Florida!!!!

Just got back from my vacay in Clearwater Beach, Florida. It was just lovely. I was ready to just move there and start anew. I would. I could do that 60 degree winter. Apparently it was just miserable all week in St. Louis. I hate winter here. Speaking of winter, we saw Winter the dolphin, of Dolphin Tale fame, at the Clearwater Marine Aquarium. They are cashing in on that movie. Everywhere you look you see a sign that says, "This scene was shot here," and then a little clip of it playing on a television. It's a little annoying if you've never seen the movie but I think it's a good thing. It supports an aquarium, for one, and for two, this particular aquarium is dedicated to rehabilitating animals and returning them to the wild. They had a river otter there, who has partial paralysis and can't walk on land properly but he swims just fine. River otters are adorable.

We also went to two other aquariums, one in Tarpon Springs and the other in Tampa. Tarpon Springs is a little Greek community where they dive for sponges. I bought a sponge and some homemade soap to go with it. Plus, we had the BEST Greek food at Hellas.

The aquarium there was tiny but enjoyable. One of the people who ran the aquarium put on her SCUBA gear and dove into a large tank they had in the middle and fed the sharks and fish that were in there, while her counterpart told us all about the fish in the tank. He talked about each of their personalities, it was neat.

The aquarium in Tampa was pretty big and very nice. They had birds as well as all kinds of marine life.

They had a really neat tank demonstrating the school of fish dynamic. Loved it!

We went to a couple museums in St. Petersburg. One of them was the Salvador Dali Museum. It was a really great exhibit, and the building was really neat too.

While in St. Petersburg, we ate at a place called Taco Bus... literally a bus that served tacos. Best fish tacos I've ever had!

I think my favorite part of the trip was the boat ride we took. It was an hour long tour of the Clearwater area, plus you might get to see dolphins. Well, we saw them within the first 5 minutes and the captain actually got them to jump in the wake of our boat. It was pretty magical.

And on our last night we walked to the beach and watched the sunset. It was a lovely end to a lovely time.