Blogs from Tampa, Florida, United States, North America - page 6

We've learned a lot on our summer travels, including seeing a variety of crops and transportation styles plus other aspects of America. Today the cotton looked pick-able in Tennessee (already stored in large cylindrical bales in Alabama), many bales of hay were being trucked to Texas, a humungous truck/rail inter modal transportation center in Tupalo,MS processed containers on a massive scale. The conditions of roads varied, even in a single state, but the worst seemed to be in Mississippi, equaling Oklahoma's and the old I -10 in Louisiana. I-75 in Florida proved to be the speedway for the worst drivers since we left California. The driving courtesies of the Northwest, mountain states and plains states seem to be missing in many drivers on the freeway of student life around Gainsville. We drove into our driveway around ... read more

This morning, I awoke in Tampa, Florida. Tampa is an old port town that has become one of the state’s leading growth centers. It has a beautiful historic district and some good museums. Tourists don’t come here for any of that. They come here for the Busch Gardens theme park. Since theme parks are now an essential part of Florida culture, I came here (for now, anyway) to join them. I chose this park out of all the parks in Florida because I haven’t seen it in a long time, and the rides at Disney have become too tame for my tastes. That wouldn’t be a problem at Busch Gardens. For some reason, all of the low priced hotels near Busch Gardens are lousy. The chains known for descent standards, like La Quinta, take a nose ... read more

For perhaps as long as two million years, manatees have called the temperate waters of the Florida peninsula home. A vegetarian that feeds on the sea grasses, often called the sea cow, the manatee is the most inoffensive of animals. In fact, the manatee may well be the basis of many mermaid legends. There are many places where you can view manatees; TECO’s Big Bend Power Plant, for example. There are also places where you can swim with the manatees following State and Federal guidelines. Swimming in the shallow waters, the manatee is often the victim of power boats. If not injured by the collision, the manatee is at an even graver risk from the spinning propeller. Many manatees bear the scars of such encounters. Over time the manatees have adapted to the warmer waters that ... read more

Over the next 6 months or so, we are going to India, London, Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador and Colombia. After rolling around the idea of making this trip for a while, we had to figure out the 'how' and the 'when'. In order to do this we would need funds. No, we did not win the lottery or come across an inheritance from a long lost relative....so we went the old fashioned route and worked hard with our heads down for a couple of years avoiding any major investments. We are blessed to have some truly great family, friends and contacts in places like India, London, Brazil, Bolivia, Argentina, Chile and Colombia. The 'when' was a culmination of variables that came together over the last couple of weeks including the above and also ... read more

Okay, so traveling is fun... But it is lovely to come back to relaxation and do nothing but whatever I want whenever I want to do it. It's a good feeling after months of working my ass off =P So i've decided to write a weekly blog of little things that i've done, or big things that may happen during those weeks, just to keep those that want to be updated, updated = This week has been fairly slow, arrive home from South Carolina on Sunday evening, all of us tired and sick of driving and ready to relax back into a regular pattern. First thing monday it was straight to the gym, after a week of nothing but eating and touring, physical activity was exactly what my body needed. Of course straight after that (or ... read more