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- The pizza oven imported from Naples at a stop on our food history tour. It is about 1000 degrees in the oven. They only burn oak and are able to cook a pizza in 90 seconds! It was delicious.
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- Exhibit of paper art at Cornell Museum in Delray Beach. These women were life sized.
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- The Sandoway House Nature Center in Delray Beach had an exhibit of 100 shark jaws
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- Wild airplants are common here but still feel like a miracle to discover. This one was right above the sidewalk and in full bloom.
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- The town of Palm Beach hosts this beautiful living wall.
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- The thing with red pointy parts is a Spiny Orb-weaver spider. They are everywhere.
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- Downtown Tampa skyline, as seen from Kiley Garden.
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- This is one of our favorite buildings in Tampa. The slot is on both sides, reminding us of an enormous regular screw. Note the osprey on the left.
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- Another of our favorite buildings in Tampa (and reminded us of the building in downtown Portland with all the composers on it). Check out how the corners and reflections look like Xs.
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- Sunset with a thunder cell in Tampa
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- Banyan tree in St Pete.
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- These are banana spiders, or golden silk orb-weavers. They are harmless and large (the big one here was 5 inches across including legs.) The webs have a yellow hue.
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- Banana spider
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- Every day we see fantastic cloud formations.
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- Five types of sea turtles nest on the Florida coast between May and October. Each nest is marked to keep people away from it.
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- Our local beach has many turtle nests, all marked by a stake and tape.
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- Ann Norton Sculpture Garden in West Palm Beach displays a variety of work by Ann Norton.
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- Ann Norton Sculpture Garden
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- Ann Norton Sculpture Garden
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- Jim taking a break
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- The sound barriers along the freeway here are stamped with silhouettes of local animals.
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- Megan enjoying the Saturday-morning. green market in West Palm Beach
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- Norton Art Museum in West Palm Beach.
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- Sculpture garden at Norton Art Museum.
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- A marine-themed Chihuly exhibit at the Norton Art Museum. Can you find the starfish and octopus?
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- Palms make lovely patterns and their trunks often are a host to multiple other plants.
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- The Crawlerway connecting the assembly building to the launch pads at Kennedy Space Center
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- The “Crawler” at Kennedy Space Center with a platform on top. Rockets are transported on top of this from the assembly to the launch. Empty it weighs about 6 million pounds, can travel up to 2 mph, and takes a team of 30 to operate it.
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- Atlantis space shuttle, now on display at the Kennedy Space Center with the bay doors open. In this picture, you can see the black panels of heat shields. This shuttle completed 33 missions over 26 years, transported 207 astronauts, spent 307 days in space, and flew 126 million miles before it retired to the museum in 2011.
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- One night we attended a fundraiser for a local education cause in Delray Beach. The blues band rocked the house and taught the children a dance
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- Many palms here are supported like this. They plant large trees by paring down the trunk, cutting a small circular root mass, and propping up the trees. We have seen thousands of these.
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- Miami Beach has a very well done Holocaust Memorial.
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- Port of Miami has a lot of industrial traffic in addition to cruise traffic
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- The Port of Miami pilot boat picking up the pilots after we cleared the channel.
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- Megan on the cruise boat with Miami receding into the background.
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- Jim was able to take the false helm in the top-floor cocktail lounge of our cruise boat.
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- Our boat docked in Nassau. Note the cruise ships on either side.
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- The Cloisters. Ruins from a french convent that was moved to the Bahamas
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- The Cloisters
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- The Cloisters
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- The Cloisters
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- Spotted eagle ray, like we saw in Coco Cay. Credit to Wikimedia for the photo.
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- Spotted eagle ray, showing it’s large head. Credit to Wikimedia for the photo.
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- Cruise boat sunset
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- On the last morning of our cruise, our boat was delayed due to a brush fire in the Everglades the day before. The Port of Miami was closed and we could barely make out the other boats queued up waiting for the port to reopen due to the thick smoke.
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- People commonly use umbrellas here as sun shades. Here is a dad who pulled up his beach umbrella to take a walk with his daughter.
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- Karen on a boulder in the middle of a river, hiking with Megan in the Blue Ridge Mountains
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- The Wakodahatchee Wetlands are the last step in the local water treatment plant’s outflow. It is also a free country park with a mile of boardwalk trails so people can observe the wildlife.
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- The wildlife at a local nature preserve was nonplussed by proximity to humans
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- This nest was about 6 feet from a boardwalk in a local nature preserve
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- Sunset with the municipal water town in Boynton Beach
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- This iguana was in a park in downtown Fort Lauderdale
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- Morakami Japanese Garden
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- Yogic turtle practicing “up dog” at Morakami
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- Museum at Morakami had displays on local history, and life in Japan (school, family life, transportation)
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- One of the bonsai trees at Morakami. A few were 400 years old.
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- Everglades City was a sweet quiet town with empty lots, neat yards, and scattered houses. We guessed some of the empty lots in the middle of town tell of past hurricanes.
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- Royal palms are prolific native species in S Florida. They are also commonly planted in landscaping
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- The bumps you see are the eyes of alligators
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- The largest alligator in the Fakahatchee sinkhole was at least 12 feet
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- A lookout tower near Fakahatchee. Note the air conditioner box on the side and vultures roosting on the structure.
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- Airboats are a common way to get around the swamps because all you need to draft is a couple inches. We decided to not go on one and instead keep our hearing.
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- Classic grassy marsh with scattered palms
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- Can you spot the alligator?
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- Can you spot the chemtrail in the sunset?
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- Can you spot the barracuda?
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- Can you spot the baby alligator?
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- Can you spot the tree under the 1000 epiphytes growing on it?
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- Can you spot the cypress knees? Cypress trees put up these odd growths; it is assumed they help stabilize the tree in the event of strong winds and soaked earth.
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- Can you spot the bird?
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- Can you spot the resting alligator?
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- Can you spot the turtle?
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- Can you spot the gar fish?
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- Can you identify which one of these is the non-native invasive species? (Hint: it isn’t an orchid)
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- Two bridge fisherman in the Keys with a “keeper”
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- Sunset celebration at Mallory Square in Key West. Note the fire juggler on tall unicycle.
Corresponding posts:
Plan B Tour 