“Kilometers are shorter than miles. Save gas, take your next trip in kilometers.” ~ George Carlin

1,300 hundred miles in five days, not including air travel!  My husband and I just returned from a whirlwind trip to Florida.  Now that we are both retired, we are looking forward to spending some time south during the harsh Central New York winters.  Being new to this however, we seriously underestimated the amount of time that finding a rental would take, as well as when to begin the search.  We explored virtual towns and condos, only to realize that what we had hoped to find was already taken!  We are so much wiser now.

We then decided that the best approach was the direct approach.  We flew down via Jet Blue - a very nice way to go I must mention.  We landed on the Gulf Coast and commenced to travel south, then east to the Atlantic side, and then back to the gulf again.  No offense to anyone from Central Florida, but it's not my favorite stretch of driving.  We met with realtors, chatted with waitresses and spent way too much time on our behinds in the car.  Anyhow - we have secured a really lovely spot in St. Petersburg.  We had not intended to end up in a city, but our spot is just lovely, and our drive around St. Pete's (I'm practicing local lingo) indicates that there are museums galore, wonderful restaurants and shops, lots of golf for you-know-who (no - not me), and most importantly, lots of for nice gulf beaches for you-know-who (yes - me).  

So, we are now able to put this search aside, knowing that while we are away during some of the gray, bleak days and nights of winter, my son will be keeping the driving-way shoveled and the home fires burning.   Sadly,, there was not much time to take the pictures that I had hoped to take - I thought surely I'd get two blogs worth of pictures out of this trip, but no.  By the way, the gas we saw in Florida was as low as $3.34 a gallon - What's up Central New York?????

A few parting pictures of our travels!

For more information, visit The Swamp Cabbage Festival  And - for recipes (I kid you not) visit River Recipes

Another Central Florida shot.  I really wanted an up-close picture, but as I started to get further in to high grass and water, I just knew that there was something in there that wanted to eat me, so I turned tail!

Atlantic side near Stuart

Dolphin fin gulf-side

Off of Dunedin - gulf-side

It's fascinating to watch these guys work.

Early sunset in Dunedin.

Just beautiful - I wish that I could capture this neck in graceful motion.

So much "pinker" in real life!

Dunedin Dudes

Dunedin Sunset