March 11 - 15, 2012, Baseball, Manatees, and Camping

On Sunday we watched the Jays defeat the Braves from our awesome seats just to the right of home plate. After the game we stocked up at Publix and headed to our overnight site which was less than stellar...our first "miss" when it comes to places to stay overnight. Needless to say, we pulled out early on Monday morning, had breakfast at McDonalds and took advantage of their WiFi to try to locate a place to park for Monday night. Luckily I was able to locate a place in Largo that had one site left. It was a great place with a pool,  laundry facilities and an "all you can eat" shrimp restaurant located next door.

We left Largo on Tuesday morning to go to Fort De Soto Park for two days. We enjoyed our campsite overlooking the water and relaxed for the rest of the day. On Wednesday we met up with our friend from Jacksonville in downtown St. Pete's to take in a Team Canada vs Toronto Blue Jays ball game. Our tickets for this game were about 2 meters from the Blue Jays on deck circle....literally within chatting distance from the players. While Toronto won the game handily, the Canadian National Team put on a good show for all the Canadian fans.

The rest of the day was spend relaxing at our campsite at Fort De Soto. The guy at the site next to us, who was a kiteboarding instructor, went out with his kiteboard  and put on quite a show, doing tricks while the wind lifted him to a height of about 40 meters in the air. Fort De Soto is a great park.

On Thursday morning we explored the fort before heading to The Manatee Viewing Centre at Apollo Beach, one of Tampa's power stations. Manatees gather there when the water is below 68 because the water in the reservoir is very warm. A couple of manatees surfaced for us and of course, we took several pictures.

From Apollo Beach we drove to Little Manatee State Park where we spent the night. We did a short hike there and for the first time ever I experienced what my Jacksonville friend said were the early symptoms of heat exhaustion. it was extremely hot, close to 90! At any rate, we got back to the campsite safely, drank lots of water and cooled down in the shade.

Today we said good bye to our friend from Jacksonville as she headed north and we headed south, back to Venice for a few days. Tomorrow we are going to watch some PGA golf at Palm Harbor where The Transitions Championship will be played for a 5.5 million$ purse. Maybe we will pick up a few tips from the professionals.