Florida, day 2

I realize that I'm dragging this out to a rather ridiculous extent, and still nowhere near being finished. Furthermore, I am baffled that anybody would be interested in looking at my vacation pictures, so you're totally forgiven if you click on to something else more interesting. But I really had the time of my life, and took an obscene number of photographs, which it's taking me time to whittle down to a manageable number.

Day 2 photo album is here.

The second day of our week in Florida started in St. Petersburg with a stroll down to the pier, where we were fascinated and entertained by the pelicans, egrets, cormorants and other water birds that gather for handouts (pictures 1-10). (Don't miss Cardgrrl's hilarious portrait of a pelican here. That is one funny-lookin' bird!)

At the end of the pier is an aquarium. It's the first aquarium I've ever been to that I decided after the fact hadn't been worth bothering with. It's just a tiny mom-and-pop deal, not something grand like the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago, or the Audubon Aquarium in New Orleans, both of which I have loved. However, we did learn that moray eels have a second set of jaws hidden down in the throat, which makes them scarily like the creatures from "Alien" (#11).

That afternoon we drove down to Fort Myers (with a quick stop at some random beach along the way--#13), where Cardgrrl's aunt Phyllis lives in a lovely retirement community, and had dinner with her. Don't laugh, but #14 is a manatee. Yes, that completely unrecognizable blob in the middle is the manatee--the first one I've seen in the wild. The retirement community has a sort of inlet that is connected to the bay, and manatees come in looking for food. They're not very good about presenting themselves properly for photographers, however.

#15-18 are more lovely banyan trees near Phyllis's apartment building. Sorry for the repetition, but these things are like extraterrestrial life forms compared to the trees I grew up with in Illinois, and I was captivated by their strange and beautiful forms.