Florida Folk Fest-- Memorial Day weekend 2008

We headed up to Live Oak, FL for the holiday weekend to enjoy some good music, swimming, and time spent with friends at the annual Florida Folk Fest: home of damn good soul food, lots of beer drinking, folk music, and smelly hippies.

We started out the weekend becoming Brew Masters at Sea World where N8 at Kevin discovered their love for B to the E

buying art work at the fest

listening to music while sleeping off lunch

Suwannee Springs
Nate's splash zone

the spring exiting into the river
Kara flying down the slip 'n' slide back at camp

back view of the huge slip'n'slide

the whole crew

dancing to the Haitian beat of Papa Loko


Kevin waiting for his sign to work...
and it eventually did! once.

Middle America eat your heart out.

This post is for all of you who have had an

ice cold April.

This week has been great weather,

good enouph for beautiful sun sets,

BBQs on the back porch with Blythe's mom and sister

while Jim was in the hospital recovering from a hip rebuilding.

Regardless of the gloominess of the surgery

we still managed to have some fun on our way

to the boat ramp where we met up with some

friends who were camping on an island.

All in all a good weekend with the

friends and a great weekend to spend on the water together.

Easter

This years Easter party was great.

The croquet game was fierce but everyone seamed to survive.

Food, Fun and even time to catch some world class fish with Ross.

Fruit and Spice Garden-- Homestead, FL

jaboticaba fruits
Nate with a sausage tree
The Fruit and Spice Park in Redlands, Homestead (SW 248th St)
“Monkey’s fist”
Monkeys grab the nuts inside

and will not let go, thus becoming trapped.
Let go, little monkey…just let go.

Flamingo-- eastern Everglades

a very bold cormorant
on the Anhinga Trail at Royal Palm Visitor Center an anhinga sitting on her nest (double click to enlarge-- she's neat looking!)
Blythe, birdwatcher extraordinaire, captures an elusive blue jay on film!
Nate and I enjoyed world-famous key lime milkshakes from "Robert is Here!" fruitstand.

some kind of salamander we found under a pile of leaves

Shark Valley

Pictures from Shark Valley area

<-- corn snake with lunch in his belly!



















This is Grover-- the FIU electrical engineering professor we picked up in the middle of the Everglades-- 17 miles away from civilization! NOT a good place for an electrical failure in your Ford... unless you're lucky enough to run across Good Samaritans like us (who are crazy enough to pick up a could-be ax- wielding psycho). Nate sat on a 10" Bowie knife for the remainder of the ride... just in case. Luckily, Grover was a friendly! And thanks to him, we got clued in on the BEST Mexican food ever... Thanks, Grover!

So... we decided to create a blog so we have somewhere to post pictures from trips, etc. We'll see how it goes and how good we are at keeping it updated. We've been in Everglades City for the past two days. So far highlights have been biking Fakahatchee Strand, going on a ranger-led boat trip out through the 10,000 Islands, and enjoying some fresh stone crab at the height of the season. Tomorrow we head across Tamiami Trail to Florida City and Flamingo-- the heart of the swamp. We'll post more pics then. Most of these photos were either taken on Jane's Scenic Drive (Fakahatchee Strand St. Preserve) and the 1/2 mile boardwalk right near Ochopee. ~Blythe
sunset on Chokoloskee Island
boardwalk west of Ochopee and Monroe station
cuz it's stone crab season!!
boardwalk