Spring Break Part II

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The second part of our spring break trip involved heading further south to relax in some warm weather. The original idea was to find a hotel on the beach so we could relax on our balcony or beach and veg out. However as we were researching hotels while planning the trip, 6 months ago, we found some houses on or close to the beach that looked more comfortable. 

The thing that sold us on getting the house was having our own private pool. The house we had in East Windsor had a pool and although we have and indoor and outdoor pool in the community we live in my wife misses having her own pool. We did have one day of rain but the weather got sunnier after that. The house was a couple blocks from the beach in Panama City and was a comfortable place to spend 5 nights. I did work a couple of days as my wife enjoyed the sunshine and floating in the pool. We had not been to this area in Florida before so I did a little exploring in my free time. There are a number local and state parks in the area. 

At  St Andrew Park I spent a little over an hour near sunset photographing some birds. I got a good close up of a heron who was trying to steal a fish from a guy fishing off the jetty.

 

There was also a blue heron nearby

 

As well as a Pelican

I spent some time doing a hike at a local conservation park which didn't have any animals 

 

but did have a deep red swamp that was interesting.   

I also spent some on the beach and got some more bird pictures like this one of a sandpiper

and this one of the raptor (jet fighter)

 

We didn't make any plans for the last few days of our vacation and figured we would play it by ear depending on the weather. Since the weather didn't look good in Panama City we headed east and ended up in Jekyll Island in Georgia at a Holiday Inn at the beach for a couple of nights.

 

 

Although I didn't plan this trip to see the lunar eclipse it turned out to be a clear night where we were so I spent the middle of the first night viewing the eclipse. 

I will post some more pictures once I get home and have time to process them with better photo editing software that will bring out more details. I will say it was warm clear night so I didn't mind sitting outside for the entire eclipse.

Jekyll Island turned out to be a nice beach to spend a couple of days so we may be back again if we come back this way. I also think I found my next car a Caprice Classic pickup truck. 

 

After Jekyll Island we spent a couple days driving back home. It was a nice relaxing break in some warm weather. Although I got a lot of hiking in I didn't haven't been on the bike in a couple of weeks so look forward to getting back on the bike as the weather warms around here.