Merry Christmas

As you can see, Santa found us all the way out here in the Louisiana bayou.

We hope you are all having a wonderful Christmas!

Tickfaw State Park, Louisiana. Dec. 17

December '08

We made our way across Alabama and Mississippi and have settled in Louisiana for the Christmas season. We took a day trip to New Orleans' French Quarter where Mardi Gras happens. It's a colorful, lively and entertaining place to wander around. We enjoyed the artwork on the streets and the Mardi Gras themed shops. To add to the excitement there were advertisements along Bourbon St. that required us to distract the girl's attention elsewhere. That's us in front of the church in Jackson Square in the French Quarter.

The girls enjoyed some fishing in a Louisiana state park. They haven't caught anything yet and are tired of us telling them 'that's why they call it fishing and not catching'.

We also got bikes with the kid attachment on the back. The state parks are large and it's often too far to walk everywhere. Not having a car, the bikes have come in very handy.

A Few Extra Photos, November

If anyone knows what kind of snakes these are we'd love to know. The one in the water was the size of a pencil and so hard to see, we're not sure how Kyra spotted it. The other snake might be a rattler. Anyone?

The armadillos are so neat looking with all their body armor and scurrying. They don't mind people too much unless you get too close, then you have to chase them to get a good picture!

Big Cypress

Big Cypress National Preserve is attached to Everglades NP. A canal runs parallel to the road through the parks and about every 10-20 seconds you spot a gator in it. There are a few boardwalks and a visitor centre along the way where you can stop and enjoy them which is more enjoyable then watching gators fly by at 55 miles per hour.

Mercedes with the ranger hat? They have great programs at national parks, and even some state parks, called junior ranger. If you complete the book of activities for that park you get a badge, sometimes you have to repeat the junior ranger pledge as she is doing here.

The birds in that campsite are vultures. They were scavenging the site while the campers were off hunting. That was ok with us as they were the same campers that decided feeding the gator in the lake was a good idea in spite of signs everywhere saying otherwise. It's bad for the campers that come after them as now the gator will come to them expecting to be fed, and it's of course very bad for the gator because now he's a danger and is doomed.

More Everglades National Park, November

We stayed a night at Flamingo campground and rented a canoe from the marina. We paddled up the canal for an hour and got to see several aligators on the shore. This is the only place in the world where you get aligators and crocodiles living in the same area. We were lucky to see 2 american crocs on the shore of the canal. One of them is in the first picture, while the second photo is of a gator.

The Everglades, Nov.

We spent 3 nights in the south end of Everglades National Park. On this boardwalk trail through the everglades we got to see plenty of life. From left to right: an anhinga bird drying it's wings, an aligator tired of having it's picture taken, a green heron, and my budding photographers. Don't worry mom, there was a fence between them and the gator.

Kennedy Space Centre, Nov. 24

This was a busy day. We visited the Kennedy Space Centre at Cape Canaveral during the day, and then met up with Corinne and Luke in Orlando for dinner, they went to Disney World that week.

The space centre was a little Disney-fied with it's outside spacey music and concrete. The imax 3D movie about the Space Station and how the astronauts live in 0 gravity was great fun!

The simulated rocket lauch experience? Well, it was fancy but basically your seat gets tipped back and then they shake you all around so you can feel your jowels. Oh well.

The bus tour that shows you the launch sites and NASA buildings was tedious for the kids, and Kevin, (ok, and me) except for seeing gators in the canals by the roads! We saw the launch sites which was a great topper to seeing the Endeavor take off the week before. We watched it from Orlando so it was a bit tiny, but we did see it and we saw it's rockets detatch. Thanks to Grant for reminding us to look for it!

Dinner was a good time. Thanks Corinne and Luke, always nice to see you. The kids love the chance to be extra silly (I think the giant coca-colas helped, yikes!).

Disney World Nov.16-22

And then we did this. Mercedes was tall enough for all the rides and they both felt that the faster and/or spinnier the better. The Tower of Terror and the Aerosmith rollercoaster were favourites. They each got a pokemon toy at Japan in Epcot (for those of you who know pokemon, Kyra got a Piplop, Mercedes got Turtwig), I'm only mentioning this because for them it was a highlight. We had a great time and got more than our fill of crowds.

Bahia Honda State Park, Nov.12-14

Farther down the keys we stayed at Bahia Honda state park. We had a great camp site, you can actually see our motorhome in the distance just to the left of Kyra's head.

The iguanas are not native to Florida. A park ranger explained that someone released a few pet iguanas once upon a time and now there are thousands in the Keys and they are beginning to move up into mainland Florida. Some are bigger than a cat and very colourful. Before we knew of them we were surprised by a huge, colorful fella walking along a beach. He entered the water and swam across a small channel. Cool.

Long Key State Park, Nov. 6-12

We spent a week at Long Key state park where every camp site is beside the ocean. The girls learned to cast a line and were pretty good at it. Kyra almost caught a little gar. One evening a lone dolphin showed up close to shore in front of our motorhome. It hung around for awhile, fishing I suppose, then swam off. There were many hermit crabs to be found and the girls had a great time making towns for them on the beach, and then letting them go of course. The snorkeling was pretty good. There were no reefs but it was shallow for a long way out so you could just float around and enjoy some pretty fish, lobsters hiding under rocks, and spotted rays.

Florida Keys, November

We visited the Turtle Hospital in Marathon, the Florida Keys. The hospital was a hotel with a saltwater pool. One day someone put a sick turtle in the pool where it could recover. From then on it was a hotel/turtle hospital. A while ago a hurricane flooded the place. The hotel was too damaged to recover. Now it's just a turtle hospital.

The turtles here have several problems. One is a herpes virus that causes wart-like growths on their skin. They can remove the outside growths and release them after a year of not developing anymore growths but if the tumours are on their organs they euthanize them. Apparently it's very hard to operate on a turtle's insides, the shell gets in the way.

Others have something called bubble butt, I know there's a technical name for it but that's the name they gave to their first case and it's easier to remember. They get an air bubble from being hit on the shell by a boat, then over time the air bubble causes the shell to deform and they are unbalanced, sometimes unable to get under water to feed, sometimes having trouble getting their heads up to breath. At the hospital they fiberglass weights onto their shells, helping them balance out. The deformity just gets worse so they keep them for life. A few others are missing a limb, they release them after awhile if they're doing well.

Most were green turtles, some were hawksbills, and one was a Kemp's Ridley, very rare. They had 2 hatchlings, so cute. One just wanted to bite everyone, he'll be released when big enough. The other was an albino (seen above) and they've decided to keep it because no one's ever seen one before. They're afraid it will be easily eaten, or collected.

One of our favourites was Joey, a 3 year old who could only swim in left circles. They found him at the bottom of a nest. He was very active and cute. They also have the perfect match for Joey, Lacey. She's one and can only swim to the right. She flips over when she's too excited.

In the large pool we got to feed the 15 or so turtles some dog kibble. Most of them were bubble butts. Water squirted out of their noses when they ate.

Manatees at Blue Springs, Florida (November)

Hi everyone, sorry for the delay. We've been camping out in Florida's state parks all month and internet connection is hard to come by. Excuses, excuses.

After Mercedes's birthday we visited Blue Springs state park where the manatees had just begun showing up. This time of year as the water off Florida cools the manatees swim up the rivers to stay warm. During the summer months you can swim in these crystal clear waters. Once the manatees show up you're no longer allowed in the water, it's for the manatees. That was ok with me since we saw a large aligator on the bank of the river not far enough away from the swimming area.

The first manatees we saw were a mom and baby team that swam slowly by us, it was a beautiful moment. The next day we saw about a dozen, mostly in family groups. They look very calm and relaxed, rolling about and pushing eachother around, babies nursing, big noses popping up for a breath. They were awesome.

We were also lucky to see a busy armadillo in the woods here. She (?) was gathering up piles of leaves and guck and pulling it all under the boardwalk where we could hear her engaged in more busy-ness of the leaf/guck type. The river itself was beautiful and misty with large mossy trees hanging over. You could see all the fish through the clear water, schools of large gar and catfish.