Chasing Life

Day's: 8-the end Florida Sorry this is such a long time in coming. :( We finally reached warm weather! But it wasn't quite as warm as we expected, the avg. for the first few days we high 60's. But, as the week went on, it got up to the 80's, and on Christmas Eve, it was 85!!! The first few days in Florida, we visited St. Augustine, several lighthouses and beaches, and even toured the Daytona Speedway! We stayed a few days on Daytona Beach, and while there, Kade found a jellyfish in the water. Next, we drove all the way to Key West, then all the way back up and to the Everglades. In the Everglades we went to a small zoo and watched an alligator show. Immediately after that, we had an exhilarating ride on an airboat. While zooming past blood mangrove trees and spinning in 180 degree turns, we also saw an alligator and lots of fish. On and near the Crystal river we visited a manatee sanctuary /zoo and later that day at a public beach/park, we swam with some wild manatees!(...

 Day: 7 South Carolina, Georgia, Florida This morning we went to the beach. There was a pier further down the beach that we walked under. On the way, we found lots of shells and washed-up sea urchins. It was very cold, and not a swimming sort of day. We then drove to Charleston. We had booked a tour of Fort Sumter and while waiting we played at a park nearby. At the appointed time, we arrived at the ferry and boarded. A volunteer asked us if we wanted to be Junior Rangers and we all said yes as we had done this in the past at other national parks and monuments. From the ferry, we saw the Navy Destroyer USS Laffey and Aircraft Carrier USS Yorktown. The Yorktown was bigger than the Ark we had seen earlier! The harbor has a pod of 105 dolphins and we saw a few swimming in front of the boat and around the harbor. The volunteer talked about the history of the harbor and pointed out a few other smaller forts. Once we got to Fort Sumter, we listen to a ranger talk, were showed fingerprint...