TAKING THE LONGER ROUTE HOME . . .

Sunday morning we finished our final packing so we could head home. The picture above was taken just outside our campsite of the main campground loop in our section. It's pure Florida! Instead of taking the shorter route home we decided to take the longer route over the Sunshine Skyway Bridge. Even though this is a longer way home it kept us out of all the construction in downtown Tampa.

The Sunshine Skyway Bridge crosses Tampa Bay and connects St. Petersburg with Sarasota. So we had to head south from Ft. De Soto to come back northeast to get home. A portion of the old bridge was kept and turned into the longest fishing pier in the world.

On our travels home we made a stop at Camping World along I-4 in Dover, FL. I love stopping at this store. They have a huge selection of camping gear and neat gadgets. We didn't have a specific reason for the stop, didn't make a purchase but it still made for a great pit stop to look at everything they have on the way home.

Tim & I will take the next few days (between thunderstorms) to wash all the salt water off everything, put all our stuff away and clean up the Airstream. We have no trips planned over the next few months because we have to conserve time off and funds for the BIG TRIP we are planning in the Airstream come September. I can't wait to tell you more details. There will be a few day trips we plan on taking between now and then without the Airstream AND I will be flying out to Montana just before we take off on the big trip for a quick visit to celebrate my sisters birthday!!! I'll blog about all these travels as well. Until then ... fingers crossed that we can pull of this major Airstream trip in September!

AIRSTREAM RANCH ON I-4

PRODUCT UPDATES:

New Television - No update to report. We never turned it on during the entire trip. 

New Window Treatments - Again brilliant idea. They worked amazing and I absolutely love them. 

New Rocky Mountain Mattress - Spectacular. Tim and I slept so soundly and the mattress is very comfy. It even sleeps better than our mattress at home. So now we either need to buy a new mattress for the house OR go full-time in the Airstream. Uhhhh ... Now there's another brilliant idea.

A RIVER RUNS THROUGH IT . . .

Come late Saturday afternoon we had a nice thunderstorm pass through. Most of the storms during the week had passed around us. Lucky for us we traveled light on this trip and had just finished loading the kayaks & board onto the truck. During the storm we decided that we like the deck that Tim built more & more. If we had a rug down it would have been washed away out in the ocean and a muddy mess. Also during the storm my flip flops got washed away ... I'm glad they got hung on a tree root and didn't go far. LOL

At the worst point of the storm we could not see past the channel markers above and could hear a ship sounding off its foghorn blast sequence as it passed under the Tampa Sunshine Skyway Bridge that is nearby. 

Prior to the storm arriving I was able to take a nice long paddle on my paddleboard. I still have a few rigs to get for the GoPro so that I can keep that camera a little more secure than what I'm currently doing. It was a great afternoon and we can't wait to get back on the water somewhere. There is a nest across from us of Yellow-crowned Night-herons. As best I can tell there are three baby chics. During the day I watch as which ever parent was in the nest either continuously sheltering the chics from the sun or keeping them dry during the storm. I was able to catch one of the shift changes between the parents and saw the feeding that then persued. Wish I had my long lens to get a decent picture of the nest.

In the campground I found a few other varieties of Hawaiian Hibuscus Trees . . .

And the best sunset so far . . .