Our 2016 six month trip west

When  I turn the key and hear the roar of the engine  will have a smile on my face.  Then when the wheels start turning, the smile gets bigger. We may only be part time RVers, but we still  have  a full timers mentality. I can’t wait to see the “purple mountains majesties and fields of amber waves of grain”.  Those words written by Katherine Lee Bates when she was at Pikes Peak are one of the places we are headed.  Our main goal of the trip is Utah and Colorado and  the states to and fro, and in between.  We haven’t spent much time in this area in our almost 10 years as full time RVer’s. We just toured the west haphazardly. So now we are planning to tour the west going a little willy-nilly. We now have a better idea of things we want to see and we have six months to spend doing it.

     This is a big change in our plans. We were planning to spend the summer on the east coast. But with six months we heard the west calling. We did plan this trip last year. We are not planning to go to the west coast, but you never know. This is why we don’t like making reservations. We do change our plans from day to day if something interesting comes along. But we will have to make some reservation as this is the height of tourist season, with two national holidays. So send us ideas of what not to miss, and if on our route or a slight distant off, we may just get there. From the west we will head back to Pennsylvania to see our family. Then back to Florida for at least part of the winter.

    In our passed Sunday paper there was a special section on our national parks. Of top ten most popular we visited nine. The only one we didn’t visit was Rocky Mountain National Park, just happens to be in Colorado, so we may cross off number ten.

     Linda is a little out of practice for taking pictures, but I bet it won’t be long until she gets in the mood. I just hope we can get out the driveway of our development. In preparation she purchased a new battery for her camera.  So what does that tell you! I hope I can get back in the mood to start blogging.

Manatees, Manatees, and more Manatees

Manatees, Manatees, and more Manatees  WOW! We went to Desoto Park and found manatees by the dozens. The pictures tell the story. Note almost all of them have wounds from boat propellers. Many have more than one wound.

What are all the people looking at?

Oh! maybe this is a clue

Wow, holy sea cow, as they are sometimes called.

Lets see, if I judge it just right I can get across without getting wet.

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Forecast: Sunny and more sun.

Merritt Island Wildlife Refuge, White Pelicans and Coots

 I lied in yesterday’s blog post. For some reason I though Linda didn’t have her camera. I asked her if these were the only pictures she had of the Merritt Island Wildlife Refuge, and she said yes. BUT she had a SD card from her camera. She thought I her meant on her phone.  Now today she hands me the camera with many more photo, and many better photo’s. She said we only forgot the binocular.  I’m wrong again, just ask her and she’ll tell you, it happens all the time.

 

Woops, how did I get in here. That car almost ran over me. Idiot..See my pretty ears

 

 

Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge

We were in for a treat  We never saw white pelicans. We also saw 1000’s of coots (mud hens).   We took a ride out to Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge to see some of the migrating birds and ducks fleeing the cold north. We hit it big, the first time for us. The preserve has 140,00 acres. The refuge shares a boundary with NASA's Kennedy Space Center. We were on our way to the manatee viewing deck at  Haulover canal when we spotted the pelicans and the coots. Of course we didn't have the  camera which is usually attached to Linda's arm and the binoculars. So the pictures are from her phone. The refuge also borders the Canaveral National Seashore. Our neighbors went to the refuge two days latter and saw very little. The birds and waterfowl have a very large area to travel in.  

 

The white pelicans

The coots

Follow the leader

A floating island of ducks. We saw groups this large on both sides of the gravel road we were on.

They wrap around the back of the island