7/9/10 Tallahassee

Pics: 1)Enrique, Lauren, Carmen, Theresa about to leave Charlotte; 2) Carmen and Lauren in front of the old Capitol in Tallahassee; 3) all of us at a Tally park; 4) terror over alligators at Wukulla; 5) at the St. Mark's lighthouse

We arrived in Tallahassee Thursday evening, ate and went to bed. In the car Carmen and I had a long discussion in Spanish which was great - I’m going to speak so much better by the time I return!! We found out that we both love art and have some similar favorite paintings in the London National Gallery. Friday everyone slept in late and then went to the FL History Museum which was interesting since FL was first settled by the Spanish and there are many artifacts from old wrecked Spanish Fleets. They were also impressed by the mastodon skeleton and the 9 foot armadillo from ancient times.

Next we went to the Old Capitol and the New Capitol where we had tours and went to the 22nd floor (in the new one) to look out over Tallahassee. Theresa and Carmen were very impressed by the uniformed security guards and wanted to take pictures with them, but were too shy to ask. Haha

Everyone loved the Spanish moss on the trees, but apparently this is not something they have in Spain, so we don’t know why they have that name. As we looked out over Tallahassee they were like “wow, so many trees!”

Finally, we went to the Mary Brogan museum where they have hands-on exhibits like Discovery Place in Charlotte. Right now they also have a special exhibition where there are old arcade games that we got to play. They closed at 5 and we came home where grandma made a great dinner of stuffed shell pasta. Brian then came over and we taught Theresa, Carmen and Enrique to play spades. We all went to bed fairly early Friday so that we could get up at 8:30 am and get ready to go to Wakulla Springs.

On Friday all of us and Grandma left the house about 10 and went to Wakulla. We went on the boat ride first and we got to see about 6 or 7 alligators, a lot of turtles, along with many cool birds like the snowy egret, white heron, etc. Enrique and Theresa had never seen alligators before, and Carmen had only seen them once in Cancun.

When we were done, we ate a picnic lunch which we’d packed before we left, and then went to the beach part of Wakulla. Grandma was the first one in the freezing 68 degree water, but I was next, followed by Enrique then Theresa. Enrique and I jumped off the lower platform into the deep water, but Theresa was too afraid of somehow hurting herself so she just swam. Carmen got in upto her knees, and she said that was enough of FL spring water for her. Lol

After we left we drove about 15 miles to the St. Marks lighthouse on the Gulf. A storm was blowing in which as pretty cool because the wind was blowing like crazy and we could watch the lightening in the distance. We also saw the oil spill catcher things in the water that are supposed to catch the oil from the spill should it come to the coast here. As of yet it has not.

Once we arrived home everyone changed and then we took Grandma out to dinner at Outback. My cousin Brian met us at Outback and we all went back to Grandma’s to watch Erin Brokovitch together.