John got this shot of the biggest bee ever on our early morning walk with Toby. It was 73 degrees with a 9 mph breeze.
Instead of walking the causeway this morning, we took a bike ride out to Honeymoon Island. The line to get into the state park was backed up all the way to Frenchy's on the mainland. Honeymoon Island is four miles long and has over a million visitors per year, Florida’s most popular state park.
The middle parking lot was roped off in preparation for beach restoration. Currently, the water at high tide comes all the way up to the parking lot. In fact, previous storms have eaten away the parking lot.
The beach was last restored in September 2015. At that time, they moved the parking lot away from the water. I think they'll need to do the same again this time.
We rode our bikes past the end of the paved trail for a ways.
The temperature got up to 81 and winds picked up, too, to 12 mph. Later in the day there were gusts of 18-25 mph as a storm front came through.
The island has no hotels, just three raised restrooms and two small cafes. There are three main beaches plus a dog beach. The northern most stretch is about two miles long and can only be accessed on foot or by boat.
This is the Dunedin Causeway Trail. Notice the line of cars headed to Honeymoon Island. It's nice to be able to by-pass them all on bike.
Toby came and joined me in my chair this morning while I was reading. At first, he didn't see enough room and walked away. I called him back and scooted over for him. Soon after, he was fast asleep.
Sweet dog. He had a good day. He got to interact with several people on our walks today. He's doing much better overcoming his shyness.
The storm front came through about 5:00 p.m. while we were eating dinner. We really needed the rain. We lost power for a couple of minutes.
I raked leaves just before the rain started. Now it looks like I didn’t do a thing!
John made crock-pot chicken with marina sauce over rice. I fixed a salad to go with it.
Today's bike route to Honeymoon Island
(Tampa Bay is the body of water to the right.)
Miles walked: 5.7
Miles biked: 12.33
Toby is sooooo sweet. Sounds like you have TONS of visitors. We had a good day. Cloudy day but nice. Rain predicted again tonight. We enjoyed our lunch on the patio but didn’t linger.
ReplyDeleteI spent most of the day reading on the lakeside porch wrapped in a blanket jeff went to his boat and Mike watched tv.
ReplyDeleteLove your Toby pics.