If we played a word association game, “sunshine” is no doubt a popular one to associate to “Florida”. And with weather being a strong factor in the timing and direction of our year long road trip, we knew we could count on Florida. Spending several weeks overlapping March and April proved to deliver Florida sunshine, with a few thunderstorms mixed in, and best of all SMILES. Because we were fortunate enough to spend quality time with friends and family while we were there. We settled into a home base amidst cow country and orange groves (best described by Matt’s recent poem and pictures here), and used that as a jumping point to meet up with family from coast to coast (check out our route here).
Myakka State Park
Our first meetup was a happy surprise when we heard from Michigan friends, Scott & Sunny, who were in the Tampa area and discovered we weren’t too far away. We met up at Myakka State Park and spent the day together hiking, talking and spotting alligators.
And we caught an alligator in action!! Those poor little minnows didn’t stand a chance. Check out the video!
Fort Lauderdale
Heyyyyyy brotherrr…(cue Avicci)…next meetup was in Fort Lauderdale with my brother, Chad, and sister-in-law, Michelle. We PACKED in the fun over our four days together. It’s possible we never stopped laughing and talking, even when we sat in the hot tub in the pouring rain!
And probably the best bar crawl tour I’ve ever been on…Cycle Party! Cycle Party is a huge group powered bicycle steered by your tour guide and pedaled by your entire group. Add music, laughter, and stops at some of the best bars in the city, and you have a guaranteed good time! If you ever find yourself in a town with this type of tour, I highly recommend it! Check out the video!
A video posted by Destination Tree (@destinationtree) on
Southwest Florida
We were excited to spend some fun-filled time together in Florida with our parents. They flew down to meet us and we filled our days with nature walks, beach walks and boat tours. A perfect setting for enjoying each other and the Florida coast.
We hopped from our sunset cruise one night to an air boat adventure the next day through Everglades National Park.
A video posted by Destination Tree (@destinationtree) on
Of course, the time flew by, but we were grateful for the incredibly fun quality time together.
Chance Encounters
We got lucky and unlucky with some additional meetups in Florida. Schedules and availability didn’t quite work out to meet up with some other friends who happened to be in Florida for spring break, and we missed out on meeting more family in Tallahassee due to some nasty weather. BUT two wonderful chance encounters worked out perfectly and we drove to meet our much loved nephews for a morning in the pool in Orlando, and my dear great-cousins in Penney Farms.
St. Augustine
With centuries of history and beauty, St. Augustine is an absolutely charming city brimming with stories of the past and plenty of Spanish architecture. And of course, lots of history means lots of potential haunting…so expect a blog post from Matt with details on that 😉
Work Hard, Play Hard
Well, after all that, it looks like all we did was take a big long vacation, right? Wrong. We work hard AND play hard. While we had fun in the sun the custom orders rolled in. So, in between each excursion we caught up on creating and shipping custom driftwood artwork across the globe. Every time we cleared our slate of orders and met up with loved ones, we came back to a long to-do list and started all over again. The best part? We love it all.
After all our hard work, and fun in the sun, we knew it was time to head back West. Our adventures continue as we re-trace our path through the storm riddled south and across Texas.
Cheers!
Kristin
Stubs says
Another great story from your awesome adventure.