This is a micro-chocolate factory in Kissimmee, just a few blocks from where I am staying. They have hourly tours and free chocolate samples. How could I pass that up?  🙂 Some photos. Chocolate Kingdom OK, who doesn’t like chocolate…? Our tour guide Rachel explains the history of chocolate. (She was very entertaining, and I … More Chocolate Kingdom

This rather small museum is typical of the “military museums” that can be found in cities all over the country. Mostly uniforms, medals, some firearms. Some photos from a  visit. The museum Inside the museum Replica Confederate Civil War hand grenade with cloth fuse British “Ferret” Armored Scout Car 1941 Indian Ejection seat from F-105 … More Museum of Military History

I’m staying at a Cracker Barrel near Celebration, the town that Disney owns. This whole area is the most insanely commercialized place in the world–in every direction there is an unbroken stretch of hotels, gift shops, and restaurants. Every block has a kiosk offering “cheap Disney tickets!!!”–the catch is that they also wanna sell you … More Greetings From Kissimmee

OK, everyone who knows me knows that I love snakes. I used to make my living doing live reptile shows for school classrooms, and I’ve kept well over 100 different species of reptile over the years, including venomous. So I’m always happy to see a snake in the wild. But this time of year they’re … More Woo Hoo! A Snake!

[NOTE: I’ve blogged all these “how-to” posts before, but am gonna re-run them on occasion, since folks may have missed them, and many of them have been updated or expanded since they were first posted.] Van dwelling is a very cheap way to live. Or, more accurately, it can be a very cheap way to … More What’s It All Cost to Live in a Van?

The Flamingo Visitors Center is about an hour’s drive from the park entrance in Homestead, so many tourists don’t make the trip down, and spend all their time up at Royal Palm instead. I was hoping to see some American Crocodiles, which I have seen in the wild in Costa Rica but never in Florida. … More Everglades, Flamingo Visitors Center

Florida is the land of invasive non-native species—we have everything from kudzu plants to Burmese Pythons. Worldwide, invasive species are the second-leading cause of extinctions, behind only “habitat loss”. Here are some of the non-native species that I have encountered and photographed during my stay in Miami. Green Iguana. Native to Central and South America Tilapia. … More Invasive Species in Miami

The Miami Zoo is consistently ranked as one of the top zoos in the country, and for good reason. The zoo is very large, which allows the enclosures for all the outdoors species to be spacious and naturalistic. And the tropical climate allows a number of species to be exhibited here that other zoos can’t … More Miami Zoo

A relic of Cold War history right here in the Everglades. In the 1950’s as the Cold War was beginning, the primary threat to the US was Soviet bombers delivering nuclear weapons by flying over the North Pole to America. To protect themselves, the Americans deployed several hundred Nike-Hercules anti-aircraft missiles at bases across the … More Nike Missile Base

OK, I confess—despite living in Florida for almost 20 years, I never visited the Everglades. So now that I am in Miami, I had to fix that. The Everglades is in effect three separate parks, each with its own entrance and primary areas. The most popular by far is the Royal Palm area, near Homestead FL. … More Everglades: Anhinga Trail