Fort DeSoto Park, St. Petersburg, Florida

The kids worked on homework most of the day yesterday, with Laura finishing up her Earth Science course and Brian completing Literature. Brian also completed his first chapter in pre calculus. The promise of visiting Busch Gardens Amusement Park later this week was a powerful motivator!

The man who owns the trailer parked next to us arrived via cab yesterday just after lunch. I could hear him talking to himself as he realized he didn’t have his keys to the trailer. A couple minutes later he had cornered Brian out by our truck and was enlisting his help to try to get into the trailer. I went outside to see what was going on, and was able to reach through one of the windows and unlock the deadbolt. But the main lock was set also, so the man ended up climbing through the window far enough to get his keys off the bed and open the trailer. He thanked us explained that the trailer was making him ill, so he was picking up his stuff and moving somewhere else! The ironic thing was he spent the next 30 minutes searching for the key to his bike lock so he could take his bike back with him in the taxi. He must have tried a dozen keys at least five times each. Finally the taxi driver determined that the chain wasn’t even around the bike frame, it had just been draped over the seat! The man said “Don’t you ever tell anyone!” Some days it doesn't pay to get out of bed!

Around 2:30 we headed for DeSoto County Park, at the tip of the peninsula on the north side of Tampa Bay. Our main objective was to visit North Beach, ranked the #1 Beach in the US back in 2005. After a 35 minute drive along the condos and hotels that line the Gulf of Mexico, we arrived at the park. A campground sits at the north end of the park, which was recommended by a couple we met in Vermont, but was completely booked for the week. The sites back right up to the beach, and would be great fun on a future visit. We drove a little further to North Beach, a beautiful white sand beach that stretches for miles in both directions. The kids dug in the fine white sand while Teressa and I strolled along the beach looking for shells. We also had fun bird watching – brown pelicans, sea gulls, white herons and sand pipers accompanied us. Teressa made the mistake of throwing a piece of popcorn to a seagull, and instantly we had clouds of gulls following our every move. The kids thought it was great fun, as you can see by the pictures.

Fort DeSoto has a rich and varied history. Named for the Spanish explorer that visited the area in the 1530s, the fort was used by the Union Army in the Civil war in the blockade of Tampa Bay. It was also used in the Spanish American War, and still has several vintage cannons from that era. More recently, the pilot that dropped the bomb on Hiroshima used the island for target practice before his mission, which explains some of the large “holes” in the sand flats around the island, which ironically now provide great fishing!