Our week at Fort De Soto is up today but we have no intentions of leaving just yet. The nice thing about staying at a state or county park is that your day entrance fee is usually included and you don’t have to leave until the day use area closes.
Dear Ava,
Today you turned SIX! And today was the first time you ever had a birthday in the Airstream. For every one of your birthdays, you knew exactly what type of party you wanted. But this year was different because this year you wanted to be totally surprised. How adventurous of you! So Mila and I gladly put on our party planning hats and created a butterfly party just for you, complete with wings and with an Airstream full of pink balloons. By some miracle, your little sister didn’t spill the beans and you were completely surprised in the morning when you opened your eyes.
One of the main reasons why we met up again with Kyle here in St. Petersburg has to do with what we are doing today. A few months ago, I found out that Kyle had taken sailing lessons at Charleston, South Carolina. Well before I was into Airstreaming, I was an avid sailor and had owned a handful of sailboats in my past. After chatting about boats for awhile, Kyle and I decided that since we are both spending our winters in Florida, we should get together and do a day charter.
For the last couple of weeks, we have been corresponding with a facebook friend about our visit to Tampa. Some of you might have heard of Matt and Rebecca of Boxfotos. Matt kindly offered to give us a tour of his workplace which happens to be WFLA of Tampa. They are also the NBC affiliate of the greater Tampa area. We have never been on a tour of a TV studio so we gladly accepted his offer.
Today is our last full day in the keys. I can’t believe we have been here almost a whole month. In a month’s time, this little guy has gone from just crawling to pulling himself up to cruising and is getting so much better at bothering his big sisters. The girls figured out that the couch is a Luka-free zone… for now.
This morning we took some time to do some spring cleaning. All the fabric off of the dinette and gaucho seating were taken off and are being washed in the outdoor laundry room at the campground. Even though we have light color fabric, the fabric doesn’t stain too much due to being made from outdoor sunbrella fabric. And why did we pick today to do some spring cleaning? Well, we *might* be on television in a few days. More on that to come…
Just so that our stay at Curry Hammock is not completely devoid of adventure, we did manage to make it out of our state of relaxation for a little sightseeing. While at Bahia Honda, we made a day trip to Key West. During our time at Long Key, we drove up to Islamorada for an afternoon at Robbie’s marina. Here at Curry Hammock, it is Crane Point Museum, Nature Center and Historic Site.
Tropical hammocks are unique hardwood, broad-leafed evergreen forests that are only found in South Florida and the Keys. No, this is not a tropical hammock. This is the kind of shenanigans that happen in the Mish each morning when the kids wake up.
Today we woke up to find an empty spot next to ours. This campground is so busy, especially this time of year, so I know it won’t be empty for more than a few more hours. I quickly snapped a picture of the least photographed side of the Airstream since it was feeling a little self-conscious.
If we were planning on going to see Key West, then our best bet would be to go from the Bahia Honda campground since it is much closer than the other two state parks we also have reservations at over the next few weeks. It still feels a little weird to go to cities we already explored during our 2010 cross country trip so we are going to make a conscious effort on not repeating anything we saw last time around. Challenge… accepted!
The skeeters are pretty fierce in these parts of the keys. We have been trying to stay away from them by not spending much time outside which is a real shame. It is beautiful here. The biggest problem is that the air is so stagnant. There isn’t a breeze at all to blow the bugs away. Also since the sites are on ancient coral, asphalt and concrete instead of sand, water sort of just collects into pools and they make for a pretty ideal breeding ground for these pests.
Our 4 nights at Fort Wilderness includes 2 days at Magic Kingdom. Actually we can go to any of the other parks but with our kids age, Magic Kingdom is the only way to go. For those of you out there with 2 girls under the age of 6, you know what I mean. There is no coming to Disney World and not getting to take photos with the princesses. Oh yeah, and it happens to be Marlene’s birthday.
