txtourista2022

Things grow rampantly here. Things I've had as house plants take over whole patches of garden, or climb energetically up tall trees, like this split-leaf philodendron. Even plants I think of as desert-y, like agave and aloe, seem to thrive. As I found out when I tried to trim out some dead parts of the agave in Steve's yard and nearly slashed my arms to ribbons. Prickly pear cactus grow wild, and other cacti are happy here, too. We go to all the botanical gardens we come across, delighted to find bizarre and beautiful exotics that flourish here. And we've become seriously enamored of the endless variety of camellias. There are a few roses in bloom, in addition to the usual suspects: bougainvillea and azaleas. In the fauna department, we continue to find things we can't identify, but assume are critters, or critter remains, on the beach. This thing has me stumped: And the brown blobs remain a mystery. This one attache...

Beth and I wandered down a new street in the historic district, and I started noticing doors. It started with the gorgeous stained glass on a building associated with a convent, then the convent itself, across the street. In about a six-block area, there were an astounding number of beautiful doors. Some of them led to gardens. So now I’m thinking I need a photo series on garden walls. And windows. And balconies, and maybe even paving, since many streets are of interesting brick. Meanwhile, some of those doors:

Trite but true: no two days are alike here in St. A., whether we’re talking about the weather or who’s sharing the fun. Thursday, Beth, Steve, and I were starting to get sweaty at 88 degrees at Blue Spring State Park. We took the fabulous St. John River nature cruise, happily spotting limpkins and alligators, egrets, ibises and cranes by the dozens, vultures and turtles and the mysterious bald cypresses. And even my favorite wood stork, looming over said ibises. Two days later, we're bundled up in all the clothes we have as the wind rages up to 40 mph and the temps struggle to hit 50. Of course we had to try the beach anyway. The surf was stupendous, but we didn’t last long. It was a good day to shop for Mexican pottery and find new restaurants to try. And take in the Lightner Museum, filled with Victorian collections of everything from amazing chandeliers to a stuffed lion to a working blown-glass steam engine. Last week the guests were Maureen and Oscar. T...

So: manatees. Among other places, they like to hang out at Blue Springs State Park, where the artesian spring guarantees year-around warm water (73 degrees). But there were only 10 in residence yesterday. The river water had warmed, and the manatees had moved out into the river. The river (the St. John—the US’s only north-flowing river, by the way) has food, and the spring has that nice warm water, but no food, so they go back and forth. But a couple of the ones who stayed back were obligingly close to the shore, so we got some good looks. Besides the manatees, the park offers boat tours on the river. Ours was extraordinary. We saw enough alligators to satisfy. There were birds aplenty, including pretty much every heron (tricolor, green, great blue, and little blue) and egret (great and snowy). I didn't get a lot of photos of them, but I did get a one of my favorites, the yellow-crowned night heron, as well as a lovely cormorant, trees full of ibises and bla...