The Butterfly Rainforest is located in the same building as the Natural History Museum, but is a separate department. It has mounted butterflies on display, and also a live butterfly enclosure containing both native and exotic species. So join me on a nice relaxing look at some skyflowers. Some photos.

Greetings from Gainesville FL. I’ll be here for a few weeks. The Florida Museum of Natural History is located on the campus of the University of Florida. It has very nice displays, and acts as the official repository for Florida’s fossil and specimen collections. I visited this museum almost 25 years ago when I first … More Florida Natural History Museum

The Tampa Bay Ferry runs between St Petersburg and Tampa, on a schedule that varies throughout the year. One hour each way, the trip takes passengers through Tampa Bay and past several islands. There are sea birds and often dolphins. Some photos from a  ferry boat trip.

[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.] For most van-travelers, finding a place to temporarily camp is not a problem: they stay out in the countryside (known … More Life In the Van: The Logistics of Parking

Located just offshore from Ft Myers FL, Sanibel Island is one of the many narrow barrier islands that run along Florida’s Gulf Coast. Much of the island is made up by the Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge, but there are also tourist beaches, boat tours, and other attractions. I spent a day on the island … More Sanibel Island

The Florida Arboretum in St Pete FL is always one of my favorite places to take a walk. There’s always something in bloom (though this time of year there are usually more fruits than flowers), and there’s always some local critters hanging around. Some photos.

Some photos from a ferry trip out to Egmont Key, at the mouth of Tampa Bay. Egmont Key, at the mouth of Tampa Bay, was used as the site of a lighthouse in 1848, but that was destroyed a year later in a storm and was rebuilt nine years after that. The rebuilt lighthouse still remains, … More Egmont Key

This museum has been in the works for a long time. It took several years of fundraising to establish the organization and construct a museum building in downtown St Pete—then just as it was about to open in early 2020 the covid pandemic arrived and delayed everything. The museum finally opened just a few months … More Museum of the American Arts and Crafts Movement

[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.] The easiest and most direct way to deal with dirty laundry, of course, is a simple trip to the laundromat. … More Life in the Van: Laundry

Now that I am back in Florida for the winter, one of the things I had to do was renew my zoo membership (it expired while I was gone).  Much of the zoo is torn up now as they expand the Florida native exhibits. Some photos from an afternoon at the Zoo.