Big Birds Like Bread

Our new apartment already has one really obvious benefit to it. The pond near us attracts sandhill cranes, and you know how much I love birds.

A couple days ago we went for a walk and spotted some sandhill cranes. Luckily I had my camera just in case. Shortly after spotting the big birds, we noticed another couple approaching with what looked like bags of bread in their hands. My first thought was oh they're going to feed the ducks. They passed up the ducks and tossed some bread into the air, and lo and behold the sandhill cranes flew right up to them. Apparently those big beautiful birds love bread. Who knew!

I always get really excited after spotting a sandhill crane. It's usually from a distance, so I'm still shocked we could get just a few feet from the big graceful birds. They are so beautiful. Their pointy bill is a little intimidating though. I couldn't help but think I might lose an eye for getting so close to them. Good thing they're herbivores. (apparently they will attack predators with their pointy bill, yikes.)

The family of sandhill cranes we happened upon consisted of six birds. They will typically be found in pairs. You could tell that some were more aggressive than others. A couple of the birds came right up to our neighbors, pecking at the bags of bread they were holding. It was quite the sight.

this one had an itch

I have to admit. The sandhill cranes scared me a little. They are almost 4 feet tall with wingspans up to almost 7 feet. Crazy! I suppose if you bring bread you're probably safe. They seemed to like it quite a lot. I'm looking forward to seeing these birds at least until they migrate to another location.

Have you ever been this close to a big wild bird?

When Pelicans Attack!

My mom recently visited from Michigan, and we explored quite a few places around the Gulf coast. One of those places just so happened to be the quaint little town of Dunedin. My husband was at work, so my mom and I had a girls day out. Pelicans stole the show.

After browsing the shops in Dunedin, my mom and I worked up an appetite. We grabbed lunch at the Olde Bay Cafe which is next to the Dunedin Fish Market. The cafe's covered seating area overlooks the marina and gives you views all the way to Caladesi Island. The Olde Bay Cafe is a great place to enjoy a meal, beer, and a lovely view.

Adjacent to the Olde Bay Cafe you'll find a boardwalk that takes you to a small pier. It's a great place for a stroll after filling yourself with fresh seafood from the Olde Bay Cafe. My mom and I walked out onto the pier, which we shared with fishermen, locals, tourists, and birds. We came within inches of pelicans, and I had no idea I would ever come so close to a live pelican in my life.

These pelicans were a little too comfortable with humans.

I'd been taking pictures of one pelican (see above photo), when it took flight. That bird's flight path included the space where I just so happened to be standing! I experienced one of those slow motion moments, where you have time to think about what's happening and you're not sure what to do. After images of being impaled by a pelican beak flew through my mind, I ducked as quickly as possible while back pedaling my way out of the pelican's flight path!

My mom still laughs about the stunned look on my face in that moment. I can only imagine it was one of shock, horror, and amusement all at the same time. This pelican came inches from my head. I'm still not exactly sure what that bird was trying to do! The attempted attack on my head was either premeditated, or that pelican had bad eyesight. We may never know.

I hope you enjoy this video!

Our Encounter with a (Very) Curious Squirrel

Remember how we visited the Sawgrass Lake Park last week? Well, I forgot to mention that we also saw some millions of squirrels during our walk around the park. They probably outnumbered everything else at the park, including people and trees. They were everywhere, and they were not scared.

Signs around the park read "do not feed the squirrels", but some had obviously been modified to tell us otherwise. Every squirrel we encountered was rather curious and not afraid of us silly camera-toting humans. We were able to get up close and personal with one incredibly curious squirrel. I almost had to intervene and save my husband. I thought for sure he was a goner for sure. This particular squirrel looked rather hungry.

See for yourself:

As you can see we had a tough time stifling our laughter.
We wanted to see how close it would get before we scared it away with our noise.

P. S.
Did you notice the squirrel takes a crap in our video at about the 0:40 second mark?
We didn't notice the poop until re-playing the video on our computer at home.
We felt sorry for scaring the crap out of the poor little squirrel.
Then we laughed about it.

Sawgrass Lake Park

Two days ago we visited Sawgrass Lake Park which we found 'sandwiched' between some very busy roads and a large interstate to the east. We never would have known it was there, okay maybe we would have eventually found out about it, but thanks to our new Florida road trips book we enjoyed a lovely day among some wild "friends". That is if you count squirrels, alligators, and turtles as friends.

As if the humans that occupy Florida's most densely populated county aren't wild enough, we decided that a day wandering through 400 acres full of actual wildlife sounded like a good time. During our walk across 1.5 miles of boardwalk and dirt, we spotted multiple turtles and alligators, woodpeckers, spiders perched on giant webs, and we even saw a snake in the underside of some tree roots. Those are just a few of the creatures we spotted during our walk. We actually had a rather relaxing day spending time among wildlife. Who knew that wild could be so calming?

Sawgrass Lake Park is apparently one of the premier birding spots in the country. I can see myself becoming the binocular wielding, safari hat wearing kind some day. Something about birds and their seemingly simple lives keep me interested for hours. Every time we visit the beach or a park, I find myself spotting birds and attempting to identify them. Hey Santa, if you're listening, I could use a pair of binoculars this Christmas. Thanks. I'll consider myself more of an expert when I can identify the local birds without seeing them first.

Sawgrass Lake Park had plenty of offer in the wildlife department. Not to mention all of the plants and trees that formed canopies over our heads for the majority of our time there. For some reason though, I just cannot find myself getting as interested in the trees and I do the alligators and birds. Next time we visit Sawgrass Lake Park, I hope to be sporting a stylish pair of binoculars and possibly even a zoom lens for the dSLR camera. That second wish is a bit of a stretch, but I'm a dreamer.

I hope you enjoyed our photos from Florida!

Seagulls Love String Cheese... and Siesta Key

Just yesterday we visited Siesta Key, Florida for the day. We are slowly realizing that just because we live in Florida doesn't mean that we get to visit the beach every weekend. Or any weekend for that matter. My husband and I rarely have a weekend off together, so we jump at the chance to do something fun on a day off together. This week it happened to be a Thursday, which is actually great since the beaches are less busy on week days. I really hope that the beaches here don't become one of those things we take for granted, because they are far too gorgeous to go unnoticed. We had a wonderful time at Siesta Key this week.

You won't find softer white sand much better than at Siesta Key! The sand feels incredibly inviting under your feet, and the gorgeous views of sparkling blue waters don't hurt either. Did I mention that Siesta Beach has free parking? So far, Siesta Key has the only beaches I know of with free parking. (Minus the parking at Honeymoon Island, but there is a park entrance fee so they cancel each other out there.) Free is always good in my book. Since we spent money on gas driving to Siesta Key, the free parking was more than welcome. If you're looking for a picture-perfect Florida beach, then you have made a great choice if you visit Siesta Key!

We had cloudy weather for our afternoon at the beach, but it was a welcome interruption to the extremely hot and sunny days we've been having for months now. It felt almost like the temperatures dropped into the 80s for the day. At first, the water at Siesta Beach almost felt cool to our skin. We may be turning into wimps after living in Florida for only 3 months. I guess everything is relative. Eighty degree temperatures do start feeling chilly though once 90 degrees and hotter becomes the norm. Hopefully we don't freeze our butts off this weather once the temperatures drop into the 60s! We will have earned it after this hot and humid summer.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

In order to save money and make our day at the beach affordable, we packed a cooler full of sandwiches, water, and snacks. We typically try and take food with us on our beach days, and this trip was no exception. Our late lunch/dinner consisted of turkey sandwiches, chips, granola bars, and string cheese. Did you know that seagulls love string cheese? At least it seemed that way, because they mostly left us alone until I opened my string cheese and was immediately swarmed by seagulls. No joke. They must love string cheese almost as much as I do. Not that I would swarm someone with string cheese, but it's almost like that. Maybe next time we'll leave the string cheese at home. Or I may end up fighting a seagull over some cheese. Could be interesting.

Did I seriously call that one seagull in the video pretty? I must have ate too much string cheese or something. Gosh. Some people call them rats with wings, but I don't think they're so bad unless they try and eat my cheese, then we have a problem. I admit that I did sneak a few crumbs of my sandwich crust to one seagull that was missing a foot. I felt sorry for it. If you were missing one foot, I'd sneak you some food at the beach too. I know you shouldn't feed the birds, but once in a while you just have to break the rules.

I will never ever tire of collecting shells and other sea creatures. Lately I've had my cross hairs set on finding the elusive sand dollar, but all I found this time were a bunch of crushed pieces. All of the pieces combined could have made a whole sand dollar though. I hope to find a whole one soon. Something about the sand dollar seems so special and interesting. Until then, I will be hoarding my fair share of conch shells and lightning whelks.

Our day at Siesta Key ended with a lovely sunset over the Gulf of Mexico. This beach is definitely on our list of favorites, so we will go back again. Next time you visit the beach, do beware of seagulls when opening your string cheese.

Alligator Sightings

I have a couple of videos for your viewing pleasure. In the videos I repeatedly call what we're doing alligator "hunting", but please know that we are absolutely not using weapons or hunting the alligators in any way. If anything, what we're doing is actually just alligator "searching and video-ing". Enjoy.

No alligators were harmed in the making of these "films".

Please excuse my newbie camera skills. I'm the proud new owner of a Flip video recorder, and I still have a lot to learn about keeping steady while recording. Oops.

Also please forgive my midwestern nasal-y "ah" sounds. I'm totally one of those people who can't stand hearing their own voice on recordings. I also think this is the first time I'm sharing my voice with you all. Try not to laugh too hard, because I know I did.

Did I seriously just call that alligator "docile"?! I think maybe the Florida humidity is messing with my head. My dad thinks maybe I should carry around a backpack full of raw chicken, you know, just in case an alligator attacks and I have to make a run for it. I could just open up the backpack and throw pieces of chicken distraction at the reptilian terrorist. I just might take my dad up on the chicken backpack idea. Poor chicken.

It seems that no matter where I live there's always some form of scary wildlife out there. However, I'm trying not to let alligators scare me out of doing fun things like kayaking or mucking through swampy areas searching for logs. Totally kidding, I'm not a swamp logger! It seems to me that alligators are everywhere in Florida. I've heard they want very little to do with people, and they only strike if you get in their way. (I hear that crocodiles are aggressive, so let's hope we don't come across one of those darn 'crocs'... I mean, the shoe scares me enough!) I also hear that alligators are slow moving when it comes to moving sideways. Let's hope both these facts are true. I'll try not getting in an alligator's way, and I will zig and zag like crazy if chased.

My husband and I will also continue gator "hunting", because I really want to get a great video for y'all! <--- There I go thinking I'm southern again. That's what happens when you start 'gator' hunting. You drop words like "y'all" and maybe even "fixin' ". I hope you enjoyed the alligator search!

Happy Monday!

Goodbye Winter, Hello Life in Florida

Hey there friends! I'm taking a little break from unpacking and hanging clothing in closets to play a little blog catch up. Yes, I know we've had days to get organized in our new apartment, but we just haven't done it yet. Today you'll hear me saying, "Goodbye North Face fleece" and "So long warm and comfortable winter boots".

You see. Since we just relocated to Florida from Colorado, we won't be seeing much of our winter gear any time really soon. I've stashed most of our cold weather gear in the spare room. You know, where most of the unwanted things like uninvited guests winter jackets and old blankets belong. Actually, we plan on using this extra room mostly as on office space and a room for visitors. The only visitors I ever had in Colorado were my parents and a couple of friends for our wedding. Other than that, the people visiting Colorado were few. I think that maybe living in Florida will bring more visitors, but we'll see!

Currently the closet in our spare room looks like purgatory for winter clothing. We're not quite sure what to do with all of it. Do we give some away, keep it for our future trips to see family in Michigan and Colorado, or do we just hang on to it and hope for major snow in Florida this winter? Ha! I'm only kidding. We're not going to leave Florida to visit anyone this winter, so hopefully it dumps buckets of snow here this January. All kidding aside, we have tons of winter gear, including skis and snowboard, and we have little use for it all now. Until we can make up our minds, it looks like the spare closet is going to be packed full for a while.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Just yesterday we ate at a restaurant called Molly Goodhead's in Ozona. The fried grouper sandwich was pretty amazing, and at that moment I realized that we really need to get fishing licenses and learn to fish for some dinner!

After eating our delicious dinner, we took a little drive and came across a nice little park and pier overlooking the water. The breeze made the humidity bearable, and we enjoyed watching the wildlife before sunset. We saw everything from small crabs to an assortment of birds. I think I could get used to this. Watching wildlife just might be one of my all-time favorite things to do!

While waiting for the sun to melt into the horizon, we met a really nice older couple who talked to us until the sun had made its exit for the evening. They had also lived in Michigan, which is where I grew up, and not to mention they knew of the lake that I grew up on as well. It's rare to find people who know of my hometown since it's so small. Talking with this couple was really comforting, because they really took the time getting to know us. I find that sharing commonalities with strangers is so comforting, because it really reminds us that we're much more alike that we think at first.

I have plenty more pictures where these came from.

Stay tuned in the next few days for

more photos from beautiful Florida!

p.s. We get our own internet next week. Thanks to our neighbor "Sampson" for unknowingly providing the internet service that made this blog post possible. (:

Remembering Our Honeymoon

With our one year anniversary in our rear view mirror already, my husband and I are a little shocked that it's over so quickly. We don't get another 1st Anniversary, and it reminds us to make each second with loved ones count... because we don't get a redo. Crazy how time flies!

We stayed in Bonita Springs, Florida for our honeymoon last year. People wondered why we stayed there, and we chose it because it was located between the Ft. Myers/Sanibel area and Naples. We wanted to visit places and do things in both areas. It was convenient for the things that we did, and we were happy with our hotel (minus an accidental double charge to our debit card) and how close it was to everything that we needed.

The sandpipers at Barefoot Beach were so cute, and they appeared to effortlessly glide across the water. I could have watched them all day long! Has anyone else seen sandpipers on the beach?

* boat ride in Naples *

We took a boat ride out of Naples on a very sunny but windy and chilly day. The boat captain and other workers pointed out wild life and told us all about some of the owners of the mansions we rode by on Naples Bay. The wind was blowing too hard, and they were not able to take us out onto the Gulf during this trip. While cruising back to the dock, the captain spotted dolphins and they followed the boat wake almost all the way back in to the dock. The workers told us all that this was the most dolphins they have seen follow the boat at once. There were about 7 or 8 dolphins, and they played on each side of the boat for about 10 minutes. Seeing the dolphins jump and play in the wild made my day!

* Caution: the wind in this next video is loud... watch your volume level.

* Pardon my schoolgirl-like giggling. I was seriously excited to see these adorable dolphins leaping and playing. Have you ever seen dolphins in the wild before? 

Hopefully you're not tired of dolphins by now. I am sure that I'll never get sick of seeing them... ever! If these videos don't make you want to be a dolphin... then I don't know what will. This might sound really silly, but seeing these dolphins so carefree in the wild really served as a reminder to enjoy every second of life!

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Hope you're smiling as the sun sets...

Diversity

Spur of the moment, Nate and I took a little day trip to the Denver Zoo. The experience was a lot better than any other trip we've taken to the zoo before. Part of that might have been due to us visiting on Friday afternoon only a couple of hours before closing time. The crowds were minimal and the animals were active. I swear I've been to the zoo previously on days where the animals are sleeping/hiding/in the back rooms eating/snoring/flat out ignoring visitors. I might ignore people though if I was stuck in a small cage with only a couple of toys too?! However, on this trip the animals seemed to frolic, play, and just enjoy the nice weather. Kind of like Nate and I did. Well, I might have been the one frolicking (I really like that word), and Nate enjoyed the nice weather... and a concession stand hot dog.

I made friends with a gorilla while at the zoo!

Sleepy sea lions.

We did encounter some sleepy animals at the zoo, but for the most part... they were out and about on the beautiful day. Nate and I had a good laugh at the geese and peacocks that wandered the zoo freely. One peacock came within feet of me as if I was in its way. I'm convinced it was mad that I did not move aside for it. The geese also made their way along the zoo's pathways. I wonder what their favorite zoo exhibit is? We did cross paths with them near bird world. Hopefully they were not taunting the parrots. Nate and I both wondered if the other zoo birds get jealous of the geese coming and going as they please. We may never know.

Visiting geese.

I definitely got in the way of this beautiful bird.

A security guard ushered us out of the Tropical Discovery building, because it was closing time and they wanted us to leave. We did get a chance to see some fun things though before that happened. The mudskipper gobies really amazed me. It's not every day that you get to see a fish with "arms". I wanted to see the little guy (at least I think it was a boy) move, so I blew on its face. Not sure that was the nicest thing to do, but I wanted to see that little thing scoot along the sand. Sure enough, I blew some air it's way... and it blinked a few times. I blew again, and that little mudskipper scooted along with its arm-like fins. That might have been my highlight of the day. It's hard to choose though, because I was pretty amazed the entire time we spent traveling through the zoo.

My cute little mudskipper

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

It's probably easier to just go ahead and show you the pictures of the animals we encountered while at the zoo. Hope you enjoy them too.

curious horseshoe crab

 mighty lion

birds swimming

monkey with a mustache

majestic elephants

gigantic giraffes

interesting bird

warthog pacing

camels resting

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

There is an extraordinary uniqueness to every creature on this earth. The zoo serves as such a great reminder of diversity. There's so much to learn from our differences. The zoo would be such a boring place if every animal there was a zebra. Incredible!