Tom & Deb's Visit to Florida

From the eastern side of the Everglades, across the Keys, to The Big Cypress Preserve and the Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge on Sanibel Islnd, we observed a lot of wading birds other wildlife as well as the unique vegetation of that part of the world.

Tom & Deb's visit to Florida

Key West 

We visited several of the area attractions of natural & historic background.

The ship wreck museum, the Mel Fisher Treasure Museum (recovery of Spanish treasure ship), 

the Audubon House & Tropical gardens, the KW aquarium, and the remains of an old fort. Several cruise ships also visited the port while we were there.

Tom & Deb's visit to Florida

Some of the native peoples of the Everglades are still present in the area - in this case, operating airboat tours.  We took one of the short trips into their area via airboat.

Tom & Deb's visit to Florida

Everglades National Park near Homestead, Florida

The River of Grass, aka the Florida Everglades

A truly unique, wonderful and fragile, yet resilient place

Japan 3

Town of Furano in Hokkaido

Walking through Sapporo

Owls in the pachinko (like video poker) window in Sapporo

Flew back to Tokyo and took the train to Hakone

Hakone, kind of a resort/hot spring town

At the hot spring/spa place (onsen)- this is big in Japan.

Mt Fuji

On a pirate boat crossing a lake

Went to the town of Gotemba as a base for climbing fuji.  This is where we were when the typhoon came and dumped solid rain for 2 days.  All trails closed so we were kind of stuck here for a while.

Went to meet our friends and drove to the small fishing town of Heda.  They had a local beach and this plesiosaur to jump off of.  

 
At night was the festivaland we got a boat ride in the bay to see the fireworks

This is the bay where Heda is located

Fuji in the distance from Heda

Local museum showing lots of deep sea creatures.  Here, the water gets very deep not too far offshore so the town is known for these giant deep sea crabs.

Giant deepwater isopods.  They grind these up and make crackers out of them.

Heda and the bay where we were swimming from the adjacent hill

Took the ferry back to Shizuoka.  This is a Japanese warship in Shizuoka Harbour.  Research shows that it is the JS Takanami, "lead ship of the Takanami-class destroyers."

I have more from the other camera so will probably do another post or 2. 

Japan part 2

 Hiking Mt Komagatake- A volcano in Akita Prefecture. 

 
 We followed that little trail and went down the side of that mountain

 shrine

This is our rental car

This is shelagh saying "Walk faster!"

 Drove back to Morioka and took the train to Hokkaido.   Food catalog on the train:



Highest mountain in Hokkaido- Daisatsuzan

A harder climb than it looks

More later...

Japan Part 1

Long overdue post from Japan

Wes and Shelagh in Tokyo

Tomato Lemon Ice cream

Shelagh at temple

View from Wes's friends apartment.  They are from Florida.

Tokyo at night- bad picture

200 mph bullet trains we took

 Tokyo park

Hot springs we went to- private spring

There were public ones also but the photo is on shelaghs computer

Lake Tazawako

Lake

Traditional place we stayed at

Dinner cooked in room!

We got very tired of fish and pickled vegetables.  

Place we stayed- our room is 3rd door down.  Very beautiful. 


More to come!

-John