Naples Really Stands Out

What a beautiful city -- Naples, Florida. The flowers lining the streets were exotic and blooming! My daughter said, "That was the best beach we went to." The fishing must be good to as there were so many pelicans hanging out at the beach. I did try to talk everyone into eating without me, so I could take photographs, which I would have preferred! But I was sitting enjoying a shrimp dinner while the sun fell into the ocean. I found another waitress to bring me the check and was able to catch the tail end of the sunset.

Total mileage: 1792

We are back home now. A friend asked why we "just went to Florida" (it's a neighboring state) instead of a longer road trip like usual. There were a lot of reasons we went to Florida. I wanted to add beach photographs to my portfolio, and it was close. But honestly, I will be hurrying back because there really was so much to see in so many places. I think LeBron make a good choice to move to Florida, and I would love to move there. If you live in Florida on the gulf coast and have lots of flowers blooming in your city, like Naples, let me know. I'll stop by!

Floridian Birds are Out of There!

The beautiful, varied birds in Florida more than make up for the lack of flowers in my path. I really can't believe the opportunities I received today and yesterday to photograph so many winged creatures. I haven't seen this many birds on any one day, never mind being able to photograph them. I photographed birds at the John Pennekamp State Park in Key Largo and also in the Shark Valley in the Everglades off of Highway 41. And, I almost forgot the beach in Naples, Florida. Here are a couple images.

Woodpecker at the John Pennekamp State Park

Egret in the Florida Everglades

Coconut Grove Marina Pretty

Lots of boats here at the Marina in Miami. We enjoyed walking down Grand Avenue last night for dinner. Nice shopping with unique merchandise. Looks like there is an art show here in February called Coconut Grove Arts Festival. Here's how it looks here right now.

My biggest road trip tip is to ALWAYS put stuff back in the same place. In other words, bike helmets in the same green back. Sheets in the same blue bag. Bike gloves in the small black bag. We save our old mismatched gloves and use those pairs when we need an emergency pair. Moving stuff around gets confusing if it is in the first location or the second one. Keep it simple. So we are off to John Pennekamp State Park.

The View from Miami Beach

Mileage 231.7
I woke up just as the sun was rising this morning. Thank goodness. And found these beautiful pictures.



 I was wondering how to find the view of Miami from the island. I asked a gas station attendant, and she said I couldn't. These kinds of statements really motivate me. I found the view and a wonderful bike path at the same time.

From the Gulf -- Clearwater

After our over 499 mile drive, we found our way to the beach; the sunrise was worth the car ride. And there were lots of pretty birds feeding this morning.