So my family took a little vacation. It was soooo good to get away. Away from the snow, schedules and just busyness.
We headed south to Florida. Trevor had a Convention in Orlando, so we just added on some days and pulled the kids outta school. We wanted to go and do some things that were off the beaten path so to speak, but not too off the path, there are snakes in Florida after all.
One of the first places we checked out was Homosassa Wildlife refuge, which is about 70 miles North of Tampa. And it is exactly that, an animal refuge. All animals there have been rescued, a real hit with our little girl. Also it has another really cool nature secret, it has a natural spring that gushes out 62 million gallons of water daily. It is really warm and the Manatee come to migrate there every february and march. And the water is perfectly clear. It's one of those things you need to see for your self, pics don't do it justice.
This is Lu the Hippo.
Here is a baby and a Momma Manatee by the spring
This is pretty much a zoo, and there are loads of animals to see.
Here is where a pic doesn't show the beauty. What looks like light green slime around the edge is actually the rock bottom, the water is so clear. The more teal green is actually the spring, where the water comes from. And the building to the left is underwater viewing. There were thousands of fish swimming down there.
Gettin' ready for my Swamp People audition
To make sure our kids actually learned something on this trip we had an ongoing game the whole trip. It was something I remember doing when I was a kid on trips. Out of State licence plates. How many of the US states plates and Canadian plates could we spot. So at the end of out trip we had seen 38 US plates and 7 Canadian plates. The bonus to this game was to see how many different Florida plates there were. Well there are TONS!! We saw at least 17 different ones!
We can't hit Tampa without going to Busch Gardens. Especially for my Rollarcoaster fiend little guy, and my big guy for that matter.
A baby Rhino, who weighs 85 lbs when it's born...yikes!!!
On the Merry go round
Watching an actual surgery on a Red fronted Lemur. Our little girl was very enthralled.
A very stunned kangaroo
My coaster fiends in the front row of Cheetah Hunt
A cool viewing spot for tigers
Scootin' around
Well that's it for now, I'll post a few more pics another day.
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