2010-07 Florida Vacation

This summer we headed down to the beaches of Florida for our summer vacation.  We stayed in Indian Shores, which is about halfway between Clearwater and St. Petersburg on the Gulf side of Florida.  There was no impact from the oil spill in this part of Florida. 

LeAnn, Mariah and Hailey went down on Saturday, and Ray and Kara followed on Sunday.  Kara returned from a mission trip to Cortez, CO on Saturday afternoon, which is why we went down on 2 different days.

Saturday and Sunday were rainy, and even the locals were complaining about the constant rain compared to the normal daily showers that come and go.  Fortunately on Sunday it quite raining around 6PM and did not affect the 4th of July fireworks in the area.  We went down to the beach across from the condo we stayed in to watch the fireworks.  We could see the large displays from both St. Petersburg and Clearwater from our location on the beach. 

More interesting was the local displays done by all the locals.  These ranged from sparklers and small fountains to full mortar style aerial displays.  A group not too far from us had a full 30 minute display including a 30' tall dancing fountain for the finale.  They had brought down a box  that was about 6'x2'x2' and full of the various fireworks they were shooting off.  There were a lot of families and small kids running around and playing during the fireworks, so we were a little surprised that such large fireworks could be so freely used on the beach.

It rained again most of the day on Monday, so we decided to go to the Tampa Rays baseball game.  They have an indoor stadium (the last non-retractable roof style dome in the majors), so the rain would not be a factor.  We went down to the stadium late in the morning to get tickets and spent the afternoon in St. Petersburg.  We first went to The Pier, which is shaped like an inverted pyramid.  We were a little disappointed since there The Pier is relatively small and there just was not that much to do there. 

From there we went to an early dinner to celebrate LeAnn's birthday.  She had wanted lobster, so we found a nice seafood restaurant down near the waterfront.  The food was very good and the restaurant had a very pleasant atmosphere.

The rain had stopped and we headed down to the ballpark.  It was a giveaway night at the ballpark, but it was only for people in their Ray's gear.  When the gal handing out the statues asked where our Ray's shirts or hats were, I told her that we were from MN and we had just lost the last series to the Rays, so she gave in and gave us the statues.  As long as we weren't from Boston (who the Rays were playing that night) we were OK in her book.

The stadium is pretty plain, although they have tried to spruce it up, but is still has the industrial feel of the Metrodome.  The roof is slanted with the high end towards the plate and most of the seats are along the foul lines and behind home plate.   It was a fun night and the Rays won (part of a sweep of Boston), so the hometown fans went home happy.

On Tuesday, the weather cleared and we spent the day at the local beach. It was very relaxing and enjoyable.

Wednesday we got up early and headed to Orlando to go to the Universal Studios theme park. Kara and Hailey enjoy the roller coaster rides and so they spent most of their times doing those rides. We also did some of the 3D and interactive rides. Most of the rides were less then 30 minute waits, but the river boat tour took almost an hour, even though the time only showed 30 minutes, and it was probably the most disappointing ride of the ones we did.

There was a lot of variety of foods and beverages available in the park (and the prices were reasonable). We did go to the Hard Rock Café for dinner in the late afternoon. On the back side of the Hard Rock there is a large section of the Berlin Wall. It is tucked behind the restaurant and wouldn’t normally be scene unless you were looking for it. We then headed next door to the Islands of Adventure sister theme park. This is where the new Hairy Potter section had just opened up. It was very crowded with much longer lines for the rides and activities in this section compared to the rest of the park. There was even a pair of 20 person long lines for getting a glass of something called butterbeer (butterscotch, vanilla cream soda and ginger ale) from a cart.

We went back to the Universal Studios for the closing video show and fireworks in the central pond area. We headed back to the car and made our way back to Indian Shores.

We slept in on Thursday and then headed down to St. Pete Beach. St. Pete’s Beach is a long public beach with soft white sand. The water was calm and comfortable. We spent about 3 hours on the beach then stopped at a local ice cream shop for a treat before heading back north for the evening

We ate dinner along the boardwalk in John’s Pass and then walked up and down the boardwalk. We saw a manatee swimming in the dock area. We also watched one of the fishing charters cleaning their catch and feeding the remains to the pelicans. They dumped the carcasses into the bay, and they were being eaten by a bunch of crabs. After getting back to the condo, we went next door to the Smugglers Cove miniature golf course. It was really busy and it took about 2 hours to play the 18 holes. They had some live baby alligators in one of their ponds, and we bought some meat chunks to feed them with.

Friday we got up and headed down to Ft DeSoto so we could take a ferry across the bay to Egmont Island. This is a small island that was originally a fort to protect the bay. It is now a bird sanctuary and national park. It still has a working lighthouse that has been in continuous use since 1858. After spending some time on the island, we got back on the ferry for a snorkeling adventure. The area we snorkeled was ruins of buildings that were previously on the island, but the island has been slowly eroding back into the ocean. The ruins are now some 200-300 yards from shore. There were huge schools of small fish all around the structure and then some bigger fish in some places.

On the ferry trip back, we took a longer route in search of dolphin and other sea life. We saw multiple dolphins, some sting rays, and even a manatee.