Okay, I don't normally do this, but family and friends wanted to know how our trip to Florida and the Bahamas in July-August 2000 went, so I am throwing together this page.

Here is a picture of me in the first few days of our adventure, which started in Longboat Key, Florida. The weather was HOT and HUMID, but the water in the Gulf of Mexico was PERFECT.

We spent a lot of time swimming and fishing (over 3 days I ended up catching and releasing about 20 fish from the beach, including a flounder!)

This must be crab season or something in Florida, the crabs were everywhere! They were digging holes in the beach, and would scurry down a hole that in many cases was at least 3 feet deep (according to a reed I was sticking in the holes to try to get the crabs out). There were a ton of crabs in the water too, here is a picture of two of them that Erica caught while fishing. These pesky critters were bait theives big time! If you let your bait sit too long (we were using shrimp or sand fleas), the crabs would grab it before the fish could, and many times you would reel in a crab that was still munching away on your bait!

At night, we visited the beach with a flashlight to catch crabs that were coming up out of the surf to dig holes, these ones were pretty easy to catch, just blind them with the light and put a bucket over them. We set all of them free cuz crabs are only interesting for a few minutes.

We had a constant companion while fishing on the beach. A big Blue Heron would stand patiently by and watch us reel in the fish, and often would leap towards the fish we were catching! We nicknamed this silly guy "Fred".

Every once in a while I would reward Fred's patience by tossing him a fish I had caught. He was pretty thankful. Yes I took out the hook first.

Leaving Longboat Key was sad, but it was just the start of our Journey. We had many other destinations!

The Forida sunset over the Gulf of Mexico was fabulous.

Next stop on our trip was Orlando, which we didn't really take any pictures of, it's pretty much all the same- touristy stuff. We stayed 2 days, including one day at Disney's Blizzard Beach, which is a pretty neat Water Park. It had the best selection of water slides and water activities I've seen. It was a pleasant way to beat the searing heat. Other than that we didn't do much exciting. We had visited Disney's big theme parks down there a few years back, so we didn't need to repeat that.

Next stop, Kennedy Space Center. We added this stop last minute to our trip, but it was worth it. We opted not to do the full-out touristy tour and just walked around some of the grounds and displays on our own instead. It was really worth it. We even got to see the recently recovered Liberty Bell 7 module!

Here is a picture of one of the booster/fuel assemblies they use for the space shuttle. I told a guy who looked like he was in charge that they were aiming it the wrong way, that the "pointy bit" goes towards the sky. He didn't laugh.

Okay, now we're talking POWER. Lookit this great engine I found for my next SUPER SUPER SUPER heavyweight robot! They just had these old leftover Saturn V engines scattered around like junk, so I was gonna bring one home, but then I realized we had opted for the economy size rental car, so I had to leave this one there. If any of you robot builders is in the southeast Florida area, you can grab this one. I'd love to see it in the BattleBots arena!

Here's me and a scaled down version of a robot that I was going to bring to the next BattleBots. I'd like you all to meet "RocketBot".

Okay, NOT. I just couldn't resist doctoring this photo a bit, it was just too perfect. Hee hee!

Next stop (and again, no pictures) was Fort Lauderdale. Another touristy city that was hot and humid, but we had fun at the beach anyway. It was a great place to people-watch at night. We sat along the beach on Saturday night and watched an amazing variety of cars and people parade by. Best of all, it was a free show!

From Fort Lauderdale, we hopped on a cruise ship for a few hour ride to the Bahamas.

Boy, I'm glad I'm not a beer-drinkin' Bahamian! Check out these prices!

The local favorite, Kalik, was actually pretty good.

In all, the food was decent, and although some food and items were way overpriced, some things were a downright steal, so it balanced out nicely. The Bahamas have their own currency, but it always stays equal to the US dollar, so you can use either currency anywhere, that was kinda neat. I didn't get a chance to find one of the neat 3-Dollar bills or square nickels though. Those would have made cool souvenirs.

One of our most memorable events was a nighttime beach bonfire with a large group of other tourists. I tell ya, once you say "all you can drink Bahama Mamas", and then pack everyone fresh from beach-limbo on a bus a few hours later, you are in for quite an adventure. It was truly a great time!

The beaches in the Bahamas were fabulous! The sand and bath-temperature water made it our favorite place.

Here, Erica is taking her pick of some shells from some freshly caught Conchs (Conches? Conchi?), while the friendly vendor scrubs his morning catch.

Just LOOK at that water! You don't get anything like that in California.....

One of my favorite activities in the Bahamas was a kayak trip through the Mangroves. It was a great chance to see some of the nature on the island up close, especially the mangroves, which at times, were barely wide enough for the kayak to pass through. Seriously, we saw a huge selection of fish in the creeks, crabs, herons, and even bats. (No, the bats weren't in the creek, they were in a cave that we hiked to briefly at the end of the kayak trip.)

After our return cruise back to Fort Lauderdale, we hopped aboard a plane and (remarkably, considering the problems with United Airlines lately), made it home on schedule.

We had a great time. We did take a TON more pictures than these, but I don't feel like putting up a ton of them and adding narrative to each. If you want to know more about the trip, or need recommendations for any of the areas we visited, feel free to drop me a line.