The morning after Christmas, we piled into the car and drove down to Dave's new house in Florida to thaw out from the Vermont cold. But perhaps somebody was missing the frigid temps back home because the suggestion was made that we celebrate New Year's Eve with a penguin plunge into the pool in Dave's backyard. It wasn't THAT cold . . . but it is winter in Florida and the pool is not heated, so it was a shock to jump into the chilly water.
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| Kids are ready! |
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| Flexing for the camera. |
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| Cold water! |
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| But not cold enough to deter these guys. |
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| Cousin warm-up in the "hot tub" afterward. |
On New Year's Day we drove over to Blue Springs State Park to see the manatees. I thought we might see one if we were lucky, I had no idea there were dozens of them and we would be able to see them easily in the clear water of the warm spring!
This being a Florida swamp, there were more creatures than manatees in that water. We saw one alligator, which was exactly enough to deter me from wanting to jump in!
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| Swim? No thanks. |
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| Gator barely visible along shoreline, above bird's wings. |
We had a little gentle warm Florida rain but we didn't care. We rented canoes so we could go out in the St. John's River to spot some more wildlife. It was as murky as the spring water was clear. Lucy declared that it looked like we were canoeing through Diet Coke. So we saw no manatees and (thankfully) no gators, but we did see some beautiful birds and lots of gorgeous swamp scenery.
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| Boys' canoe. |
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| My view. |
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| Posing for pictures. |
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| Swamp Thing! |
