sorry to get so far behind, but I will try to catch up now.
The day after the thunderstorm, we went to the beach and looked for sharks teeth (unsuccessfully)

The next day we went to the M.O.T.E. aquarium where we saw several animals, including sea turtles, dolphins, fish, and jellyfish (and much more). When we left the aquarium, we went to the neighboring bird sanctuary, where we saw parrots, egrets, pelicans, and macaws. The macaws are surprisingly smart, when their caretaker left they yelled "Back!", when that didn't work they resorted to yelling "I love you!", and when the caretaker still didn't return, they called "Bye-bye!". later, we saw that caretaker giving each macaw a half eaten chicken bone, they seemed to appreciate them (although one walked onto the far end of a branch, and had to have his bone put in a cup for him, and another dropped his bone immediately). We then drove to clearwater, to see the clearwater aquarium which is where winter the dolphin (from the movie Dolphin Tale, see winter on a webcam at seewinter.com) lives (and where the movie was filmed). It was getting late, so we camped overnight at an nearby RV park. The next day we went to the aquarium (which seemed to be thriving, despite being near bankruptcy before finding winter (and filming the resulting movie) where we first went up to see winter who was swimming in her tank with the trainer and she did tricks like find ring with echolocation while blindfolded and jumping up to touch the trainer's hand (as well as a few kids whose parents paid 60 dollars for the experience) after the performance we went downstairs, where we saw and touched the wings of stingrays "flying" through the water. we then took a trolley to a separate building all about making the movie, including a hurricane room (a sign warned us about up to 20 MPH winds and realistic images) where we encountered two snakes an an alligator, lights going out, etc.. 

We then left clearwater and went to Rainbow Springs State Park, where we camped. After setting up camp, we swam in a river that came from a spring (it was cold!). because of the current, I developed a routine in which I enter the water, swim to the deep part with the current, look for fish as I float downstream, and get out at a nearby boat ramp. I then repeat.

The next morning I swam again even though I was starting to feel sick. Later I had a fever an rested in the car as we drove towards suwanee river state park. on the way, the GPS froze, and when restarted took us to  road covered in pine needles, and dead ending, with no sign of a state park (the iPhone agreed on the location). We then resorted to the low-tech method of using a map, and finally, 30 minutes later, arrived. 

The next morning, we left for Saint Andrews State Park, on the way there was a thunderstorm, that caused us to briefly pull over because we couldn't see, as well getting the mattresses wet in the (completely closed) trailer. we were late to arrive because the GPS froze again. When we arrived I had a high fever and could barely walk, so the next day we went to a hotel. The next three days, up to now, we have stayed at the hotel except when my mom insisted we go to the beach so she could snorkel (despite the fact I was still sick). Today she insisted we go again but this time she didn't see any fish because she was stung by jellyfish (she says it feels like nettles, but stops hurting right away, and says they were three or four inches long, and were a translucent brown, and there were hundreds of them.)

Tomorrow we hope to go to new orleans and stay in a hotel (I am getting better but still sick).

<note> this post is for Wednesday and Thursday </note>

Continuing from our previous day, (which has yet to be posted :( ) we arrived at our next campground near the Myakka river, and consequently named Myakka River State Park. After setting up camp (which only consists of parking the trailer (and is therefore very easy)), we went on the canopy walk because my mom said the walk was above the trees (I imagined it as, if she was correct, a raised boardwalk (we had been on a lot of boardwalks lately)) after walking a while, almost coming in a full circle, and dodging two giant puddles (see picture group 1) we started to doubt there was anything (walkable) above the trees (I was skeptical from the start). We finnaly saw a tower with a hanging bridge (going to another bridge), this tower was not above the trees, but at the same height as them however when we crossed the bridge (picture group 2), we saw that the other tower was taller. We then decided to climb to the top (getting my mom up took some convincing). When we arrived at the top the view from 76.1 ft (according to the plaque) was amazing (see remaining pictures (except last one)), you could see for miles! (literally, a sign pointed out certain sights (such as an osprey nest) three miles away) eventually we had to leave (although we went back several times (on subsequent visits my mom refused to climb up). Later, we cooked dinner and went in the trailer to wait for it to cool. When we went out to eat it we saw that a raccoon had tipped it over and was eating it, we then chased the raccoon away, and my mom cooked more food. In the morning we saw that the food that had spilled was completely gone (we must have made a raccoon very happy).

The next day we went to the resturant, in the parking lot we saw many vultures and a sign warning about them ("warning vultures may cause damage to vehicles"), after eating, we saw that our car was unharmed. For the rest of the day we didn't do much except look for wildlife.

The next day we left on our way to Oscar Sherer State Park

<note> the next few blog posts may be posted in a asynchronous (out of order) manner so I can catch up. </note>
Today we first went to toyota to get maitenence done (we recently drove our 100,000 mile), we were there for two hours. they replaced the engine's air filter, and notified us that the extra brake light was out (they were out of stock, so they didn't replace it). Our next was Venice Beach, where we hoped to find fossilized shark teeth. As soon as we arrived we heard loud thunder, so we retreated to the car and, by that time we we were hungry (we had spent some time in camp earlier) so we went to sharkey's (suggested by Susanne Flom) and had dinner (a salad for my mom, and macaroni and cheese for me (the only other things they had, including pasta had shrimp/lobster in them (did I mention I don't like seafood?) After eating, we were going to head to the car when a thunderstorm hit, so we decided to wait out the storm under a canopy near the restaurant. However, instead of stopping the storm increased in violence (see pictures),while waiting we decided to start work on this blog post. Over an hour later, the storm finnaly subsided, at which point we decided to hurry to the car before the storm resumed. We headed back to camp (we are now at Oscar Scherer state park) and just arrived.

after the previous blog post, we drove to marathon key and found the snorkeling company (not from the state parks, like the others) we signed up, and, while waiting watched a parrot,(picture group 1) when he said "hello", I tried to get him to say hello Patrick, and finally, just before we got on the boat, he said "Hello Patrick". When we left I got to sit on a net on the front of the boat (I would have taken photos but we were too worried the Iphone would get splashed), where I got soaked even though we hadn't started snorkeling.  When we did start snorkeling we brought the same underwater camera as last time, unfortunately after we used all the film and were headed back to the boat for more, we noticed that the inside its clear plastic case (for waterproofing) was purple water (showing that not only had water got in through the "waterproof" case but it had also damaged the film. Thankfully they sold disposable waterproof cameras on the boat (although we never saw some of the fish we took photos of originally again. However we did get some good photos (see poicture groups 2-3 for a few of the highlights) and when we ran out of film (and my snorkeling suit was rubbing me painfullly) we went onto the boat, where I immediately got seasick (there were large waves). A half hour of being seasick later it was time to go back and as soon as we started moving thankfully I recovered from my seasickness. 

The next day we decided to go to Key West (it was raining and according to my mom the waves were too big for snorkeling). After driving for 45 minutes we arrived at Key West (the farthest of the Keys).  We were hungry so we decided to go to a restaurant.  Unfortunately the nearest parking spot was .7 miles away, so we had to walk in the rain all the way there. After eating we went to the southernmost point of the United States. Because there was a long line and my mom was feeling sick, we had to settle for taking a photo of me with the back of the sign (see picture group 4)(although I managed to take a photo of just the sign between people). Unfortunately my mom decided that this would be our last day in the Keys (because of bad weather for snorkeling, etc. :(   ). The next day we left the Keys and headed north towards the Everglades.

note: I will post the next part (until today) separately to enable smoother loading of the images (if, despite my efforts an image fails to load, right click on it, click load image in new tab (or window) and refresh from there (instructions may vary by browser))

note:this post is to transfer photos and, if you see it you are getting a preview of the next blog post. -feel free to look around my site and see the renovations I added while you are waiting (notice the header and footer (go to weebly forums to see how to add them to your site)

After Posting the last blog post, we arrived at Bahia Honda State Park. After setting up camp, we went snorkeling at the beach (we didn't see very many fish) At one point I noticed that we were suddenly moving to one side, and realized we were in a strong current. I told my mom and we quickly escaped the current. After snorkeling we went on a nature hike, where we saw tropical plants, and a few butterflies. Yesterday we went on another snorkeling tour to another reef. This time we got an underwater camera (film using unfortunately, so I can't post the photos until the film develops :( (and even then it will be photos of photos)) after the tour, we snorkeled at a beach near camp. Later that day, we went on a hike, where we saw a deer, some birds, and the sunset (see picture groups 4,5 ) Today we are going to go snorkeling on another island (called Marathon Key

A few days ago we left Miami and set out for Key Largo (the first of the Florida keys) after 10 minutes, we encountered a blue causeway (technically only the safety barrier was blue, picture group 1) which connects the mainland to the islands known as the keys.

Later, after arriving at (key) largo, we went to John Pennekamp State Park, where we camped and swam/snorkeled at the beach. The water was warm enough that it was hard to find cold spots to stay cool. It was also salty enough to be an effective means of torture (it got into your mouth even when it was closed (thankfully I had just gotten new, very leakproof goggles). Finally there were fish (plural ;) ), especially around the early eighteenth century (1715 to be exact) shipwreck. The first fish I saw was deep under water, far away from the shipwreck, but when no other fish appeared we explored and found the shipwreck, which had many fish.

The next day we went on a glass bottom boat (aptly named because of a small part of the hull of the boat that is clear glass that you can look at fish (and other sea life) through, picture group 1,3) we saw a turtle, a school of sergeant majors (fish with vertical yellow and black stripes (according to the tour guide they will sometimes nibble on you)), coral of different shapes and colors (some types change colors when eating (brown when hungry or eating, purple when full)) and many other types of fish.

The next day (yesterday) we took a snorkeling tour where we saw many types of fish including sergeant majors, a big black fish, a black fish with shine blue spots in its head and back, bright yellow fish with black tails, a large school (hundreds of them) of tiny silver fish, a school of blue fish lots of corral, and an underwater statue (unfortunately we didn't have an underwater camera (we will try to get a disposable underwater camera before snorkeling again))

Today we left camp and are driving to Bahia Honda state park (on Big Pine key) (I think we are almost there).