Florida - September 2025
| Florida - September 2025 | |
| We were excited to make a little visit to Kristin and Alvaro in their new apartment in Florida. | |
| Kristin picked us up from Tampa airport - we were very excited to fly direct Gatwick to Tampa! More importantly, we were looking forward to all the fun and plenty of cups of tea and coffee out and about in Tampa area. | |
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| Alvaro and Kristin's guest room was nicely set up for some work to be done: a double desk just like we have in the UK! What luxury is this? Notice the cardboard boxes used as monitor stands. | |
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| As always there was plenty of fun scheduled for our visit. Given that it is autumn there was even pumpkin carving. Hild did a two-faced pumpkin with olives for eyes, red/bloody wool to stich back on the top/brain lid. The spider was added for more fear and peril. | |
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| Kristin worked on her pumpkin-house. There were windowsills and doorsteps. The door was even on a hinge. Finally - very artistically decorated. | |
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Rob - nerdy as ever - determined the DNA sequence that spells
ROHIKRAL. Carving this into very small hard white pumpkin was exhausting.
Hild tried to carve it into a standard pumpkin but ran out of space.
She gave up on the third pumpkin because it was so solid that she had to use
a hammer to cut the skin. Ugh. At least we have photos of the nerdy concept.
Note that our pumpkins deteriorated very quickly. Kristin's pumpkin just shrank and collapsed, while Hild's pumpkin developed a serious case of mould. Rob's nerdy pumpkins seemed unfazed by the whole thing... |
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| One morning we all went for a hike at John Chestnut Sr. Park. The boardwalks around Lake Tarpon were an easy and enjoyable hike. Some good photo opportunities in the lookout tower too. | |
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| We think they must be sisters... | |
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| We saw several deer in the park, and they did not seem to be bothered or scared by our presence. | |
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| There were beautiful American Beautyberries (apt name) as well as bright yellow primroses and pink hyacinths. | |
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At one point we got to a pond with beautiful reflections of the sky.
Some other visitors pointed out that they sometimes see otters
in this pond. We sat down for a while but did not see any otters.
We suspect it was too late in the day and that we were too loud/chatty.
Cute Tufted Titmouse birds and a nosy grey squirrel did think that we should feed them. Be chose wisely and they went away hungry. |
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| Rob found this lookalike in the forest! | |
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| The small ponds and rivers were very still, and some were covered in plant growth. This one was suspiciously clear. It also came with warnings about gators, blue green algae, and killer bees! Move along and don't linger here! | |
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| Alvaro had planned for us to partake in the Chilean national day celebrations in Ybor in Tampa. The organizers were the local chapter of the Chilean women's association, who also happened to have their 10-year anniversary. The venue was the Church of Scientology - interesting... | |
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| At one point some local dancers showed up and showcased several traditional dances in their beautiful costumes. | |
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| Alvaro and his friend Omar (not in the photo) volunteered (under pressure) to dance the Cueca with the professionals at the party. Both of them did really well! | |
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| We enjoyed Mote con huesillo (dried peaches cooked in sugar, water, cinnamon with husked wheat) as well as our favourite: pastel the choclo. The plan was to take a photo, but Rob apologises for polishing it off too quickly... | |
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We spent a day at the beach at Fort De Soto. Sadly Alvaro had to work.
Rob was concerned that he may not be allowed onto the beach due to the
pet restrictions (he is fully aware of being "Hairy Potter").
There were many beautiful non-pet birds on the beach - including snowy egrets. |
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| The beach was nearly empty, which isn't a huge surprise given that it was a Monday in September. Still, it was a beautiful day for it. | |
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| We walked north until we reached the inlet into Bounces Pass. We turned back south and found a good spot to enjoy our picnic lunch and a bit of a swim/paddle. | |
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| Because the sun was so bright, Rob kept filming in slow-motion. Kristin and Hild found their own level of slower-motion. | |
| Watching the birds in the surf was relaxing and entertaining all on its own. | |
| We packed up and drove to Fort De Soto park where there is infrastructure built during the Spanish-America war. It was built for coastal defence but saw no action. Makes sense since the mortars appeared to be in pristine condition. | |
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| We found some stairs for Rob to climb - as per usual. | |
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| The top of the old fort gave us a good vantage point to gaze back up the beach where we had been lazing about not half an hour ago. | |
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| Just south of the fort we visited a very busy fishing pier. Lots of people and whole families had come out to try their luck. There seemed to be an abundance of fish. The water seemed to be boiling. We were quite taken by surprise. The park ranger told us that the ocean currents and tides makes this spot good for fishing. No kidding! You can't see it on the photos or in the slow-motion films from Rob (again). But the number of birds, dolphins, and turtles tells the story. | |
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| Rob and Hild considered that life isn't too hard once you find some ice cream... | |
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| And we did enjoy our ice-cream with a view of the pier and all its goings-on. | |
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| Another day all four of us went for a walk around Lake Rogers. The signs invited us to look for animal tracks. We were too busy chatting and didn't notice any. We were, however, fascinated by what looks like an opposable thumb on the Opossum foot! Some research tells us that the opposable thumb is only on their hind feet - so that's not very useful, is it?! | |
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| It was a beautiful day with plenty of sun - again! | |
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| The Spanish Moss covering some trees looks very itchy and sometimes goes from being charming to damaging the trees by blocking sunlight and making their branches heavier. Not so good. | |
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| There were many more colourful flowers to enjoy, and beautyberries, palmettos, and a skittish lizard (is there any other kind?). | |
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| Hild's poxy phone camera does not help show that there was an actual Anhinga bird crying its wings on a pole in the lake. You just have to take our word for it. | |
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| This is the much-improved result when you have a good phone camera like Kristin's iPhone. | |
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| We were so busy enjoying our walk that we forgot to take a group photo until we got back in the car. Smiley happy people. | |
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| Back in the apartment we had several days of fun building this jigsaw puzzle with key landmarks from the USA and Canada. | |
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| One day we visited the Florida Botanical Gardens. There is no entry fee, and we enjoyed a walk around the various trails and ponds. | |
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| In one location there was a fence post with instructions on how to insert your camera into a slot, take a photo, and submit it online. The chronolog.io webservice lets people sign up to have crowd-sourced timeline in photos. Fun to be part of, although the view at this particular location appears to be fairly boring. When we checked out the timeline, we also noticed how people were not submitting photos taking from the exact same spot, so they spoiled the fun. | |
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| Along one of the ponds we saw lots and lots of turtles. They appeared to come towards us hoping for food (sorry nothing here). | |
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| There was a tropical fruit section of the gardens with bananas and papaya. | |
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| After having walked by the Tampa Bay History Center many many times, we finally decided to visit. There are 3 floors of lots of interesting exhibits. Well worth a visit. From an outdoor platform we got a good view of Harbour Island across the Garrison Channel. Kristin and Alvaro used to live on Harbour Island. | |
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| One of the exhibits let Rob and Hild pretend to ride horses in a cattle drive. Interactive entertainment. | |
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| Back in Alvaro and Kristin's apartment building we enjoyed a lazy afternoon by the pool. We learnt that the sun beds are really comfy, the pool is cool enough to swim in, one end is shallow enough to skin your knee while swimming, and the barbeques are free to use and surprisingly clean. | |
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| Sadly, it was time to return home to the UK. British Airways picked us up at Tampa Airport and delivered us at Gatwick where Percy was waiting for us in the long-term parking lot. Very convenient. | |
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September 2025