[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.] If the only thing you see about “vanlife” is on InstaGram or YouTube, you’d be forgiven for thinking that every … More Life in the Van: What’s My “Hashtag Vanlife!”REALLY Like?”

I visited this place around ten years ago after visiting with a friend, but now that I’m camped out in St Augie for a while I decided to visit it again. So, some new photos. Dolphins!

(Pronounced “Moe-say”) Fort Mose was the first free African-American community to be established in North America. Under the British colonial system, colonies were viewed as simply ways of siphoning wealth from foreign territories and sending it back to the homeland. Many of the colonial charters spelled out how trade was to be conducted in the … More Fort Mose

Like many zoos, Zoo Tampa has a number of special behind-the-scenes “Animal Encounters” that are available for guests. For an extra charge, you get taken back to the off-exhibit animal care facilities in small groups and get special demonstrations from the zoo’s animal care staff and keepers. So, during my latest visit to the Zoo … More Elephant Behind-the-Scenes at the Zoo Tampa

I’ll be here for a few weeks. I’m not seeing much hurricane damage remaining, though a couple houses along the shore were having their roofs repaired, and the Marineland sea turtle rescue lost one of their holding tanks. Cold front came through though, so it’s in the damn 40s overnight. Brrrr. I broke out my … More Greetings From St Augustine FL

Crescent Lake is a very nice park in the middle of St Petersburg FL. It’s a nice place to walk around, see lots of birdies, and have a nice picnic lunch. Some photos from an afternoon in the park. Plecostomus Catfish Making some friends

The Henry Plant Museum in Tampa memorializes the man who brought tourism to Tampa Bay. Until the time of the Spanish-American War, Florida was a forgotten sparsely-inhabited backwater, consisting mostly of unwanted swampland that was infested with malaria and yellow fever. In an age where most land travel was by foot or by horse buggy, getting … More Henry Plant Museum

[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 Life in the Van: What’s It All Cost?

Like Native American tribes everywhere, the people who lived in Tampa Bay before European contact (the Tocobaga) had to meet all their needs from locally-available natural materials. The simplest arrows are made from a single length of wood, best made from a sapling about a quarter-inch thick that has grown straight in the shade. The … More Florida Bushcraft Arrows

Some Florida critters seen lately.