Jungle Adventure

Devin and I wanted to go somewhere fun without having to drive too far so we decided to go to Jungle Adventures. They have lots of different animals, wildlife shows, and a boat ride. Most of the animals were native but there were others that were there because they had been confiscated because of abuse or neglect. We saw African Spurred Tortoises, Florida Panthers, Red Foxes, and lots of American Alligators. Safari Todd did our educational animal show, alligator feeding, and boat ride and he was amazing. He knew tons about all of he animals, has a great sense of humor, and he's worked on a lot of news educational shows like Bill Nye and Discovery Channel. During the hands on animals show we got to hold a juvenile alligator, snake, and tarantula. That was the first time I have ever held a tarantula.

Lion Country Safari

Devin and I had been planning on going to Busch Gardens or Disney today, but yesterday I got three fire ant stings on my ankle, and walking around all day is definitely not an option since my ankle is swollen, painful, and itchy. We decided to head to Lion Country Safari instead because you drive through the park instead of walk. I have never been there and Devin hasn't been there in years. They gave us a CD to play while we drove through the park that narrated what kind of animals were in each habitat and told us a little bit about the animals. I really enjoyed it; we got to get really close to some zebra, rhinos, and a couple of wildebeest had a chase right past our car. We drove through the park twice and on the second pass the chimpanzees were out and were running around, chasing each other, climbing up and down their forts, and making all kinds of vocalizations. Unfortunately I forgot to bring my camera (seems like I'm doing that a lot lately) so the only pictures I captured were with my iPhone. I really wish I had had my good camera on me. After driving though the park twice we walked around Safari World Amusement Park (part of Lion Country Safari admission). I couldn't do much walking but we did get to see some birds, alligators, flamingos, monkeys, and giraffes.  We watched the alligators get fed quartered pieces of chicken. We also got free tickets for animal food because we donated our old cell phones so Devin and I each fed the giraffes. We stayed for part of the talk on giraffes where I learned that part of their tongue is purple and the pigment helps protect it from the sun because they can spend up to 20 hours a day with their tongues out grazing on leaves. We also got to watch one of the trainers working with one of the giraffes, giving them hand signals to touch a frisbee on the fence, pick their nose with their tongue, bend down, and some other commands. After the park Devin took me to a Thai restaurant that he had been to before. It had very eclectic decor and the food was amazing. I had a very yummy pad thai.  Then we headed back on the 2 hour drive to get back home.

Just keep swimming

My parents came to visit me for the "weekend" and took me to Key Largo. Their flight arrived Tuesday night and we started driving down Wednesday morning after a delicious breakfast of biscuits and gravy (vegetarian style) that Devin made us. Amazingly enough, I managed to stay awake and not get car sick the entire drive down (I did take some Dramamine). We got settled into our hotel room at the Holiday Inn and then we wandered around the harbor and looked at the African Queen (boat featured in the movie The African Queen with Humprey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn). We also booked a sunset snorkel trip on a sailboat for after dinner, visited the dive shop next to the hotel, and had dinner at Coconuts. They had a very yummy key lime pie that reminded me a little bit of Devin's tequila key lime cheesecake that he made for my birthday. After dinner we left for our snorkel trip. On they boat they went through all the safety instructions (don't get lost or drown) and we had to wear safety vests on the snorkel trip which was kind of a bummer but luckily they weren't too buoyant. I saw two Southern stingrays, queen angelfish. gray angelfish, stoplight parrotfish and lots of other reef fish. There was also beautiful fan coral, brain coral, and tons of other corals. I love being in the ocean. There is just so much diversity and it is so beautiful how it all interacts with each other.