Our Trip Continues

The vacation in Florida was a lot of fun.  

If you know anything about me at all it is that I have no idea how to relax. 

 I'm totally serious here. 

 Sitting around doing nothing is next to impossible for me. 

 I was actually forced to do this on this trip. 

 I don't mean it in a bad way but it was not easy for me to do. 

I actually sat by this pool for several hours one day, all alone, nothing to do. LOL

 It was not actually very sunny while we were there nor particularly warm 

(for Florida) being in the upper 60's to low 70's.  

We did determine that from the day we left Mi to the day we got to FL 

there was a 90 degree temperature difference!  

Anytime my in-laws mentioned that they were sorry for the bad weather we would respond with, "Well, at least it's not - 17!!"

I did get some pool time.  

One day I actually swam in the pool and the other just sat by the pool as it was misty

 and kind of chilly.  

My view of the pool.  

My In-laws live directly across from the pool so all I had to do was walk across the street to get here.  

Well, hello everyone!  Here is my terrible attempt at a selfie!  

This was my view of the sky when I finally decided to pack it in and go inside!

We took this day to go to Mote Marine Laboratory.  

It is an aquarium but also a research facility. 

 I LOVE this place and the things they are doing to rescue animals and re-populate the coral reefs, just to mention a few things.  

As you go inside there is this giant quilt.  It was pretty amazing.

One of the most beautiful exhibits were these Jellyfish.  So beautiful, but so painful if you get stung!

They have a Jelly Fish Reproduction Lab and you can see it here.  

I had to shoot through a Jelly fish tank to get the photo!

I found a clear spot so you could see the baby jellies.  

They look like Dandelion seeds floating as you blow them off of the puff.  

Very small and very delicate.

This Lion fish looked like a grumpy old man to me.  Hahaha.

I love Sea Horses and this little guy did not disappoint.  He looked like seaweed!!

For real, seaweed.  It was so cool!

This was a Stingray in a giant take full of other fish, Stingrays and sharks.  

They look so gentle but watch out for that barbed tail!!

Upon entrance to the rescue facility is a mural painted by Wyland.  

We have pictures of our kids standing in front of this. 

 It is GIGANTIC! 

 It takes up an entire building, but so beautiful!

There were some Sea Turtles in the facility and I am always amazed by them.

This is one of the 2 Manatees they had here. 

 It is difficult to describe how enormous these animals actually are.  

This was the smaller of the two and it was HUGE.

This exhibit was very interesting to me as a scientist.  

We watched the movie presentation on how they grow coral 

and are repopulating the reefs then saw this.  

You can see on the left little chunks of coral attached.  

That's how it begins.  

They string it on that "tree" looking thing and it branches out and grows more.  

Eventually it looks like small trees as you can see on the right. 

 They can repopulate a reef much more quickly then they had thought doing this and study how coral grows, what effects it all while rebuilding the reefs.  

The presentation was amazing!  It's probably on their website too.  

After our tour was complete we walked to The Old Salty Dog and had lunch.  

This was our view from our lunch table!

A lady sitting behind me was drinking a Key Lime Pie drink that was as big as my head.

It had graham cracker crumbs around the rim too.

I wanted one but knew it would be too much for me to drink so I admired from afar.

We ate so much good seafood while we were there.

I found that I love Mahi-Mahi.

As much as I loved Florida I really missed my sewing room and the cats!

I will continue with my travels in the near future and then on to quilty related content.

So if you are looking for quilt related things you may want to skip a day or two.

~XOP~