested. The local strawberries are delicious, and who knew there were so many different types. The end of the strawberry season is celebrated with a Strawberry Festival just down the road from us in Plant City, Fl. A huge fair with big name entertainment like Blake Edwards as headliners.

Along with strawberry fields being worked and replanted a couple of times this month, all of the Oranges, lemons, grapefruit and tangerine trees are being harvested. Did you know that while the oranges are being picked, the trees are setting their blossoms for next year? It is a wonderful thing to walk outside and all you can smell is the sweet fragrance of orange blossoms.

After D'enne, Mike and Matthew left at the beginning of February, my cousin Caryle from Daytona Beach and her husband Graham came for a visit. Had not seen them for about 10 years and it was so good to spend an afternoon and evening getting reacquainted. We will be seeing them one more time as we head north next month.


 



Jayden, Josh and
Grandpa

Jayden and Joshua

The end of the month brought more visitors....this time from Seattle. Two grandsons, Jayden and Joshua flew out to Orlando to spend 5 days with us. We spent 3 days at Universal Studios riding all of the roller coasters and as many of the other rides as we could. 


Grandma, Jayden and Joshua



Josh with the Harry Potter players

One of our favorite areas of the park was the Harry Potter area of Hogsmeade and the ride in Hogswart.  If you read any of the books or saw the movies,  the Harry Potter area was just like being there.  Josh even came home with a magic wand.

  

The Hulk

Rip Ride Rocket

Jayden loves roller coasters and I have to give a big shout-out to Deane, as he was the one who rode ALL of them with him.  I road The Hulk with Jayden twice, but the others I put my foot down and said NO!  Especially the Hollywood Rip Ride Rocket which takes you straight up, and then projects you into the roller coaster ride.  The other one I would not ride, (Deane road it twice with Jayden) was the Dragon Challenge in Hogsmeade.

 

Dragon Challenge



Deane and Jayden - front row left on
Dragon Challenge

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Storm force acceletron

 Josh was  not interested in the roller coasters, but he did discover a smaller roller coaster The Flight of the Hippogrifth in Harry Potter land.  A roller coaster without loops and big drops.  He rode it three times.  He also loved the Storm Force Acceletron.  Jayden got it spinning so fast Josh almost flew out!

Josh and a Minion
 

Some of the other exciting rides were the 3-D digital rides like Despicable Me's Minion Ride, Spiderman, Shrek, Men in Black where we shot at aliens and and the Ride in San Francisco where we experienced an earthquake under the bay. Very lifelike!

Josh and Jayden having a
conversation with Donkey

 

 

 One note about going to Universal Studios.... if you have a weak stomach and are prone to motion sickness, be prepared to be queasy after certain rides.  I am very prone to motion sickness, never got sick, but have to tell you there were a couple of rides that flipped my stomach for hours after.

 

Last day the boys were with us, we were packing and cleaning the condo we stayed in, and Deane had bundled the garbage in one of the big garbage bags from under the sink. The instructions for disposal of garbage was to put the bag outside the door.   So in my sweep through the place I grabbed the two bags I saw and put them out. Only after we'd put the boys on the plane and we were unpacking at home did we realize Deane was missing all of his dirty clothes. Yep, you guessed it.... he put his dirty clothes in one of the garbage bags and thinking it was garbage, I put it out by the door. Luckily, the only thing in the bag was his dirty under ware! Wonder what the cleaning people thought.

outside of castle is made from printing
plates

In between visits and working, we visited a couple of interesting places in the area. Solomon's Castle was one of the more 'unique.' An internationally know artist, Howard Solomon is known for his tongue in cheek sense of humor and puns as he creates his sculptures and art from all recycled bits and pieces of anything and everything. While we were there, a film crew from HGTV was there filming the place for a segment called “Home Strange Home”. Solomon built his 'castle' where he actually lives and works, out of printing plates discarded by the local weekly newspaper in the area.

Break Pads

His beer can period

Of course, I would be happy to show
you how to fly my kite!

Spent another day at Treasure Island Beach which happens to be where the kite flying group in the area fly their kites. The wind was perfect and Deane got the big kite in the air and then flew his two line sport kite which drew attention from some skimpily clad young women who wanted to know all about flying kites.  Of course, Deane always the teacher, gave her the lines to the kite and with his arms around her, showed her how to fly it. I'm sure she walked away grinning, knowing she made an 'old man' happy.

Best part of the day tho, was after he got the big kite up, a young boy about 7 came up to him and asked him if he could fix his little kite. Said his kite would go up and then a minute later dive down. Magic Deane did fix it for him, gave him a little more weight on one side by giving the kite a tail.....all 40 feet of it! The boy and his mom were thrilled.

One other day we visited the Sunken Gardens in St. Petersburg. A 4 acre botanical garden created by a plumber who purchased the site, including a shallow lake 10 feet below sea level back in 1903. He started planting papayas and citrus along with other exotic plants. By the 1920's he opened a nursery where he sold fruits and plants and for a nickle, visitors could walk through the gardens. He eventually fenced his garden and started charging 25 cents for a walk through. The gardens are now owned by the city, and although they are beautiful and still retain a number of the original trees and plants, the identity of the many plants is not available to you. The afternoon we spent there would have been more enjoyable if we could have known the names of the plants we were seeing.

John and Sandra Collister

Manatee

We are now into March and we met up with good friends of Deane's, John and Sandra from Vallejo while they are in Florida.  Our paths seem to cross each year as we both travel. We saw them last year in Arizona, now here in Florida, and just found out they will be in Maine in September while we are in Connecticut.  After lunch, we all visited the Manatee viewing area and were treated to seeing hundreds of manatees and babies.

We are down to the last three weeks here, and as usual we are getting short-timers attitude. Starting to pack up the little things and batten down those things we can. We've met some really nice people again, and will stay in touch and hopefully meet up with them another time.