Tropicana Field (St. Petersburg, Florida)

It's been a long time between visits to a baseball park, and as luck would have it, baseball season opened earlier than usual this year, giving us the opportunity to catch a game at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg before leaving the Central Florida area. The game we watched was between the Tampa Bay Rays and the Baltimore Orioles, and sadly (since we were adopted Florida fans for the day), the Orioles won this one with a final score of Orioles 5, Rays 1. Nevertheless, it was a fun day. Anytime I can sit in a stadium, eat peanuts, and drink beer, I'm having a good time!

Tropicana Field has a fixed permanent dome, necessary due to the area's hot, humid summers and frequent thunderstorms. The day we were there would have been perfect weather for sitting outside, but as it turned out the climate controlled setting was also quite comfortable, if somewhat artificial. Just over the right-center field fence is the Rays Touch Tank. This 35-foot, 10,000 gallon tank is filled with cow nose rays that were taken from Tampa Bay waters. Admission to the tank area is free for all fans attending home games, limited to 50 people in the area at any given time.

Hopefully we'll catch a few more games on the East Coast before this season is over.

Florida Theme Park Extravaganza

Florida, especially the Orlando area, is known for it's Theme Parks. And while neither one of us are theme park fanatics, we both appreciate the Disney parks, and with so many additional theme parks all in one area, we decided we would go full bore and squeeze as much as we could into a two week package of discount tickets.

We ended up with tickets to Busch Gardens, Sea World, both sides of Universal Studios (Universal, and Islands of Adventure), the four main portions of the Disney World parks (Magic Kingdom, Animal Kingdom, Hollywood Studios, and EPCOT), and Kennedy Space Center.

It just so happened that one of the days we were at Universal Studios, it was Dan's birthday, and right next door was a Blue Man Group concert being held. On the spur of the moment we bought tickets for that as well to top off Dan's birthday celebration. If you haven't been to a Blue Man Group concert, there is no way to explain it. If you've never heard of the Blue Man Group, here is a link to their website: http://www.blueman.com/app/webroot/orlandosearch/?x=0&gclid=CMKMxY-RhqgCFYRl7AodY1CNGw

A friend from Sacramento was visiting at the time, so the three of us managed to make nine visits to the various attractions in 11 days. Our schedule was 3 days of theme parks, one day off; 3 days of theme parks, one day off; 3 days of theme parks, one day off.

 
Even though at times it seemed we were really pushing it, we all really enjoyed ourselves and we all agreed, we have had our fill of theme parks for now, or maybe even forever.


We were lucky with the weather, having two weeks in a row of sunny days, highs in the 80's, and only occasional clouds, but no rain. This allowed us to keep up our crazy frantic pace without any forced days off. This was truly a case of needing a vacation from the vacation to recuperate, but I'm glad to say, we saw it all!

 

 

Hollistic Holiday at Sea

Dan and I had never been on a cruise together, so this was something we thought we might pursue while in Florida. As it turned out, a cruise called "Holistic Holiday at Sea" came up at the same time we planned to be in area, and with just a little tweaking of our schedule we were able to make all the arrangements necessary to go on this adventure.

The group we were traveling with included a macrobiotic vegan chef, so all of our meals were perfect for the way we eat. We were also treated to seven days of workshops and lectures by esteemed authors and presenters such as Dr. T. Colin Campbell, Dr. Joan Borysenko, vegan cookbook authors, and a variety of entertainment.

Our ports-of-call included Key West, Ocho Rios (Jamaica), Georgetown (Cayman Islands), and Cozumel (Mexico). The food was wonderful, the weather warm and mild, and being catered to for an entire week with no more responsibilities than showing up for gourmet vegan meals was a real treat!! We've both agreed that if we ever do another cruise, it will again be with "Holistic Holiday at Sea". 

 

  

Key Largo & Everglades National Park

Our original plan was to begin our Florida visit with a one-month stay in the Keys, but when Dan needed to have neck surgery in December, our plans were set back by a month, so we arrived in Florida mid February instead of mid-January. Following our Capitol Tour of Tallahassee, we visited briefly with friends from Canada who were staying in Zephyrhills, then moved on to Ft. Lauderdale for a week while awaiting a cruise that sailed out on February 27th. During that week we did some touring, picking up a trip to Key Largo and a visit to The Everglades National Park.

Key Largo is the first, or northern most, of the keys most people are aware of, although there are actually 4500 islands in this archipelago that begin at the southeastern tip of the Florida peninsula. Key Largo is a popular tourist destination and calls itself the "Diving Capital of the World" because the living coral reef a few miles offshore. We visited the John Pennekamp state park while there to see the coral reef and the marine life that it supports.

The Everglades visit allowed us close-up views of alligators, nesting birds, and marine life, all living in a fragile ecosystem protected under the National Park system. The Everglades are wetlands created by a slow-moving river originating in Lake Okeechobee, fed by the Kissimmee River, and flowing southwest at about .25 miles per day into Florida Bay. The park protects an interconnected network of marshland and forest ecosystems that are maintained by natural forces. Thirty-six species designated as threatened or protected live in the park, including the Florida panther, the American crocodile, and the West Indian manatee. The park protects the largest U.S. wilderness area east of the Mississippi River, is the most significant breeding ground for tropical wading birds in North America, and contains the largest mangrove ecosystem in the western hemisphere. More than 350 species of birds, 300 species of fresh and saltwater fish, 40 species of mammals, and 50 species of reptiles live within Everglades National Park. All of South Florida's fresh water, which is stored in the Biscayne Aquifer, is recharged in the park.

Tallahassee, Florida

From Baton Rouge we headed east, just skimming the southern most sections of Mississippi and Alabama to find our way to Florida, where we plan to spend the next 6 weeks. Our first stop was Tallahassee for the Capitol Tour. Much to our surprise, this, too, was a towering capitol building, although not quite as tall as the one in Baton Rouge. The 23rd floor housed an enclosed lookout tower, and again, it provided fantastic views of the surrounding capitol grounds and the city at large. The inside of the capitol was functional, with a few highlights, such as the engraved State Seal on the floor of the first level, and a mural depicting scenes representative of the Florida environment. There was also an interesting photography exhibition on the 22nd level depicting the many faces of hard working Floridians.

Sitting directly in front of this very tall capitol building was the Old Capitol, which much to our delight, was open to the public. We found the architecture and design much more pleasing, and the displays spanned the history of Florida using posters and video clips. Another treat was the capitol dome, a beautiful kaleidoscope of colors, made bright by the sun shinning through.

We capped off the day with a visit to the Tallahassee Museum of Natural Science, where we walked around outside for a couple of hours among rescued wildlife indigenous to the area, rare historic buildings including a small plantation, and beautiful natural scenery.

Baton Rouge, Louisiana

We finally got the green light from Dan's doctor to travel again, so it didn’t take us long to pack everything up and start moving towards Florida. Since Baton Rouge was along our route, we took advantage of the opportunity to stop for a couple of days for the Capitol tour. This capitol building is like none other we've visited before, and indeed, is quite unique, being the tallest state capitol in the United States. The building is 450 feet high with 34 floors, with an observation deck on the 27th floor. The day we were there was clear and bright, so the view of Baton Rouge from this vantage point was spectacular.

The entrance to the capitol has a grand staircase with one step for each of the 48 states, listed in order of their admittance to the Union. Alaska and Hawaii were added to the top step when they were made states, well after the March 1932 completion date of the capitol. We explored the first floor, really the only area that was open to tourists, as both the Senate Chambers and House of Representatives were being remodeled. Huey P. Long, former governor of Louisiana, was assassinated in the Capitol Building, and his body is enshrined on the Capitol grounds. There is a showcase near the sight he was shot displaying newspaper articles depicting this historical and tragic event.

We were sorry to find out that the Old Capitol wasn't open to the public, as it looked like it might have been more interesting than the current more modern capitol building, but we did manage to walk the square block around it, and take some pictures of the very beautiful structure. The rest of our tour day consisted of walking along the Mississippi River on part of a designated river walkway and enjoying the beautiful weather.

Hiatus

What is it they say about those best laid plans? Oh, I remember…they often go awry. I can't say that our plans have often gone awry, but this winter we did have to put aside our trip to the Florida Keys, as Dan wound up having surgery to replace and fuse three levels of vertebrae in his neck. There is a several week recovery period for this type of surgery, most of it just waiting to make sure the fusion is progressing as expected. So, here we are, back in Livingston, Texas, at the Escapees RV Park, waiting to get the doctors blessing before moving on. Since we have been more or less grounded since getting here in November, there hasn't been much new to put on the blog.

We are looking forward to the rest of the year. In the works is a Caribbean cruise, touring the DC area, possibly a return to the North American Vegetarian Society Summerfest in July in Pennsylvania, and some time spent on the east coast. Late summer we will start heading back west, due in Sacramento by September, trying to take in as much as we can along the way.

Topeka, Kansas

Our time in Hillman this year has drawn to a close, and we made the decision that this year would also be our last year. As much as we enjoyed Northern Michigan, and Hillman in particular, not to mention all the great people who live and work there, we just felt a need to expand our vistas and open ourselves up to the rest of the country. Knowing this, saying goodbye on October 15th was just a little bittersweet. And, apparently we left just in time - we heard today that there was snow in Hillman just a couple of days ago!

The first thing on our agenda, after stopping for five days in Lansing to visit with my daughter and grandson, was to head to Chanute, Kansas, to the Nu-Wa factory to have some maintenance work done on our 5th wheel. Since we had not yet visited the Topeka, the state capitol of Kansas, we decided to work this into our schedule. So, today we did just that.

Unfortunately, the capitol building is undergoing a complete renovation, so the building was surrounded with scaffolding and heavy equipment, which distracted just a little from the overall experience. But luckily we were still able to get inside the building for our tour. Because of the renovation project, access to the rotunda and the dome was very limited, and no exhibits to speak of. Still, the structure itself was worth viewing, with the historic French Renaissance-style architecture, and we were able to get some pictures to add to our file of State Capitols.