Final Days in Florida: Great Time with Grandkids

Our final week in Florida. In fact, tonight is our last night as we leave tomorrow morning and start to make our way home. 

Two of our grandkids, Chip and Penelope, were here with us for this past week. We crammed in a lot during that week, and I will summarize here with a few photos.

Right after we picked them up at the airport, we headed directly to Hammond Stadium for a baseball game - Twins vs Blue Jays. It was a perfect afternoon, and the Twins won 4-3.

We had so much fun on an airboat ride. Saw three alligators swimming - usually we see them lying in the sun on a river bank, but this time three of them were very active in the water. The airboat ride itself was great - very fast, very noisy. Just what we wanted. Only photo, taken in front of the sign at the entrance:

Our first day at the beach was at Lover's Key, where the sand is white and perfect, and the weather couldn't have been better. Lots of people there. 

We all got a little sunburned. Chip and Penelope spent lots of time in the water.

We toured the Edison/Ford Winter Estates - very hot and muggy that day, but an always interesting place to visit. The banyon tree in the background here covers a large area with the above ground rooting system with the tendrils hanging down and attaching to the ground, but it is a single tree!

A Thunderbird rally on the grounds that day.

Edison's laboratory where he was researching sources for domestic rubber in the 1920's.

We drove out to Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary and walked the boardwalk. (We had done this previously, just the two of us.) This place is worth more than one visit. We saw about a dozen racer snakes - must have been a nest, a 'possum, raccoons, the usual alligator, a painted bunting at the bird feeder. It is a wonderful place.

We went kayaking one day at Oscar Scherer State Park where we rented two kayaks for them, and spent part of an afternoon paddling on the river that runs through the park. The waters are dark and quiet. We didn't see much wildlife, but it was a fun experience.

Afterwards, we stopped at a rookery in Venice that we knew about, to see all the herons and egrets nesting and roosting on a very small island in a small park right in town that is financed and protected by the local Audubon Society. Here is a photo of Chip taking a photo of a very cooperative heron.

Our last day of activity was another beach day - the best. We drove out to Sanibel Island to a beach at the north end of the island and spent the afternoon. Chip and Penelope were able to rendezvous with a friend from their school also vacationing in Florida. We all agreed it was a great day.

They returned to Minneapolis and their family and school very early Wednesday morning. We got up at 4:30am, got dressed and left for the airport, expecting long security lines, but it wasn't bad at all. Back to reality!