Summer in Florida

I started my post at the beginning of the year when I created the blog. But, let be back up to this summer when we first purchased the motor home. We picked it up in Florida, so that's where we started our trip. We were just getting used to the new home and did the usual Florida vacation scene. Sand and beaches and fun in the sun. We stayed on a beautiful beach, St. George Island, at the very end where you could see beach on all three sides. It was at the end of summer and all vacationers were gone by then, so we had the whole beach to ourselves. It was so perfect, that it didn't seem fair to the rest of the world! We had first choice of the beautiful treasures that the sea would bring us every morning, we would have sea gulls dive into the waters for their catch only a few feet away from us, and I think our very favorite was watching the schools of dolphin dance around like a backdrop to a perfect scenery. The kids chased sand crab across the beach and built sand castles. It was a great beginning to a new life.
Once we left St. George Island and headed back, we would stay a day or two at National Parks along the way and enjoy how well they preserve nature. Samantha was particularly concerned about the warning signs to stay on the board walk due to the alligators. The land was very marshy and board walks had to be built for visitors to walk across the park to the beaches. We happened upon one that had a very small beach area but after the endless miles of sandy beaches we had just come from, it was no more than a wading pool. So wade we did, and on closer observation of our surroundings, we started noticing the most wonderful aqua life! We had to be careful not to step on jellyfish. But, the little hermit crabs were the cutest! I was so excited to see one, then two, then more and more. We began to pick them up and they became so abundant that Steve had to pull off his cap and we used it as a "bucket" to hold all of them. They had the most beautiful shells and it seemed they all had a personality of their own. We were enjoying them so much that we failed to see that we were walking down the narrow beach area with water on one side and tall, marshy grass on the other side, just perfect for alligators! All was well until I noticed that we were walking along side alligator tracks, headed in the same direction! I tried to alert Steve without completely scaring the kids, so we carefully made our way back, watching back and forth from the grass to the waters. Before we reached our "small beach" we could see the alligator tracks emerging from the waters and walking in the same direction we were on the beach. After we pulled our heart back into our chest, we decided that maybe we should stay on the board walk. Samantha agreed.