yeah, it’s 60 degrees. amazing, but of course it’s not gonna last. i’m pretty sure that spring will come eventually, though.
so, back to our trip to florida…i posted photos of the first morning there, and then mom and i went on a dolphin cruise.
here’s our rental car; i took a picture for kevin. when we checked in, of course i didn’t know the model, and i wasn’t so sure about the color, either. luckily it had tennessee license plates so that was one distinguishing feature. it was fun to drive a new and very clean car, although by the time we dropped it off on thursday, it had accumulated a whole lotta sand.
the marina where we took the cruise was only about five minutes from our hotel, and there were many, many very fancy boats moored all around.
we walked by a real estate agent’s, and i noticed this place. i think it’s a mobile home, or some kind of prefab house…for a mere 170 grand!
we walked past these lovely flowers and mom kept saying WHAT KIND OF FLOWERS ARE THEY? and of course i didn’t know, so i took this picture and sent it to amy for ID, but either she didn’t know or she didn’t get back to me, so if you know, please tell mom. hopefully it’s not still keeping her up nights.
dad woulda loved this fancy gold cadillac.
here’s our boat; it wasn’t that much bigger than our pontoon boat, really. i think it held 30 people, so i guess, yeah, it’s bigger, but not outlandishly bigger. there were many other dolphin cruises, some on huge boats with cocktails and food and stuff, but we just wanted to be right next to the dolphins. there were only about 17 people on the boat, so that was nice. plenty of room. i wish i’d taken a picture of this young couple from minnesota – the woman was wearing a dress and she had the bone-whitest legs i’d ever seen. hopefully she was wearing sunscreen.
of course i had to take a picture of the pelicans as we were heading out, even though we have pelicans here. i love birds.
our view as we headed out to the bay.
i want a little houseboat like this.
the skipper of our cruise was a nice and knowledgeable guy, and he first took us over to this island, and now i can’t remember if it was man-made or not. anyway, it was full of birds and it was just great to be out on the water and it was warm and sunny and perfect.
there weren’t so many dolphins on the first part of the cruise, but this is the first picture i got. it wasn’t so easy to take the pictures with my cell phone, and i clung to it tightly so i wouldn’t drop it overboard. that wouldn’t be so good for the environment.
the skipper had names for all the dolphins, and i asked him how he could tell them apart. i think you can kind of see the scars on them; i guess they wrestle around quite a bit, especially when they’re young.
there weren’t a millions boats out, but this one seemed like it intended to run right into us. luckily it didn’t.
a bird built a nest on top of this sign, and what kind of bird was it? i can’t remember. the skipper told a horrible story about how a nest got destroyed because somehow a fishing hook got caught in the bird’s mouth and the bird frantically flew away and the fishing line exploded the nest. this happened when the guy was out giving a tour, and he called some rescue place and somehow they managed to catch and rescue the poor bird. i’m glad that story had a good ending – i guess he doesn’t tell the stories with the bad endings.
in case you can’t read the sign, it says “the recovery of earth is a task accomplished only by man & nature in mutual friendship. let’s do it.” nice.
we rode right by our little island; our hotel is the one on the left.
here’s a close-up of the hotel, with the little fabulous outdoor restaurant over on the right.
this sign said something about going slow because of manatees. we didn’t see any that day, but i didn’t mind. like i said, i was just happy to be out on the water.
and this was the area where there were lots of dolphins, and the dolphins loved to frolic in the wake.
it’s amazing to me just how close the dolphins got to the giant motors.
i took this picture of the wake just because i like a nice wake. i remember that i took pictures of the queen mary wake, too.
on our way back we passed this fishing boat with a little dog in front. our skipper said that this guy takes people out fishing, and he has a few dogs, and they get to go with him all the time. lucky dogs.
when we got back, mom and i sat at a table in back of the cruise place and ate sandwiches we’d bought at the grocery store. these birds were very interested.
and whew, that’s all for now.
no, wait…last night randy told me that he does still read my site, but only to look for pictures of lester.
so we’ll see if he manages to make it all the way down to the bottom of this post.
kevin sent me these pictures when we were gone. chester was lying in mollie’s bed, the first time he did that.
and lester, of course, always loves to luxuriate on top of the hot tub. we got a new rug for the living room, so the old one is perfect for delicate and fragile little les.
ok then,
mrs. hughes, nearing the end of february.
