Sea Shells and Banyan Trees; Relaxing By the Beach

Alex and I have been spending a ton of time by the beach. The weather has been pretty awesome most of time we've been along the Florida coast. Accept for the last two days. It's been raining cats and dogs since last night. The really weird thing is that it's been in the 70 and 80s while it's raining, so it still feels like tank top and shorts weather. Today it was pouring and people were walking around in tanks like it was nothing. The pouring rain was mixed with lightning and thunder as we were driving down Hwy 1(yes, Florida has a hwy 1, too), and lightning struck literally like 15 or 20 feet in front of us. The entire van shook and a jolt went through my entire body. I felt like my heart had jumped out of my chest. I had never been that close to a bolt of lightning before, and to say the least, it was terrifying. I don't think I want to experience that again.

Hanging out at the beach

The water is really warm

I found a coconut

This is a Man O War jellyfish. One of the most deadliest of jellyfish. There were a crazy amount of these washed up on the shore

With all the time Alex and I have spent by the beach, we collected a ton of sea shells. Our intention is to use the shells to make jewelry. I already made two necklaces and a pair of earrings, but I didn't like the way they turned out. I think I need to get some beads or other things to go with the jewelry making, but we don't really have the budget for that right now. It would be cool to do something with the shells when I get back to Sacramento, so I think I'll save them.

Pocket full of shells

This was one of the prettiest we found

While driving down Florida's coastline we stopped at a lighthouse that has been active for the last 150 years. It has been nicely preserved and the surrounding area is beautiful. The lighthouse is located in the town of Jupiter and that area has been inhabited by humans for thousands of years. The lighthouse is built on a large mound that was created by a pile shells that were placed in that spot over thousands of years by the native people. There is a fresh water river that runs off into the ocean and there is an abundance of shell fish in that area, as well. When the native people caught shellfish they would always put the shells in the same spot, which then created a huge mound. A tree by the mound had shells embedded in the trunk, which I thought was really cool.

The lighthouse on a mound created by shells

View from the lighthouse

Peep hole inside the lighthouse

It was really windy at the top of the lighthouse

The river that flows into the ocean

Shells in the tree trunk

In front of the lighthouse was a huge 80 year old Banyan tree. Some people call it a "walking tree" because when the vines that grow from it touch the ground it will form into another tree trunk. It seriously looked like fourteen trees all combined together. Absolutely amazing! I had never seen anything like it, but Alex said he saw some Banyan trees in Hawaii. The tree is native to India and it's actually the country's national tree. I think it's my new favorite tree; my second favorite is a Weeping Willow.

This is all one tree

Very cool

Now I'm going to tell you about some random awkward situations I have come across.
I was watching my favorite T.V. show(Gossip Girl, I know it's super girly, but I really like it:) on the internet while sipping on some Green Tea at Starbucks and this guy walks right up next to me and motions me to take off my earphone's. He then awkwardly puts one hand on his hip and the other one scratching his chin and says, "um....let's see....how do I say this.....um....this is going to be awkward.....You see, I lost my pack of cigarettes and..." I quickly interrupted him and said, " I'm sorry, but I don't have any cigarettes and I don't smoke."  I mean, come on, I was in the middle of watching my T.V. show and he's asking me for cigarettes? Then he says, "No, I don't want your cigarettes, I want to use your computer to look up on the internet where they might sell the cigarettes."  I turned him down. First of all, I was in the middle of watching my show and I'm not going to let some random guy use my computer to look up a place cigarettes. Crazy.

Another funny thing was, when I was sitting in the van in a Walmart parking lot a group of black guys walked by the van and started making fun of our VW van. One guy said he'd rather walk than be seen riding in our van. Haha. So funny. Then I thought to myself, "I've never seen a black guy in an old VW bug or van."

We drove around Palm Beach to try to find parking along the beach, but everything was privately owned. A ton of millionaires own homes in Palm Beach. When we finally found parking it cost 5 bucks for one hour! So, needless to say, we didn't park along the ocean. Instead to parked along the intracoastal waterway, which is a water area that's not so pretty between the beach land and the mainland. 

Alex and I are slowly making our way to Key West. Tomorrow we may go to Miami.

Orlando!

Alex and I spent the last three days in Orlando, Florida. We had some good times there. I think Orlando is one of those cities where there is supposed to be a ton of crime, but we didn't experience any of that. We actually went all over town and seemed to stay in all very good areas. That was of course by accident.

One thing I really hated about Orlando was that every freeway is a toll road except for one Interstate freeway. Orlando is a pretty big city and I find it shocking that every freeway is a toll road. There are no bridges over large bodies of water, it just cost money to merely use the freeway. I guess it makes the city a ton of money due to all the tourism that comes here to go to Disney World, but it wasn't fun to try to get around all the tolls. And trying to avoid the tolls when trying to get out of Orlando going east was quite the fiasco, but we made it. I wonder if we actually spent more money on gas driving all the round-about ways around town than if we had of just sucked it up and paid the tolls? I guess we will never know.  The bright side of not using the freeways was that we did get to see most of the city neighborhoods.

This is a sign we saw in one of the neighborhoods that I thought was kind of funny because it warns us that old people may be crossing the road:)

Lake Eola

Another thing about Orlando is that there is an insane amount of lakes. If you Google Orlando you will be able to see how many lakes are in the area. We probably drove by 10 to 15 in total and I'm sure there are much more. That didn't bother me, though. Lakes always seem to be so calming and serene.  There is a lake in Downtown Orlando that says it's what Orlando is known for. It's called Lake Eola. I had never heard of it before and you probably haven't either. When I think of Orlando I think of Disney World. Don't you? Anyways, it was a nice lake. The lakes aren't natural lakes, they are all man-made, but they are still very nice.

The fountain in Lake Eola

Enjoying some Mochi (Japanese ice cream)

We ate at an Irish Pub in Downtown Orlando and ordered the Irish Nachos. I had never had Irish Nachos and I probably won't ever have them again. They were absolutely delicious, but a huge recipe for a heart attack. It consisted of Irish Pub Chips "aka" double fried potato chips, sausage, melted cheddar cheese, lettuce, tomato and a huge dollop of sour cream. When the nachos came out from the kitchen my mouth dropped at how huge the plate of nachos were. It looked like there was about 4,000 calories worth of food! The sad thing is that Alex and I devoured it to the last chip. It was quite tasty. Looking back I wish I had of taken a picture of it and posted on the website This Why You're Fat because it was definitely fattening, good, but fattening:)

 We went to a Cafe Theater in an artsy part of Orlando. It was similar to the Drafthouse Cinema in Austin, TX, but it was much more fancy and didn't have as wide a variety of food and drinks. We watched the movie, Blue Valentine, and it was a rather depressing story. The acting was good, but it was one of those movies that makes you have a sad feeling like "Man, that's a sad story, life is lame..." but it doesn't make you want to cry. Basically, it's about a young couple who are married and how their marriage is crumbling apart. Really depressing. I wouldn't recommend seeing it.

This was our Theater seat

About to watch the movie

I've been reading some Mark Twain short stories lately and I find Mark Twain to be a very entertaining author. I have a book that contains fourteen fiction and non-fiction stories of his that never became very popular. My favorite one so far is called "My Literary Debut."  It's about the first story Mark Twain had published in a New York Journal. At the time Mark Twain wasn't known as Mark Twain. His real name was Samuel Clemens, and when he wrote the story for the Journal he signed it Mark Twain hoping that his "writing" name would become known on the East Coast, but when the Journal came out they messed up and published the Journal under the name Mike Swain. Haha, that's pretty funny:) The story was about a ship that had wrecked in the Pacific Ocean and the entire crew survived for 43 days at sea in a open survival boat on 10 days of food rations. The crew happened to land on the same island that Mark Twain was on when he was writing a column for the Sacramento Union. So, when the crew sailed back to San Francisco, Twain went with them and copied word for word two of crews the journals and interviewed a few of them. It's seriously an amazing story and it got Twain his first story in  Journal making him a "Literary" person. I would recommend you read it. It's not very long and it is quite intriguing.

We are back to the Atlantic Ocean and still enjoying great sunny weather. We had a rain shower yesterday morning, but it quickly cleared up.

The Latest on Our Travels in Florida

Oh man. It's been over a week since my last blog and I feel like we've traveled so much. Sorry to those who read this blog on a regular basis for making you wait so long for another update. I guess I didn't feel much up to writing this last week.

Where do I start? Oh yeah, it was Pensacola, Florida. That was the last place of the beginning of our adventure in Florida. Or should I say that's where the adventure started? Anyways, Pensacola was nice. It's a beach town and known as a "Spring Break" destination for those young college students. There wasn't a lot of spring breaking going on while we were there due to the lack of it being Spring Break, but it was still very nice. The weather was awesome. Alex and I got some sun on the beach. We didn't get in the water because the water looked very dirty and brown. The beach was a rather small beach, but at least it was free. In Pensacola we had a hard time finding a beach area that was open to the public. I guess it's just that popular.

I'm trying to remember if there was anything else memorable about the town....It seems like we were there so long ago. Oh, now I remember. It had a really old downtown area. I saw a sign that said it was Florida's oldest settlement, but I thought St. Augustine was the oldest settlement, and then I found out that there are many towns in Florida that claim to be the oldest settlement. So, who knows where the actual first settlement is, right?

We ate at a really popular pub in Pensacola that had over one million dollar bills pinned to the ceiling and walls. It was at McGuire's Irish Pub and Grill and the story behind all the dollar bills is, when the place first opened in the 1970's the owner pinned her first dollar tip to the wall as a good luck charm, and ever since then patrons of the bar have been pinning dollars all over the place. I guess that first dollar bill really did bring some good luck to the place.

Alex and I worked our way along the Gulf of Mexico and stopped in Panama City. Panama City claims to have the most beautiful beaches in the world. Seriously, they are not lying. The beaches in Panama City were phenomenal. I think they are even better than the beaches back in Cali.
The sand was as fine and white as sugar and the water was the most beautiful aquamarine blue. As Alex and I laid out in the gleaming sun, it felt like we were on our second honeymoon. The town itself was not that amazing, but the beaches were fantastic.

After spending some time along the Gulf, we made our way inland to Tallahassee; the capital of Florida. I wasn't too impressed. So far, we have been to five different state capitals and I still think California has the best one when it comes to the building and the city as a whole. Austin, Texas came in a close second, but Sacramento has outshone all the ones I've seen. Florida has an old capital building and a new one. The new one was built in the 1970s and just looks like another dull skyscraper. When they built the new one, the plan was to tear down the old one, but the city protested and the old capital builing was preserved to it's original 1902 appearance, including all the original furnishings. Honestly I was eager to get out of Tallahassee. The city just seemed "dead."

We left Tallahassee and moved on to Gainseville, home of the Gators. It was the first college town on this trip that did not impress me. I really wanted to like it, but I just didn't. It seemed very commercial and there wasn't much to do that interested me.

Alex and I did go on a beautiful hike right outside of Gainesville, which I enjoyed thoroughly. It was in a forest-like area, well, I guess it was a forest, but not like the forests in California. The trees were really skinny and there were a few swampy areas, as well. I didn't see any aligators, but I hopefully will soon. I did get a good picture of a Cardinal while we were hiking and I think Cardinals are the prettiest bird.

We finally made it to the Atlantic Ocean! If our van breaks down now, then at least we can say we made it all the way across the USA. Lately, we have been getting a lot of looks as we drive by in our van because it's rare to see such an old car driving around in these parts from California. I'm really proud that we made it this far. It feels like such a huge accomplishment. There were times I wasn't sure if we would make it, but Maander pulled through.

We went to a VW car show in Daytona Beach. It was a two day thing and there were lots of different VWs there. We didn't even know about the show, but a guy in Tallahassee saw us and came up to our van and told us about the car show. We couldn't pass up the opportunity to go, especially since we were so close. I think we were the only people who drove out all the way from Cali. In my opinion it was too over priced, but I had fun looking at all the different V-Dubs.

Alex and I are now in Orlando, Fl, and we are making our way down to the Keys of Florida. We plan on being in this State for a few weeks. The weather has been in the 70s and 80s. We have been getting a ton of sun.

Traveling has been great, but I really miss home. Lately, I have been thinking about all the stuff I want to do when I get back to Sacramento. I love seeing new places and this traveling lifestyle, but I love seeing familiar faces more. I miss my family, friends and city.

Mobile, Alabama? Yeah, I've been there.

Mobile, Alabama has been a little more exciting than I expected. Mobile is the one and only town we've seen in Alabama and it's been fun for the most part. It's a town right along the Gulf. We are trying to stay where the warm weather is and so far it's working:)

Last night we stayed at a Motel 6 because Alex and I were in need of a shower.  Motel 6 was one of the cheapest motels in town and it was only for one night. We didn't want to spend too much money and it looked decent from the outside. Key word is "outside."  Staying there was enough for me to say I will never stay at a Motel 6 again! I'm willing to pay the extra $20-30 for some place nicer. To sum up the experience, it felt like we were in the ghetto, even though we were in the middle of a very nice area. Our time at the motel consisted of a dirty room, bank robbers, multiple bullet-proof vested police, a warning to not come out our room, yelling and screaming in the middle of the night, loud white-trash neighbors at 6am until we checked out, and to top it off a non-smoking room that reeked of smoke. Yikes! Yeah, that's enough to keep me away from Motel 6. Hey, but the upside on all that is, I did get a shower. After the police situation I told Alex we should just leave, but the police reassured us that we would be okay, so we stayed to only endure more torture. Ugh.

When we left the motel this morning, Alex and I decided to go to a little coffee shop in Downtown Mobile. Upon arriving we had come just in time for a Historical Bike Tour that was just about to leave from that little coffee shop. What a cool "Happy accident," in Alex's words. Honestly, I really just wanted relax at the coffee shop after having such a horrible stay at the motel, but Alex really insisted on joining the bike group. I was glad I gave in because we got to see so many beautiful historical homes and buildings. If I had of pouted and made a stink about not joining the group then we probably wouldn't of had a chance to really explore and see the history of Mobile. So, yea for me not being a brat:)

There were about 50 bicyclers total, so it seemed a little hectic at times, but it was a really fun experience. We got to ride through Mobile's oldest suburb, "Ashland Place;" see their first highschool; visit one of the oldest buildings in the town, which is a Convent and just take in all the old homes and trees surrounding the area. It was Beautiful! Oh yeah, and supposedly we rode by Darwin's house, as well.

Mobile's first High School

A house in Mobile's First Suburb, dates back to 1907

Old Convent

Our next place of adventure is Pensacola, FL. I'm really enjoying all this beautiful weather. Highs are in the mid 70s!

Thoughts on New Orleans

I'm going to make this blog a short one, mainly because I feel like there is not much to say.

Alex and I went to N'Awelins, LA.  I really didn't warm up to it as much as a thought I would.  This is kind of morbid, but my favorite part of New Orleans was touring one of their cemeteries.  HaHa!  I normally don't enjoy going to cemeteries, but it was actually a really pretty cemetery.  Almost all the graves were fancy mausoleums.  Many of the mausoleums had beautiful stained glass art.  In New Orleans the dead have to buried above ground because of some law.  It actually serves a purpose though; the ground is very saturated and if the caskets are buried underground then, it is likely that they will float up to the surface, so I was told.  I don't know how likely that is because we saw some graves with standard tombstones, but the tombstones appeared as though they were actually sinking into the ground.  That's quite the opposite of floating.

I think I may have had a better time in New Orleans if Alex didn't become so paranoid about the amount of crime in the city.

When we first arrived to New Orleans we stopped at a really cute little coffee shop about a mile from the very touristy French Quarter.  The people in the area were very bohemian and earthy types.  On our way into the coffee shop we were even offered a little Mary Jane, but we declined.  The coffee shop was surrounded by beautiful old Victorian style homes and huge hundred year old trees.  The area reminded me a little of Midtown Sacramento, but just a little more congested.  So, as we were relaxing and sipping on our coffee, Alex decides to look up on his computer good and bad neighborhoods in New Orleans.  Well, that was not such a good idea, because basically he read that all neighborhoods are bad there.  So, from then on out Alex was concerned for our safety.  I'm not saying that being safe is a bad idea, but Alex was a little overly concerned.  For instance, after walking around the French Quarter, we were at Walmart in the parking lot chilling in the van and I needed to use the bathroom, and Alex asks if he should go with me. He has never asked to go with me to the bathroom, and then he says, "Well, You'll probably be okay." ?????  We weren't even in a bad area!  Also, when trying to find parking in the French Quarter he insisted only parking on a main street, even though there was open parking in other places.  Actually, maybe that was a good idea, because the French Quarter did look a little shady.

The French Quarter is the oldest part of New Orleans, and one of the only parts that wasn't devastated by Hurricane Katrina.  I think it would have a little more charm if the buildings were fixed up a little better and if the streets didn't smell so bad. It smelled like pee and B.O. in most of the areas. Right now New Orleans is getting ready for Mardi Gras, and we thought about staying until the weekend which is when the Marti Gras celebrating starts, but we just would have spent more money than we would have liked. The streets were already decorated, the restaurants and bars were playing music and handing out Mardi Gras beads, so it kind of already felt like we experienced what Mardi Gras is like there. I'm not disappointed that we didn't stay.

Here is a video of Alex enjoying a Beignet at Caffe Du Monde in New Orleans; the best place to get a Beignet.

We zipped through Mississippi and are now in Alabama. We have almost made it across the country! We are so close!