Last month two of the kids and I took a quick trip to the mountains near the Georgia / North Carolina border. After a few days we headed toward the Atlantic coast and stopped in Charlotte, NC and St. Augustine, FL for before heading home.

 

 

While we do still have our pop up camper we opted to do tent camping and hotels for this trip. We were going to try mini-van camping (it's a real thing ... facebook groups and all!) but Kadedn thought that was too off the wall so we tented. And can you guess which child ended up sleeping in the van while River and I were in the tent??? Go figure :)

We did a lot of driving on this trip and very little picture taking, but it was still a much needed respite. I don't think I'll ever get enough of the mountains and waterfalls.

 

 

These two and I took a day off to go do some college touring for Kaden, and found the right school for him. :)

On the way home we took a short detour to one of our favorite "Old Florida" spots - a boat ramp and swimming area along the Peace River and one of the few places you can find sharks teeth inland in fresh water. 

We didn't sharks tooth hunt today - we weren't dressed for it and the water was FREEZING cold, but the boys had a great time swinging on a left-over rope swing. 

In the summer that sandy area is mostly underwater. Usually April and May is when the water is at it's lowest and we can search for shark's teeth, so we'll see how it looks in a month, but the water is much higher than it usually is in March due to a rainier winter than usual.

I just love these little off-the-grid spots ... they're getting harder and harder to find as Florida grows and grows, but we'll keep searching for them.

 

As the fun days of summer come to an end I thought I'd share a few images of our recent adventures.


In addition to Because I'm Me and Jude Harbor I now run a full time home daycare, which is great but limits vacation time quite a bit so instead of weeks away we did short weekend excursions, mostly with our camper - which we used five times this summer!


Most of our trips were to my happy place, the Florida Keys. My oldest son, Ian, is working in the Keys at Sea Base, a Boy Scout high adventure camp. So, you know, we had to visit him, right? Three times (plus a visit in April). We didn't make it to Key West this summer but we explored Long Key State Park quite a bit and spent most of our time in the water swimming, lounging, and boating on Ian's boat. Pure heaven.


Our biggest moment of excitement there was at about 10:00 pm on a Friday night at Long Key. One of the rangers drove past us, saying he had a minor emergency, as we were getting the camper into our site. Ever the curious home schooling family we had to see what was going on. About a hundred sea turtles had hatched but were heading toward the restroom lights instead of into the ocean. We watched the rangers and another family take the turtles back to the water and helped find a few of the cuties ourselves. It was an amazing experience and really brought home the fact that lights need to be off for the sea turtles. I couldn't believe how strong the attraction to the lights was - one camper held a flashlight pointing down and a swarm of turtles rushed to the light, he was then able to create a little trail of light to the water's edge.


If you're in the Keys and looking for a quick, free, pretty interesting, thing to do walk the old Seven Mile Bridge. It's now a fishing bridge, with one side closed for renovation, but in the shallow water are sharks, sting rays, dolphins, sea stars, fish, birds, and who knows what else - the wildlife seems to change with the days and tides.



It takes us about 4.5 hours to get to one of the state campgrounds from our home. We travel through the Everglades on US Route 41, past the smallest post office in the United States, indian villages, and a memorial for the victims of ValuJet flight 592. It's a relaxing drive with no interstate to worry about so even though it's a long drive it doesn't feel like it at all.


Plans are already being made for our next trip.

More cool than the rope swing (if that's possible) is the fact that this river is loaded with fossils - shark's teeth and more, even though it's a fresh water river inland.

30 years in Florida and I'd never heard of such a thing. But it's real, so very, very real. If you're even in south central Florida it's worth putting on your "must see" list.

And it's old Florida, which may have been the best part of all. We built a fire on the sandy beach of the river and just hung out. No tourist attractions, no crowd, just us, good friends, a sweet puppy, and fossil hunting.


River came home with two shark's teeth and a handful of other fossils I can't recall the origins of. As the water level drops and the weather warms a bit we'll head back for more "in the water" exploring.

This magical location is along the Peace River outside of Arcadia, Florida. Canoeing and kayaking are welcomed and there are plenty of waterfront campgrounds along the river. Well worth checking out.




 What out-of-the-ordinary enchantments grace your corner of the world?

 I received tickets to Busch Gardens Tampa from Sea World Parks and Entertainment in exchange for writing a review on this blog.

 We had so much fun at Busch Gardens that we went back. :)

The only thing missing from our last trip was a chance to see Christmas Town, Busch Gardens' holiday extravaganza with over a million lights and holiday decor throughout the entire park.


While we were able to see the decorations during the day we weren't able to experience the magic of the lights. Luckily, we were able to go back, and to bring Ian and Mia with us now that they're on Christmas break from school. Cassie had to work and couldn't go (bummer!) but it was great having the other five kids there.

This week the park is open from 9:00-9:00 most days this week, with most of the Christmas Town festivities beginning at 6:00 pm, with some things like the Christmas Caroling train beginning earlier. Of course since we'd just been there we didn't hurry to get there by 9:00 ... yeah, right! At 6:30 am everyone was up and getting ready for an awesome day.  We arrived shortly after 9:00 am and stayed until 9:00 pm. Let me tell ya, we got our walking steps in for the day.

 

No, falling straight down doesn't do it for me. Yikes.

After a terrific day of roller coasters (not me, definitely not my passion), playing, eating, and watching some shows it was time for Christmas Town.

It was amazing. My pictures do not suffice, at all. I did my best but didn't have a great lens (or tripod) for capturing the lights and activity.

I believe every tree in the park was wrapped in lights or had lights hanging from it. Christmas trees were everywhere decorated in every color of the rainbow. In total, over 1,000,000 lights were used to create Christmas Town.


In addition to the lights there was "snow" blowing, specialty shops set up, holiday music, and a variety of performances to watch.


There was also a huge Christmas Tree in Jungala with lights that changed color and flashed to music. While Adam, River, and I watched the tree do it's show four times we missed the marriage proposal that occurred when the rest of our party was watching it (she said yes)!

The roller coasters and most of the rides stayed open at night, as did the restaurants and shows. The roller coaster lovers had a great time riding them in the dark, apparently they are even scarier when you can't see where you're going ... as if they weren't scary enough already!

I can happily say that for this visit, quite unlike our last visit, we had perfect weather. We did bring in our sweatshirts but didn't need them until late at night. Had we wanted to we could have easily rented a locker for the day to store them.


Because we were there all day we opted to get the All Day Dining Passes. They are wristbands that you simply show the cashiers when you get your meals. With the passes we were able to get one entree, one side, and one beverage each time we went through the line. We drank enough water to get our money's worth out of the passes. The passes cost $35 at the park, but they can be purchased online for $3 less.

Christmas Town runs through the end of 2014 at Busch Gardens Tampa and admission is included in regular day admission.

We've visited Busch Gardens three times in 2014, which got me thinking about annual passes. I used to like the annual passes because the kids could play and cool off in the water features all summer long; yes, the younger ones would still like that but now that they're older the kids really like the roller coasters, shows, and animals and they'd be thrilled to go back more than 3 times a year and continue to discover something new each time. We were able to cover a lot of ground during our 12 hour visit this week but there were still things we didn't see (the kangaroos, Sesame Street Safari of Fun) even though we wanted to. After three visits we were not at all tired of the park and would love to go back a few more times ... yes, annual passes would be a very good thing.

Have you been to Busch Gardens Christmas Town? What were a few of your favorite things?

 I received tickets to Busch Gardens Tampa from Sea World Parks and Entertainment in exchange for writing a review on this blog.


The other morning, bright and early, we - Adam, Kaden, River, me, and a family friend - headed up to Tampa for another visit to Busch Gardens.

Before leaving the house I checked the weather report - partly sunny and 75. Not "hot" to us (please don't throw things at me), but warm enough that we all thought we'd be fine in shorts and tees. By the time we got to Tampa it was drizzly and about 63 but still the forecast said 70's, so we pressed forward. As soon as we got out of the car I started digging for a sweater or jacket; it was chilly! As soon as we got into the park I bought River a sweatshirt (for just $12.50 - very reasonable for a very nice comfy, warm sweatshirt). By the end of the day I'd bought Adam and Kaden sweatshirts as well. It never got over 65 and it rained until after 3 pm.



I opted to visit Busch Gardens in December so we could see all the Christmas decorations and lights. Busch Gardens celebrates the holidays with Christmas Town, evenings of lights and activities throughout December. We happened to visit on a day that the park closed at 6 pm and Christmas Town wasn't open, I'd like very much to go back and enjoy the events and lights sometime as the employees we talked to said it was wonderful and well worth seeing. Even without Christmas Town the decorations were stunning. It was a perfect way to get into the holiday spirit.

On our last visit to Busch Gardens we made a counter-clockwise circle from the entrance but ran out of time and were hampered by rain before seeing and doing everything we wanted to so for this visit we traveled clockwise.


Our first stop was the Bird Gardens and Walkabout Way, a wonderful kangaroo habitat. The kangaroos were like adorable, loving puppies, begging for chin scratches. We listened to one of the animal caretakers tell about the kangaroos and also watched him give a few of them bottles of apple juice.


After leaving that area we heard music, followed it, and found a show going on at Sesame Street Safari of Fun. River enjoyed the Sesame Street Christmas Show, Elmo's Christmas Wish, and all three boys liked the climbing treehouse and play elements. Had there not been roller coasters beckoning I think we may have stayed there all day.


The roller coaster riders among us, Kaden and a family friend, couldn't wait any longer so we moved forth to Stanleyville and Sheikra, the Stanley Falls Flume, and the Tidal Wave. River and I rode the log flume, which was the highlight of the day for me. He's a funny kid and he made it clear he wasn't overjoyed that there were two drops, one of which was kind of big, that no one had warned him about, as much as I wasn't too sure about the big drop either I was way too busy laughing to worry (and he's agreed to go on it again next time).

Next we visited the tigers in Jungala, as well as the Treetop Trails. When River was a baby he and I would spend hours in the tot water play area while the big kids played in Treetop Trails, this time he was off with the big kids. I couldn't help but reminisce about all the fun we've had at Busch Gardens over the years.

Adam always requests the Bumper Cars. Always. We spent a long time there, as always. The roller coaster riders ran off to ride Kumba a few times (again, no lines) while Adam and River practiced their crashing skills. I can say, without a doubt, that the roads will never be safe with them on them.


Lunch was next, in the Pantopia Grill. We managed to time lunch perfectly and caught the Christmas Celebration show, with singing, dancing, Santa, and gigantic inflatables. Lunch itself was really good, the kids had kids turkey sandwiches which came with fries and applesauce, and I had no problem substituting steamed veggies for fries for the non-fry eater. The kids meals were about $6 each and included a drink.

Falcon's Fury followed. Kaden decided to pass on this one, even though he'd been talking about it for months and the ride is new since our last visit. Our friend went on it alone and lived, which was all the proof Kaden needed ... he rode it and loved it. Falcon's Fury is the tallest free-falling drop in the United States and, apparently, it's a lot of fun because the guys went on it again. And lived to tell about it, again. I'm pretty sure they'd have done it a few more times if we hadn't been moving on.


Off to see the animals! My favorite part of Busch Gardens.


The animals were followed by a relaxing train ride around the park, traveling through the Serengeti Plain. The round trip train ride lasts about 35 minutes and is a great time to get a little rest and "reboot" for the rest of the day. Our "conductor" was a lot of fun and his commentary made the ride even better. As you can see from the image above, the boys were ready for a little down time; they were then ready to go again at full speed as soon as we got off the train.


After completing our train adventure the roller coaster riders rode a few more and then we took in the Christmas on Ice show, which was beautiful. There were some amazing skaters in the show, including a young girl, and the show was really well done, with pretty costumes and lighting.


Our last stop for the day was one more show, Christmas from the Heart, a very spiritual, moving show and a perfect way to end our visit at Busch Gardens.


One thing we noticed throughout the park and in all the shows was the Christian aspect of Christmas that was presented. There was a nativity scene crafted from living plants and each show contained at least one song about the birth of Christ. We noticed other little touches as well, and we appreciated and respected the park's desire to share a little faith-based Christmas love and to be true to what they believe.


The Christmas from the Heart show brought us back to the beginning of the park. We were able to do everything we wanted to do throughout the entire park and we were able to ride every ride at least twice and we saw four shows. I don't think we could have possibly asked for any more than that! The kids had a great day and are are asking if we can go back NOW.

The only negative, from any of us and it was from me, was that Christmas Town wasn't open and we didn't get to see the Christmas lights. I've heard such wonderful things about it and it sounds perfectly magical. Of course, we have until the end of this year to go back for that and we just might have to!


Right now the Busch Gardens 2015 Fun Card is available and is good today through December, 2015, giving you the rest of this month for free (and a chance to visit Christmas Town).

Have you been to Busch Gardens Tampa lately? Have you ridden Falcon's Fury? Have you visited Christmas Town? I'd love to hear about your Busch Gardens visits and experiences.

Oh, and by the way, I'm on the nice list. :)