Swimming with the Manatees!

Manatee Spring, Florida

Feb 20-23

This is the most unique place we have ever camped.  Tons of wildlife everywhere.  We have seen turtles, snakes, deer, tons of vultures, interesting birds and fish and best of all manatees.  The boys snorkeled all 3 days and on our last afternoon they were able to snorkel with the manatees.  SO BRAVE! 

 I have rarely seen vultures anywhere...but I guess that is because they all live here!  Curt took the boys on a "spooky" walk last night to see all the animals at night.

 Manatee Springs is surrounded by the weirdest trees/stumps.  It looks like it is straight out of a movie set or Jurrasic Park.

 The manatees come here in the winter to stay warm when the ocean gets cold.  The spring produces millions of warm water every day.  This boardwalk went all through the swamp.  The vultures loved it!

 One day we went to a small town nearby called Chiefland.  They had a nice rail to trail bike path that we rode on. We stopped for lunch at a sports complex.  We also did a little grocery shopping at Wal Mart.  If you have ever seen the funny pictures of people at Wal mart on You-Tube...I am pretty sure they took most of the pictures from that store.(haha)

 We had some thunderstorms and rain, which left lots of time for the boys to build with their Erector sets and I even convinced them to listen to Mary Poppins.

Since the Olympics Jordan has been learning the countries of the world...so fun! 

 Here are the 2 manatees the boys swam with...it was so cool.

Tomorrow we head to the east side of Florida to Daytona Beach.  We will post again soon!

Destin, Florida...the most beautiful beaches we have ever seen!

Destin, Florida (on the panhandle of Florida)

Feb. 15-20

This was a truly AMAZING place to visit.  Some of you may know that my favorite place in the world is at the beach...and this was the most beautiful, cleanest and whitest beach I have ever seen.  There was a 1/4 mile boardwalk from the campground to the ocean, which made for spectacular views. (I hope that heaven has beaches like this!)  The weather was great while we were here so the boys had a blast swimming, playing beach football and digging endless holes in the sand.   I don't know why they love digging holes so much...but it keeps them occupied for hours.

 One of my favorite things about traveling with the boys is watching them interact with each other.  Most of the time...it is so sweet.  One morning I came back from working out and found them at the table laughing and laughing while they played a game.  Priceless memories!!  I won't highlight the instances when they are ready to throttle each other...that will have to be in another post.(haha)

 If we hit the lottery some day...I think that we will move to a small beach town near Destin called Seaside.  It was the town that the movie, The Truman Show, was filmed.  It is the most quaint, darling, white picket fence, fun house and trim colors, white sand beach town, I have seen. I must have said, "SO CUTE" a million times!  I took lots of pictures...but here are a few from the beach and of the cute houses and church.

 Lots of the houses had beach bike cruisers on their porches...even cuter!

 This was Truman's house.  If you haven't seen the movie...it is great!

We rarely are able to get a picture of the 5 of us...so here is a potential for next year's Christmas card!

While in Destin, we also went down to their waterfront/boardwalk area.  We saw tons of HUGE boats and interesting pelicans.  There are so many different kinds of birds all over.  Henderson State Park was a wonderful state park...it was so well taken care of...great walking paths and free, hot showers.

Tomorrow morning we will make our way east across Florida to Gainesville.  We are staying at a place called Manatee Springs where the boys will be able to snorkel and hopefully see manatees.  

Gulf Shores, Alabama...white sand beaches!

Gulf Shores, Alabama...beautiful beaches!

Feb.10-15

We are so glad that several friends (Ehren and Tammy) recommended Gulf Shores.  It had the most beautiful white sand beaches.  The Gulf Shores State Park is huge...almost 500 sites...with amazing amenities for a state park.  We loved the tennis courts and ranger programs.  Not to mention a BINGO night and a pancake breakfast with all the snowbirds here. 

 We explored the Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola.  We spent many hours looking at the amazing planes, model aircraft carriers and interesting history displays.  The funniest part of the day was when we went a trolley tour of the "plane graveyard."  The tour guide was about 100 years old and talked 100 mph...we could only understand every 20th word...at most.  We laughed and laughed in the back of the trolley, thinking that perhaps we were on candid camera.

 Since we would celebrating Valentines day on the road, we (I mean I) decided that we should make everyone in the family a homemade Valentine.  It was super fun to see each person's creativity and thoughtfulness come through the paper.  The teacher in me even had to make Valentine collectors that I hung from the cabinets (you can see them in the picture below).

 Even though it was kind of windy/chilly at the beach...the boys played for hours and hours.  Their favorite game is some kind of tackle game...which we allow occasionally...especially if we are reading a really good book. As you can see...we were the only ones on the beach.

 They also have an extensive set of great bike trails at the park. I wasn't so sure of this one...ALLIGATOR marsh trail???  Luckily, we have still not seen any gators..although most of the other members of the family are disappointed!

 A rest stop on the trail!

 Bradley was digging back to Spokane...or China?

 Here is my favorite Valentine...love you Curt!

Tomorrow, we sadly leave this beautiful place...but we are so glad we came.  This is definitely a place that we hope to visit again some day!  We are headed just 70 miles east to Destin, Florida. 

 We hope that you all had a wonderful Valentines Day...sending hugs to you!!!

New Orleans...The Big Easy

New Orleans...Feb.6-10

Fontainbleau State Park welcomed the Mulder's to the South.  We just loved the swampy, jungle-like feel with the beautiful moss covered trees.  This park is located on the northern side of Lake Pontchartrain...a HUGE lake...630 square miles.  From our campground we traveled over a 26 mile long bridge, the longest in the world to get to downtown New Orleans.  Many of the pictures are from the state park...stunningly beautiful.

 We went on several bike rides including a 14 mile ride on a rail to trail path.  We are just loving biking together, you can see so much more than walking in a shorter amount of time.

 We have seen beautiful pelicans throughout the south.

 Swampy area where we biked.  Just cannot get enough pictures of the Spanish moss hanging from the trees.

 A gorgeous white sand beach and boardwalk on Lake Pontchartrain.  Today the weather was sunny and warm enough for swimming in the lake and many games of beach soccer, football and water rugby (and quiet for me to read on the beach...my favorite).

 On Saturday we spent a long day in the city.  There were tons of great decorations everywhere for Mardi Gras. We drove to a huge city park and were greeted with beignets...a first for all of us...hopefully not the last.  Then we rode several trolleys throughout the city.  This picture shows an empty trolley, but as the day went on they got fuller and fuller...more like a sardine can!

 We rode a ferry across the Mighty Mississippi...as we wanted to say that we had been "on" the Mississipppi.  It was a beautiful view of the city and the French Quarter.

 We had lunch at Bubba Gumps in the French Quarter.  We were able to sit outside and watch the hustle and bustle of the city below.  After lunch we visited a National Park site dedicated to the history of New Orleans.  It was very well done and gave us a lot of history of the area.

 After a short walk down Bourbon street, we headed to the Garden District on the trolley.  There were AMAZINGLY beautiful old homes.  We got off at Tulane and Loyola University and saw Audubon Park.  

 On the way home we passed by several old cemetaries.  It was so interesting to see how they had all the caskets above ground.  Another highlight of this new place was seeing the Winn Dixie grocery stores..as we recently finished listening to the book and watching the movie.  Such a cute story!! 

We wish that we could stay longer in this area, as we have really loved it.  On several friend's recommendation, we have decided to head to Gulf Shores, Alabama.   We will be there until Saturday.   We are excited to experience more of the Southern Charm of this part of the country.

Have a HAPPY VALENTINES DAY...sending our love to you!!

Wet and Windy in Galveston!

Galveston, Texas...Dellanora RV Park

Feb. 1-6

We have spent the past 5 days in Galveston at a great campground right on the beach.  That is the good news...the not so good news is that we were afraid the 5th wheel might become an ark and we would float away in the wind and rain!!  But you know the boys...it is never too wet or cold for a game of football on the beach.  Each evening the wind and rain would subside and they were able to play with Curt while I walked along the beach.  The beach is pretty dirty, but from a distance it was pretty.  

 One of the things I wanted to see while in Galveston was a cruise ship...and the minute we stepped out of the truck downtown...guess what I saw...A CRUISE SHIP!!  It was huge and so cool to see up close.

 We spent one afternoon at a really fun and HUGE candy shop called La Kings.  It was a candy lover's dream.  We spent about an hour watching this man make salt water taffy.  It was AMAZING!!  The picture below is the final step when a machine wraps each piece of taffy..followed by him throwing samples to the crowd of warm and delicious peppermint taffy.  Each batch makes 3,000 perfect pieces of taffy..YUM!

 Another day we rode a ferry across the Gulf of Mexico.  It was interesting to see all the big oil rigs.

 The first night we didn't plan well for the rain and our whole shoe bin got soaked.  What do you do in a small 5th wheel when there is 100% humidity and it is raining outside...you set us a drying station in your shower...with a space heater going for 48 hours.  YEP..the joys of trailer life~!

 We really enjoyed seeing all the beach houses...it was so unique to see them all built on stilts.  After the bad hurricane several years ago...many have rebuilt...but some, like the one picture, has not.  It sounds like it was a devastating storm.  There are some beautiful historic mansions that were so colorful and fun to see.

 This was the view from our trailer...pretty!  

Tomorrow we head to New Orleans.  We look forward to seeing this part of the South.