Hormossa Wildlife Park

We have moved up to Brooksville for the Family Motorcoach Rally but I will take pictures and show you all the coaches in tomorrows blog.

Today we had to go up to Hormossa to get some electrical part and when we were in the shop I asked the lady behind the counter if we should go see the Sugarmill Park and she said no there is not much there but be sure to go to the wildlife park and so that is what we did.

It was wonderful, you get on a boat and it takes you down the Pepper River into the park where there was just so much to see.

Here is the scenery along the boat ride, it took about 20 minutes to get there.

We got to the park just in time for the manatee talk which was great and the fish flying in the warm spring it was so much fun to see.

Over to see the manatee we passed Lu the hippo.

The park was so picturesque

The park had both captive manatee and wild manatee, these are the wild ones, the captive ones get about twice the size.

More alligators

Big eyes watching you



They had a big reptile area.



Cute little fellows

I just loved the flamingos, so colorful




Look at this pelican stretching, amazing size of bill

A spoonshaped bill on this next bird.

There were lots of bird, and many different species of owls

The lovely male wood duck

And my favorite pet, Mr. C

Had a great day, so warm, but supposed to be warmer even tomorrow.

Howard Park and the birds

Tonight we are supposed to be at the hockey game in Tampa but Ron said I was to sick so instead we went to see the Kings Speech at the movie theatre, goooood movie. Was a good thing
we did not go into the game as we ended up with a tornado watch this afternoon and the sky opened up and it poured until you could hardly see, I guess it was meant to be.

The other day we also went out t Howard Park which was a lovely little island connected by a mile long causeway.

Beautiful beaches around the whole little island

The gulls had such interesting beaks

Well I think these blogs worked better, I am glad was not sure what I was doing wrong. So I think I am off to bed now and tomorrow I will try to answer some of the emails I have ignored the past few days.

Tarpon Springs

Needed a day out so we drove 15 miles south to Tarpon Springs which is the sponge capital of Florida.

The whole area around the sponge docks is Greek in style, very lovely and we enjoyed a wonderful Greek meal.

They harvest all sorts of sponge and had a great movie telling about how they do everything from start to finish. The stores are full of every kind of sponge.

Hard to believe they were living things.


You can go out on the sponge boats but after my last boat ride, I am not going to far out to sea.

Very nice and very interesting part of Tarpon Springs.

Ja-Mar RV Park

Hello y'all

I am going to try again, people have been saying the blogs are not working the way they used to and I have had some problems so will use the air card instead of the RV Wi-Fi and see if that helps.

I have to catch up as the past week I have been frightfully ill, terrible cold, extreme fevers but guess what I am going to live.

The park has a lot of music things going on for Ron so he kept himself busy while I hibernated on the couch.

Here are a few pictures of the park, just to give you an idea.

They have big shuffle board tournaments and here are the courts and the swimming pool is on the other side before the club house.

Front entrance

The pond at the back part of the park holds fish, turtles and they say a gator but we have not seen him.

Big terrace to sit and relax also they have entertainment here



Quite a picturesque setting.

Port Richey

Hello everyone, well the Caddens are again on the move.

January 16th we made our move from Moore Haven up to Port Richey, it was a bittersweet move, sad as we left some good new friends and happy because it means we are heading in the direction of home.

Our four hour drive was uneventful and the roads are so nice that it was very easy. Our new park is okay, a little squeezed in compared to the old one but then it is in the city so we have to expect it.

Port Richey is right on the Gulf but you do not see it as there is to much swamp along the water line.

January 17th, it poured, and poured, so we decided to go to the movies which are just down the street from our new campground. We saw True Grit, it was very good.

January 18th, Ron had to take the truck down to get the muffler fixed in the morning while I went to coffee with the park people. In the afternoon we took a drive to find a beach down at New Port Richey, it was nice.

January 19th we took a drive today two hours north to Cedar Key and it was very quaint, very quiet today but I can imagine it can be packed with tourist at certain times of the year.

Pelicans all over the wharf

The restaurants hanging into the Gulf

This fellow was on the sidewalk



Looking out at the marshes

The road into Shell Mound Park


And a first for us, an armadillo in the wild, we actually saw three in different spots but this fellow posed best for us.

Look at that coat of armour

We are in Port Richey until January 30th, it is a little cooler but not bad, park has lots of activities so lots to do.

A fishing we will go.......

The secret to losing weight.........go fishing, who would have known.

We have had the most glorious last two weeks, lovely warm weather, slight winds but not to bad. So the park decided to plan a fishing trip, it was scheduled for January 12th, and we were so excited to go. January 11th was 79degrees, January 12th 64 degrees and strong winds out of the north (of course, just our luck) We had to travel about an hour an a half to catch the boat and the people we were travelling with had heard the winds would be 25 miles an hour by the afternoon so we phoned at 6am to see if the boat was still going out and they said so far yes.

Once we got to the boat a lot of our group was already there and what we did not know was that they were given an option to cancel for another day as it was going to be rough but they chose to go out anyway.......

We were supposed to go out 35 - 40 miles to where we would fish but after just 20 miles the waves were already 6 -7 feet high and the captain said no further, so we dropped anchor and started to fish and the fish were biting, lots of little spotted grunts and one woman caught a 20 pound red fish right off the start so we thought this was going to be great but the waves just kept on coming and getting larger as time wore on. Now by this time, just about 75 percent of the boat was ill and many of us were using the barf buckets frequently. You could see the horizon 50 percent of the time otherwise you were in a swell. It was also so cold that you just about froze to death, especially after getting sick I got the chills and could not get rid of them.

Finally after things were getting worse and more people were heaving the captain took things in charge and told everyone lines up we were getting out of this. We travelled a very rocky 15 miles south east to the coast off of Naples and we tried fishing in a few places but either the fish would not bite because the water was so stirred up or the captain could not keep the boat anchored as the strong winds kept blowing us away.

At 3pm, we called it quits with still a two hour ride back to Fort Myers but as we were in shore a little the waves were not quite as bad and most people survived the return trip without to much use of the buckets.

So because I was either to ill or afraid to lose my camera overboard the only pictures I have for you are of our beginning. No point taking pictures of the fish as they were so little, but I did get to see the spotted grunt, the red fish, groupers, flounder, perch and the mother in law fish.

I was very happy to get back on shore and once we arrived home I went straight to bed to get warm....so much for my fishing days.

Here is our boat.

The company that took us out.

Maybe I need not say more, here is one of the deck hands....ha ha..you can just keep laughing


Leaving harbour in Fort Myers

Another mate getting the bait ready

So say goodbye to land

So that was that I do not think I need to say another thing.

Happy New Years

Happy New Years everyone, I know my blogs are getting further and further apart but the longer we sit back the least we do.

Here is Ron in the pool on Dec. 31, 2010, the weather has finally turned warm and I am enjoying every bit of it. The pool is heated and is so nice and clean, this park is very nice.

We had a great New Years eve, we went first to the clubhouse and visited with others and listened to the music, however it was a little old fashioned for us so about 10pm a few us took

to the street out in our park. We got the music going and we danced on the streets until after midnight, the evening was calm and the temperature fair.

January 1, we decided we could do no more eating so in order not to offend anyone we took off on a day tour and let them have their big New Years Day dinner.

Today we really saw the difference 30 miles can make, we started out by going to Everglades city where the only nice thing there was a very nice rv park, shown below.

Otherwise the town looked dry and worn out. From here we went not 20 miles down the road to Marco Island and Naples, and here it is tropical deluxe, huge resorts, everything green and beautiful.

Along the way we stopped in the Cypress park and took a walk into the everglades on a boardwalk, it was amazingly thick and there were lots of birds.

This is just a picture of how it looked amongst the trees.



Ron on the boardwalk

Look how this vine wrapped itself around this tree.

At the end of the mile long boardwalk you come to a pond which my pictures do not do justice, it was so green. We did not see any turtles but there were a couple gators and my favorite bird.

The gators, if you look really close you can see how big his teeth are.

My favoite bird(have not found out his name yet) was swimming in the pond, he would duck down swimming under the water looking for fish and then pop out just his head and have a look around. He finally caught a fish and he took that fish and beat him to death on the side of the tree until I guess he was not going to get away, it was fun to watch.

We drove back inland as I had read an article about this program town that was built to be idealistic. It turned out to be very catholic with pope and church names on all its streets, it had a very big university but had still not quite got off the ground. It was built in 2007 and so I am sure the recession has not helped its development.

Here is the church in the central square. The name of the town was Ava Marie.

It now gets to the high 70's and low 80's during the day so it is a pleasure to sit back and relax, just take in leisure time and do lots of visiting with new friends.

Hope everyone had a great New Years and we will see you all in 2011.