Florida Travel Blogs, Travelogues and Travel Journals - Page 3

Old School Bill Presents a Summer Solstice Picture Poem from Gibsonton Florida Solstices occur twice a year, when the tilt of the Earth's axis is most oriented toward or away from the Sun causing the Sun to reach its northernmost and southernmost extremes. The name is derived from the Latin sol (sun) and sistere (to stand still), because at the solstices, the Sun stands still in declination; that is, it’s apparent movement north or south comes to a standstill. The term solstice can also b…

West Indian or Old School Manatees are large, gray aquatic mammals with bodies that taper to a flat, paddle-shaped tail. They have two forelimbs, called flippers, with three to four nails. Their head and face are wrinkled with whiskers on the snout. The manatee's closest land relatives are the elephant and the hyrax, a small, gopher-sized mammal. Manatees are believed to have evolved from a wading, plant-eating animal. The West Indian manatee is related to the West African or New School manat…

Got home from seeing some friends at the E.G. Simmons camp ground & there he was by the front door.  Falco was in obvious pain & distress with a drooping wing & a clenched talon.  I reached down expecting to get pecked, I didn’t, he let me pick him up & put him on the back screened porch for the night.  Found the phone # of the emergency vet. that we would head to in the morning.  Got up started the coffee & went to visit my new little buddy who was i…

     The Old School Bill's TravBuddy Award Party 03/01/08 .  The party will start promptly at the Butt-Crack of Dawn! Breakfast will start being served promptly at Butt-Crack 30 until 10:38 am     Assorted Juices Old School Orange & Grapefruit, Fresh Fruits including Melon, Assorted Cold Cereals Old School Oats & Raisin Old School Flakes ,French toast, Pancakes & Old School Waffles, Scrambled Eggs, or Eggs Benedict ,Link Sausages, Bacon…

The Hangover is the #$%^^ given to the very distasteful after effects of drinking too much alcohol. While a blessed 25%-30% of drinkers are naturally resistant to experiencing hangovers, the rest of us Old School included might NEED to know how to prevent or cure a New Year‘s Eve induced hangover.  The surest way is not to drink any alcohol, as that is not an option for many of us I will continue.Symptoms If you have a hangover, you know them, and the symptom list is as they say …

It was a weekday trip to Orlando, Florida. The agenda was to spend two nights at The Nickelodeon Family Suites by Holiday Inn, recently converted from the Disney Family Suites by Holiday Inn. The second day would be spent with the first half at the hotel working with a department and the latter half at Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure theme park. We arrived early afternoon and headed straight for our hotel.  It is more for kids but I was excited to see the amenities and their …

Airlines like money and it turns out that the best way for airlines to make money is to ensure that there are as few empty seats on a plane as possible.When a person doesn’t show up for a flight, the seat is left empty and an empty seat is a lost opportunity for revenue. As a result of this conundrum, airlines employ fancy statisticians to figure out how many seats the airline needs to overbook just to make up for the no-shows.Unfortunately, those statisticians aren’t fortune tellers and …

Going into Miami, I had set two sporty goals (besides dancing at the Phish shows): scuba and frolf. I attempted (and failed miserably at) the scuba dive on the 30th, for better or worse. That left frisbee golf for the 31st. I figured the odds of getting sea sick were less on a frolf course at the Metro-Dade Kendall Indian Hammocks Park. A hired van took 10 of us halfway, then shuttled us home after trying to jack the price mid-trip. (Ricardo was on vacation.) Alas, the five hardcore frolfers …

Key West is an awesome place to spend Christmas, unless of course you were dreaming of a white one... Much to my surprise, my mom and step father invited my boyfriend and I to Key West for Christmas 2007. I say "much to my surprise" because my sister and I had been banned from family vacations after the Dominican Republic in 2006... that is all I need to say ;) They booked our rooms at the Westin (see review) because it is one of the few hotels in Key West that allows dogs an…

An after dinner walk, a few pictures & wishes for a wonderful week to come for all  my Friends!

The Ditty is east up the Alafia River just a bit.  Come on what else are you doing?  We won't be long, I promise to have you back in time for diner. The Alafia River  (Hunting River) is about 25 miles long-watershed of 335 sq. miles-flows into Tampa Bay-was home to Tocobaga Indians- expeditions of Pánfilo de Narváez and Hernando de Soto  made the first written account and charting the first maps of the Alafia River in the 16th century.  History class …

On the Eve of the Eve of this Coming New Year  Old School Has a Few Wishes that You Need to HEAR Your Current Location: Is where you Most Want to BE Contributions: More  Places and Shared Photos for all of Your FRIENDS Future Travels/Dream Destinations: As Far as the  Eye Can SEE Countries I have Traveled to: From Pole to Pole & All the Spots-In- BETWEEN Languages Spoken: More of the 6,800 known around Our Great  Big GLOBE&nbs…

This is really just an excuse to post pictures - I'll have to find the ones of Bradenton beach and the venues.  Everything was great!

Wow, this flight was longer than expected. First, we didn't departure on time and then we had to wait after landing until there was an available gate. We were supposed to arrive at 5:30pm but we did it almost at 8, grrr. But this wasn't the only thing. Just before landing we experienced a not fun at all turbulence, noooo!!!OMG! It was late to meet my friend. He went to the airport early and went back home when he listened some flight were cancelled :(. But it was early to go through security.…

We arrived in Orlando on the 16th in the evening after spending the night at our rental that night early the next morning my husband and I left for Tarpon Springs a quaint little Floridian town with a Greek flair.  The reason for this is because we were in search of a nice dive out in the gulf (after our plans to dive the keys fell through) and ended up here!  Shortly after arriving at the dive shop however they let us know the gulf dive was being cancelled due to choppy s…