I flew to NY on June 19th to see the folks and everyone else there. Then I worked my way down the east coast in this order;
West Chester PA – Get a real Philly Cheesesteak with Todd and see his impressive Coy pond with large school of fish and the great pool and party features.
Arlington VA – See Joe & Jesse for a few days. I got to see several museums on the mall and also the Air & Space Museum at Dulles.
Kitty Hawk NC – Check out where the Wright Bros got us all into the air.
Galax & Floyd VA – Hear some real Blue Grass music and see the Great Smokies including a piece of the “Tail of the Dragon”, or Blue Ridge Parkway in more common terms.
Pittsboro NC – See Judy to reminisce about the old days of Summer Theater and Gene.
Myrtle Beach SC – See Elaine to catch up, celebrate the 4th (Fireworks are legal in SC!), and do a little beach time.
St. Augustine FL – See Sam & Susan, check out St. Augustine (Fort & Hotels/Museums), and start Sam & my adventure down the coast to the Keys.
Daytona Beach FL – Have lunch with Sonny & daughter to catch up and hear how work is going in my absence. Just fine, BTW. 😉
Blue Spring State Park FL – See Below
Cape Canaveral/Kennedy Space Center – Sam and I are geeks so we couldn’t miss this one on the way down.
Florida City/Pembroke Pines – We had a delightful dinner with Nikole and her husband Raul.
Key Largo FL – First Key on the trip. We went snorkeling from the shore and a dive boat, see below.
Key West FL – We toured the Key seeing the Hemingway House and the Southernmost Point marker. We enjoyed the people watching at all times. And then we signed into another dive boat to snorkel a reef and a shipwreck, see below.
Miami FL – We did a quick run through Little Havana and South Beach. Sam loved the coffee in LH. The SB scene was entertaining during a normal morning. I couldn’t imagine what it turns into during holidays.
Fort Lauderdale FL – We had a lovely dinner with Jim & John and Gina the Colombian Princess who happened to be in town. Then we cruised back to St. Augustine that night.
Home – A couple days after we got back from the road trip I hopped a flight back to CA.
Photos of the trip can be viewed here.
This was the only turtle we saw on the entire trip!
http://dump.gregkoss.com/GKVideos/EC_2023/GX010412_Turtle.MP4
The water is incredibly clear. Sam was showing he’s light on his feet fighting the current in the river.
http://dump.gregkoss.com/GKVideos/EC_2023/GX010413_SamUndwtr_Dancing.MP4
At first we didn’t see any at all. Then a thunderstorm came along which emptied the river of people, except us and a few others. The Manatees started showing up!
http://dump.gregkoss.com/GKVideos/EC_2023/GX010415_Manatee1.MP4
http://dump.gregkoss.com/GKVideos/EC_2023/GX010416_Manatee2.MP4
The fish started showing up too. The Carp were really big!
http://dump.gregkoss.com/GKVideos/EC_2023/GX010417_Carp.MP4
We tried our first snorkeling in the Keys from the beach. The area was a large seagrass bed with some small fish here and there.
http://dump.gregkoss.com/GKVideos/EC_2023/GX010418_Seagrass_Fish.MP4
We also saw some replica Spanish Cannons pretending to be a wreck in the Seagrass.
http://dump.gregkoss.com/GKVideos/EC_2023/GX010419_Cannons_Fish.MP4
We also saw some Red & Green Parrotfish among the seagrass.
http://dump.gregkoss.com/GKVideos/EC_2023/GX010420_R-Grn_Fish_Seagrass.MP4
We signed up for the Amoray Dive Boat to take us out to the reefs in the ocean off the coast of Key Largo. We saw lots of fish swimming near the surface and down on the reef.
http://dump.gregkoss.com/GKVideos/EC_2023/GX010424_Fish-Schl_Over_Reef.MP4
Sam enjoyed diving down to the reef to peer under the ledges and get closer to the fish.
http://dump.gregkoss.com/GKVideos/EC_2023/GX010425_Sam_Diving.MP4
There were lots of these jellyfish floating around. And you can just see the tail of a Ray that darted out of the frame.
http://dump.gregkoss.com/GKVideos/EC_2023/GX010427_Jelly_Ray-Tail.MP4
Sam did some more diving down to the reef.
http://dump.gregkoss.com/GKVideos/EC_2023/GX010429_Sam_Diving2.MP4
This is what a healthy reef with Fan Corals looks like. Sam is there for size comparison and context.
http://dump.gregkoss.com/GKVideos/EC_2023/GX010430_Fan-Corals_Sam_Diving.MP4
We got to see this shipwreck. Its an 1800s era metal hulk that has been completely flattened by time and the sea.
http://dump.gregkoss.com/GKVideos/EC_2023/GX010434_Shipwreck.MP4
A school of black fish on the reef.
http://dump.gregkoss.com/GKVideos/EC_2023/GX010446_BlkFishSchool.MP4
Published: 20-Jul-2023