Tag Archives: dolphins

Florida Road Trip: Day 5 (Blue Spring and Canaveral)

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Manatee at Blue Spring

We enjoyed breakfast at the hotel, and then headed out in search of the elusive manatee.  We drove towards Blue Spring State Park and decided to head along the board walk.  We heard rumors that there were manatees in the spring, and knew we had a chance to see some.  At the end of the board walk was a small pool – and a manatee!  It was just lazily swimming around… and then went back down the stream.  So, we followed it, and eventually found some more manatees – and manatee babies, too!  Well, they looked like mini baby blimps, but they were still very cool to see.  We also saw one manatee that had been tagged with a little ring around its tail, and a boat attached to the ring by a cord.  This manatee was a bit of a showoff, and did several barrel rolls.

Armadillo!

We also saw Canaveral National Seashore.  It was a bit cool on the ocean, but that didn’t stop us from wandering up and down a pretty stretch of beach.  We also saw our favorite tiny shorebirds, sanderlings.  Since they hunt in packs, we nicknamed them “tiny raptors.”  We also saw several (live!) armadillos eating grass (?) on the side of the road.  Apparently they’re quite tame; some people even pet them.  We didn’t, since we wanted them to remain semi-wild, but we had fun watching them.

Sunset at the marina.

We attempted to drive to the other section of the park; however, by then it was 5:45 and the gate was closed.  However, we did see the entrance to Kennedy Space Center, a pretty sunset… and dolphins!  We were driving over a drawbridge, when Louisa spotted a black shape jump out of an inlet.  We parked near a group of fishermen/construction workers, and walked up a (closed due to construction?) bridge so we could watch the dolphin playing in the water.  We also had a great view of the sunset.

We got back to Orlando in time for dinner and ate some good seafood at a restaurant (Boston’s Fish House) Tony had discovered on his recent trip to FL.  After dinner we walked around downtown Disney, and eventually made our way back to the hotel.

The next day we began the long drive back to VA.  Of course, we timed our drive so we would get to our favorite GA BBQ place in time to get burnt ends for lunch.  It was a welcome break, especially since we encountered rain for the vast majority of the drive.  We had a great whirlwind trip of FL. :)

California Trip Recap: Part 3

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For our final portion of our California Trip (after a long break from the last recap… :-) ), Louisa and I took a drive up the Big Sur Coastline to the Monterey Peninsula.  After leaving San Simeon, we stopped by a beach full of elephant seals (that really liked flipping sand on each other while resting).

On the rest of the drive on the Big Sur coastal highway (Highway 1), we passed over many historic bridges (like the one shown above) and mountain cliffs.  One thing that you won’t see on this drive are a lot of calm, sandy beaches until you get to Carmel.  This was definitely one of the more scenic drives that we took on this trip.

After some rest, Louisa and I went on a whale watch where we saw many orca and humpback whales.  It was a pretty rare occasion on the whale watch, because the group of orcas (Killer Whales) was going after a baby humpback whale.  It looked like the baby humpback whale survived the battle.

We spent our final day in Monterey checking out the shoreline around Fisherman’s Wharf.  The amount of marine wildlife in the area is astounding (especially if you are not used to the ocean).  During our walk we saw (many) sea lions, seagulls, pelicans, and a pair of dolphins that loved to jump out of the water near shore.  Because of our wildlife viewing (and horrible traffic), we almost missed our flight back to Denver later that evening.  Looking back, maybe that wouldn’t have been a bad thing. ;-)