The Sunshine State

With our time in the USA drawing to a close we felt we'd best take some time to do nothing. Murmurings from the natives suggested that Florida's pan handle had the best beaches in the USA. 13 hours later the warm Gulf of Mexico waters and white sand beaches did not disappoint, proving a perfect place to get in some beach time. The journey enabled us to tick off three more states on the 750 mile route.




NASA space stuff in Mississippi....




On to Alabama....




Riverside park, Mobile, Alabama. Notice the sign in front of all the fishermen and women states "no fishing"......










Trooping on to Florida...




1st stop..... THE BEACH!! The sand looked like snow, the sun was shining and the water was warm.... ish!




Second priority was some seafood with a sunset view over the sea.




Stevie getting over attached to his food.... again....!







The waves were pretty choppy so Stevie took the opportunity to master his body boarding skills




On our second day we took a sunset dolphin cruise setting off from Destin harbor




There were so many dolphins! If you look closely in this one you can see a week old dolphin next to it's mother (very rare to see apparently!) We were encouraged to clap and make noise as this attracted to dolphins over to us... very sociable creatures.




We also learnt that dolphins sleep by shutting down half their brain whilst the other half controls swimming and breathing. They can do this for 4 hours then they swap to the other side of their brain getting 8 hours sleep in total... Very clever we thought!





Destin was dubbed the luckiest harbor around and the tradition was for the fisherman to show their catch and fillet their fish...the pelicans were just as eager to watch as the tourists!




The not so lazy pelicans were actually doing their own fishing and we were lucky enough to see them in action. Where the warm gulf water met the cooler bay water the bait fish could be found. The pelicans swooped up 30ft and dove into the water to catch the fish

...I managed to get this picture with the pelicans head just into the water




There's a very short video we got too if you follow the link....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XR-RCbvyPe0&feature=youtube_gdata_player


It's Gator country in this part of Florida so we had to go to the local alligator nursery and hold a baby gator!




There is a military base near by so we decided to take a look at the aircraft museum.

Control room of one of the old air command centres




Blackbird plane capable of Mach 3.5....really fast!




The last evening was perfect weather for watching the sun set with a glass of wine on the beach. It was quite a spectacular one....













Next stop.... ENGLAND!!!! We know you've missed us........

Location:Fort Walton Beach, Florida

Spring in Austin

Back in Austin and Spring is in the air! That means the bluebells of Texas are out in all their glory.




And the brightly colored birds are out in the garden!




Perfect weather for hiking near Hamilton pool







We took a trip to see the painted churches of Texas. These churches are so elaborately decorated, even the columns are painted to look like they are made of marble.






We stopped by Shiner (a popular brand of beer in Texas) for a spot of beer tasting.




We visited the place Round Rock near Austin, no prizes for why it was named so! The actual round rock still exists. It was used as a marker for shallow water for the old cattle drives to cross, coming in and out of Austin.




And of course it is also the hockey season this time of year. An opportunity Stevie would never miss! These photos are courtesy of 'Photography by Ed Matthews'!








Next stop will be Fort Walton Beach, Florida!!

Location:Austin, Texas

Wine and walking

Fredericksburg is a really interesting town in hill country, Texas. Famous for wine making (bet none of you knew you could get Texas wine!) and enchanted rock which is an enormous free standing pink granite rock that people hike and rock climb up. Dad had a photography class there which was a great excuse to tag along!




We had beautiful weather for wine tasting on our first day.







We headed up the rock day two. It was hard work getting there but the view from the top was worth it....







We saw a camel...




A rhino....




And a bear.... You have to look closer for this one!




Stevie couldn't resist the opportunity to try out some climbing










Then it was time for more wine....




The next day we took a trip to Pedernales state park. We took a short trail that lead us to a breathtakingly beautiful river.




Think Stevie might have been a monkey in a previous life....




The trip home ended in calamity as the faithful old Suberu died on us.




We did manage to get home and the good news is after a trip to the garage there's still life in the old girl yet!

Location:Fredericksburg, Texas

Concrete jungle

Following good advice we took the free Staten Island ferry to get a great view of Brooklyn bridge, Ellis island and the Statue of Liberty.





Also a great view of the city....


We headed to the wall street area where Stevie got on the wrong side of an angry bull





Then over to ground zero where they are in the middle of constructing a memorial area. We thought the fountains were beautiful and the whole area had been well thought out. It was strange seeing the place we had seen so often in the news.


For any Canadians out there you will share our excitement when we found this coffee shop! We didn't go for a double double though.....


Then up the rockerfeller building for some spectacular views of the city.








We found the sun trap on the top deck hard to leave and Stevie ate the best banana he had ever had apparently.... He went on about it for days!!


Grand Central station....


I liked this building....


Times square for a refreshment :)


Cheers!


Day 2 Unfortunately a very rainy day....


So after a fabulous breakfast at Sarabeths on the upper west side, we headed for the indoor comfort of the natural history museum.


While we were in the museum there was a Facebook party going on behind a wall partition. We could hear Alicia Keys singing just on the other side which was very cool. And no amount of smiling at the security guard got me access inside!


Later that evening everything was still very wet, on the up side we thought it made for a good photo.


The Chrysler building looked beautiful with the fog surrounding it.


The Knicks were playing at Madison gardens so we decided to spend the evening watching the game in a pub opposite the venue to soak up some atmosphere. Day 3 We had the morning before our flight to explore so again following some very good advice from our hostel receptionist we went to a park in Chelsea (round the corner from our hostel). The park is an old railway that has been transformed into a very cool above street level park.


The park had viewing stops throughout with seated areas to watch the city go by


The path conveniently led to the Chelsea market with a wide variety of breakfast choices :) We went for crepes.

Location:New York