A weekend trip to explore the Dunedin and Clearwater area of Florida

 

Location: Dunedin, Fl

Date: 8/1/2014 – 8/3/2014

 

Julie and I decided that we need to start doing more weekend getaways. With work and all the other activities, time flies and before we know it it’s been months since we’ve done anything out of the ordinary. Being summer in Florida, it’s way too hot for any camping trips, although we do have a week of reservations in the keys for next month at Curry Hammock State Park.  We are really looking forward to getting down there and doing some camping, exploring and kayaking

So, we made a deal. We would take turns planning short getaways and the one doing the planning would get to make all the choices of location and activities and the other would have to just go along (no complaining!!). Also, you don’t have to share any details of the getaway beforehand.

Both of us took Friday off from work and we headed out in the early morning. I had the idea that we were headed to the Sarasota Beach area for the weekend, but that was not the case. Julie decided that we needed a “walk down memory lane”. Julie grew up in Clearwater and I spent my high school years in Dunedin which was a town just north and we met and started dating when we worked at a steak restaurant in Dunedin called Chief Charley’s.

Taking US-19 south, we checked out many areas of interest to us, like the church where we got married, the place where we had our wedding reception as well as the areas where both of our parents lived for many years. In the case of my parents, there were quit a few!!

We eventually made it to the place Julie reserved for us to spend the weekend, called Beso Del Sol. This was a nice “resort” on the intercostal in Dunedin. Below is a picture taken from our balcony showing the pool deck and the boat docks leading out to the water. Way off in the distance is Caladesi Island which is now a Florida State park. The next day we would be doing some kayaking in that area.

And another shot from a park just south of our location during the sunset.

 

On Saturday morning morning we got going fairly early to get some breakfast and then headed to the causeway leading out to Honeymoon Island where we would rent a double kayak for four hours to do some exploring. The Caladesi Island State Park is a short 6/10’s of a mile paddle from the causeway. It was a fairly easy trip over, but being extreme low tide, some of the areas were very shallow around the island.

 

Caladesi Island has a kayak trail which winds through the mangroves surrounding the east side of the island. As you can see below, this was like paddling through a mangrove tunnel. It did get very narrow in parts and we had some people ahead of us there were going verrrrrry slow. But we eventually made it back to open water. We were thinking that we had done the whole trail, but later finding a map on-line we realized that we only did a short section of the trail. I guess we’ll have to make another trip here to do the entire length of the trail.

 

We then started heading back north towards where we started. On the north side of the island there are some nice sand beaches. We got out here and walked around some to stretch our legs. We were getting a little stiff after sitting in the kayak for 2 to 3 hours.

A lot of boaters park there boats in the shallow areas and enjoy the sandy beaches.

Here’s the GPS track of where we paddled.

Later that evening we met up with a friend and his wife whom we hadn’t seen in 32+ years. Julie and I both worked with him at the Chief Charley’s restaurant I had mentioned earlier.  The last time we had seen him was at our wedding. I had found his business e-mail on-line and sent him a message. He got back to us and we made plans for a dinner in downtown Dunedin.

When I was in high school, downtown Dunedin was your typical downtown area which had seen better days. Much of the businesses had moved to the malls, leaving empty storefronts. Well Dunedin has done a great job of revitalizing its downtown area and there is now a great combination of restaurants and other businesses to lure you down that way. We met our long lost friend and his wife at one of theses restaurants and had a great time catching up after all these years. It was kind of interesting to find out that we had a lot in common in our interests, such as camping, our kids sports, etc. 

The next night we walked the half mile to the Dunedin Brewery which is the oldest microbrewery in Florida. We had a flight of beer to get a good idea of what they had to offer and then made our selection from the good list of brews. They also serve food, so we ordered some appetizers as well as some fish tacos. All were great, but the highlight was their chicken wings. They were awesome and went well with the flavorful beer that we ordered.

Sunday morning was check out day, but we wanted to do one last activity before we headed back home and back to “reality”. Pinellas County has a well developed collection of bike trails following many of the old railway tracks that had long been abandoned. The place that we stayed offered free bikes for use, so we took a bike ride on the trail south to downtown Clearwater and then back north along the roads that follow the intercostal waterway.  The Pinellas Trail is very popular and there were many biking, walking and jogging along the way.

Here’s out GPS trail of our bike ride throughout the Dunedin and Clearwater areas.

 

A trip to New England for some family gatherings

 

Date: 6/28/2014 – 7/6/2014

Location: Parsonsfield, Maine

 

In late June Julie and I headed up to New England, flying into Boston. We spent a few days in Marlborough which is the town that I grew up in. My father had moved back there several years ago and the family was giving him party for his 90 birthday. Here’s a picture of my dad and his sister Alice. They are both doing great for their age.

 

After the party had concluded and everything was cleaned up, then five of us made the 2 hour drive up to Maine where two of my brothers and wives own a large home on a very peaceful lake. This is a great place for family gatherings. But this was the calm before the storm. The five of us enjoyed our quiet days before the 23 (give or take a few) other family members joined us for Fourth of July festivities,

Here are s few pictures of the lake taken from their dock. A beautiful place!!

My brother and I got in some early morning fishing on the lake. I caught a few, but couldn't keep up with my him. Plus, I didn’t want to show him up!!

             

The days before the large group of family arrived was also a good time to relax and do some reading. Here’s my niece and Julie during some quiet time.

            

 

We also did a short day trip to one of the dams on a nearby river. We explored the rocks and areas below the dam, even though there were signs warning us of the dangers.

This lake is also great for canoeing and kayaking as there’s usually very little boat traffic. Here’s Julie and my sister-in-law during a late evening paddle.

Julie and I did a few paddles around the lake. Here’s the GPS track of one of those trips.

 

As the fourth of July rolled around, the amount of family at the lake place grew exponentially! At one point there were family members from Florida, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Vermont. We had a great time celebrating the holiday. 

Here’s the youngest member of the Whitney gang. Just joining this world several weeks earlier. He was dressed for the occasion.

 

And the tradition continues. Last year we had the first Curtis Cup Corn Hole Challenge. This was a full day of corn hole competition and finishing with the championship match. So, this year we continued on with the 2nd Annual Curtis Cup Challenge. Curtis is my father who donated some $$ last year to the winners pot. So, we decided to name it after him.

We have to use a chalk board to keep track of the score, since none of us can remember as the game progresses. Not sure if it is old age or the beer, but our memory sure is lacking during the tournament.

Here are some young fans cheering on the competition.

Here’s some not so young fans, also watching the corn hole matches.

My daughter and her husband even came dressed in their corn hole competition uniforms. They came to play and were determined to win and take home the money. Guess they’ll have to wait until next year.

After a long series of matches, the eventually winners were my brother and his wife. This cements the Florida hold on the corn hole tournament winners. Last year their son and his wife were the winners.

 

Another highlight of the weekend is the clam and lobster boil. Things get very quiet for awhile and everyone gets serious about digging into their dinner. Here’s a few pics of everyone chowing down.

 

 

Here’s a few pictures of the gang that had gathered for the family celebration.

 

We also did a few rounds of Thunderstruck, which is now becoming a family tradition. I’m just saying it involves way too much beer and can lead to some wild times. But this year we seemed to somewhat behave ourselves.

A few remaining random pictures.

          

Before we had to head back home we did one more short hike with my cousin from Vermont. We wanted to see if we could make it all the way around the lake. Luckily we were able to make it all the way since I wouldn’t have wanted to turn around. Here’s the GPS track of that hike.

 

Exploring two Florida State parks near White Springs Florida

 

Location: White Springs, Florida

Date: May 18, 2014

The weather was perfect for some outside activity, so Julie and I decided to take an hour drive north on I-75 to the town of White Springs where that are two Florida State Parks. The Stephen Foster state park has camping so we wanted to take a look as we are always interested in finding new locations for short weekend camping adventures.

As the name implies Stephen Foster Folk Culture Center State Park is dedicated to the American composer Stephen Foster who lived from 1826 – 1864. He wrote more than 200 songs and many remained popular long after his death. The building below looks like and old southern mansion and contains a museum covering the life and songs of Mr. Foster. This museum included many old pianos from his time as wells a a number of diorama's showing scenes from many of the more popular songs.

The Carillon Tower tolls through out the day and on the top of each hour plays many of Foster’s tunes. The base of the tower also houses a small museum with many historical pieces.

A section of the Florida Trail runs through the park. We attempted to hike a short part of it as it follows the Suwannee River. Unfortunately, the water level of the river is high at this time and we had to turn around. Below is the track of a short hikes we took around the park and the camping area,  We did find a good number of nice campsites here, so we marked them down and plan on returning sometime to do some camping.

Stephen Foster Culture Center State Park at EveryTrail

 

Just outside of the State Park entrance is the remains of a hotel and spa that was built around a larger spring on the river. This area was very popular back in the 1800’s as it was believed that soaking in the spring was good for your health. The hotel offered all kinds of “packages” that guaranteed to solve whatever ailed you. Here is all the remains of the old hotel and spa. The water doesn’t look so enticing now as it flooded by the tannic water of the Suwannee river.

 

As you can see below, downtown White Springs is a bustling area!!

 

About five miles north of White Springs is the other park we wanted to check out today. This was Big Shoals State park and is also on the Suwannee River. This is the location of the only white water in Florida. There’s two sections of the river, Big Shoals and Little Shoals, where if the water is just right you will be able to canoe or kayak some class III rapids. The parks kayak launch area was closed today because of the high water. We saw a few sections of rapids, but for the most part the water was too high and totally covered the rocks and shoals.

We did do a hike along the river which had some nice overlooks to check out the shoals.

Here is the GPS track or our hike.

Big Shoals State Park at EveryTrail

 

 

This gopher tortoise was blocking the road as we were trying to leave the park. It was a stare down, and we finally had to relocate him to a safer location on the side of the road,

 

 

Camping at Anastasia State Park

 

Date: 5/9 – 5/12/2014

Location: St. Augustine, Fl

Campground: Anastasia State Park, Site 108

 

Back in July of last year we made a reservation for a campsite at Anastasia State Park just south of St. Augustine for a four day stay. Sometime we actually do plan ahead which we are finding is required to secure a spot at any of the popular campgrounds in the state.

A year ago we attended the Players Championship golf tournament in Ponte Vedra, which is a 30 minute ride north on A1A. We enjoyed it so much that we decided to do it again this year. Even though we are camping in the area for four days, we’ve decided to only attend on Sunday which is the last day of the tournament. 

This year Julie’s sister Lucy and her husband Gery decided to join us for the weekend. They are from Iowa and are trying to thaw out from a long hard winter up in those parts. So, our stay at Anastasia being right on the beach was a perfect location. Gery is also a big golf fan, so he was more than ready to attend the Players Championship.

Gery and Lucy on the boardwalk leading to the beach at Anastasia.

 

A few evenings we did a little walking on the beach. It was a little overcast and breezy, but still nice.

 

On Saturday we did some of the touristy things in downtime St. Augustine. Our first stop was the old fort Castillo De San Marcos which is right on the water and close the the Bridge Of Lions. This is a national monument managed by the National park Service. If you are into history, then this is a good stop to make. Gery, who enjoys history, was always way behind Julie, Lucy and myself. He was reading every display throughout the fort as we walked around both levels. The three of us didn’t have the same attention span, we kind of skimmed over things! I think Gery finally gave up and bypassed several of the areas of the fort.

Several time per day they have a reenactment of a firing of the cannon. The fort has a large selection of old cannons and I believe they said they used the 6 pound cannon for the demonstration. I’m not sure where the name “6 pound” comes from, maybe the size of the cannon ball, but the cannon itself must weigh in the thousand of pounds.  The soldiers start their march from down in the grassy common area and then climb the stairs to the second level. They go through the lengthy routine of loading, firing and cleaning the cannon. For obvious reasons they don’t really fire a cannon ball, but instead use a gun powder charge mixed with bread crumbs. The  volunteer ranger says many of the birds get used to the demonstration and then swoop in as soon as the cannon goes off to feed on the crumbs. That didn’t happen the time we watched, the birds must we getting lazy.

   

 

Here’s a picture of Julie and her sister Lucy taken from the fort with the historic downtime St. Augustine in the background.

 

On our way into town we noticed several large old sailing ships at the marina on the south side of the Bridge of Lions. After our tour of the fort, we walked along the water front and headed in that direction. We found that they were offering tours of the boats for a reasonable price (actually free for us since Gery and Lucy paid!!), so we decided to view both ships. These two boats are replicas built by the Spain government and sail the world crewed by mostly young volunteers. The smaller ship was a replica of the Nao Victoria which was the first boat to sail around the world. This ship has also done an around the world voyage from 2004 – 2006. The larger of the two boats was the El Galeon which is a replica of a ship that traveled the coasts of Florida between the 16 and 18 century.

  

 

And of course, whenever Lucy comes to Florida she must have some seafood and in this case a few “small” orders of oysters.

 

One Sunday was the TPC golf tournament and main reason for our trip to the area. We arrived somewhat early and planned on spending the day until the very end. We did spend a good amount of time walking the front nine and trying to view a few of the popular twosomes that were playing the course. All four of us had also bought tickets to the Blue Room which was an area with lots of seating areas, both outdoors and an air conditioned inside area. It also included food from several local restaurants as well as all your care to drink beer and wine. Later in the day it was beginning to get a little rowdy as the crowd was partaking in quit a few of the included drinks, At times it seems like to many the TPC tournament is just a good reason to party and just happens to have some golf going on. My guess is many spent the entire day in the Blue Room and never ventured out onto the course.  The Blue Room was fun and made for some really good people watching!!

Later in the day Julie and I walked most of the back nine which included many golf holes we had never seen. On two occasions (consecutive twosomes) drove their golf balls way outside the fairway and almost hit Julie. We were beginning to think she was a ball magnet.

 

We had planned on staying to the very end and found some good seats in the bleachers overlooking the 16 and famous 17th hole. Usually near the end of the tournament this gets to be a wild location as all the fans congregate around the finish holes and it can get a little loud. Unfortunately, storms were building in the west as you can see with the dark skies in the picture below. After several strikes of lightening off in the distance, they finally blew the horn and halted the tournament. We decided to hit the road instead of sticking around for the weather to clear. They did restart the tournament about an hour later and were able to  finish the tournament. Martin Kaymer, a 29 year old golfer from Germany, was the winner and took home a nice $1,800,000 check. Not a bad payday for four days of playing golf!