After our last night in Fort Myers we started at about 11, heading towards Sarasota warm mineral springs.
A mineral spring which puts out 9 million gallons of water with over 50 different minerals every day.
The water has always 87°F (31°C) so we had a nice and relaxing day.
We looked for a camping ground afterwards and found one in pinellas county, located directly on the waterfront on an island. We quickly moved to the beach and enjoyed the water and the sun.
After swimming we drove to the next supermarket, bought some steaks, corn and charcoal, ready for barbecue.
Our tent was sorrounded by trees, one of them was a perfect laundry line.
The way from our tent to the sea was just 100 feet (30m).
At the last campground at Big Pine Key we had a lot of deer running around on the campground.
This time we had a lot of raccoons. You have to be careful, they steal every kind of food and they are very intelligent, they even can open a zipper or a combination lock, just by learning from the humans how it works.
18th of April
We went to another beach, North Beach. This one was better, as there was no seaweed like on the east beach. When you go swimming you always have to be aware of stingrays! But the weather was not so good, so we went to a nerby fort after a while.
This fort was really small, so we just walked around, looked at the cannons, the fort itself and the beaches around us.
We decided to move on to Tampa one day earlier than we planned to do, because in Pinellas County swimming is the main attraction and it was not the best swimming weather.
We arrived in Tampa in our hotel and I went out for a nearby geocache. You can see it in the picture, as well as the small fake cache.
When I was looking for the cache I recognized a very good looking sushi and steak house just across the road.
We went to this for dinner and it was very very good, the sushi was delicious.
On our way to the restaurant we finally made a picture in front of the statue of liberty.
We stayed in a hotel this night.
19th of April - Tampa
We drove to Tampa, without knowing what to do... so we went to a small garden, looked at some monuments and played domino and chess.
The weather was not that good and we had no idea what to do in Tampa so... we took a helicopter ride.
We had to wait a little but finally we found ourselves walking towards the helipad.
It was the first time for both of us to fly with a helicopter.
As expected it is loud, but it is a speacial experience, you have to do at least once.
After the helicopter ride we went to downtown Tampa, visited a small park and a bigger park, an island and some other places in Tampa.
The Aquarium...
...a small park...
And finally we went to Flicks and Food Trucks. A monthly event where 15 trucks offer different food. Later in the evening you can watch short movie clips.
We had dinner here and visited our couchsurfing family.
In the evening we went out for geocaching with Susan, we looked for 3... found 1... it was a 3 mile walk ^^
Thank you for hosting us, thank you Susan, Mike and Sagan ;)
20th of April
We haven't been to Universal Studious or any other theme park in the US so far, so we went to Busch Gardens, Tampa Bay.
Busch Gardens is, unlike the parks in Germany, a mixture of a zoo, safari and a theme park with rides.
There were a lot of Flamingos, some parrots, all kinds of birds, later we saw zebras, giraffes, rhinos, elephants, like on a safari.
Flowers and trees in shape of animals...
There were a lot of flowers, the park is so colorful :)
We took a train ride through the whole park. The engine is a real steam engine, equipped with a 1200 gal watertank (~4000L)
We saw a lot of animals... you could also take a safari tour through the area.
Besides this animals there are some thrill rides, here you can see Sheikra, a dive coaster which goes 200 feet (55m) in the air and drops you directly 90° down 2 times. All that with a maximum speed of 70 mph (120km/h)
As it was friday there were almost no people in the park. The longest waiting time was about 5 minutes.
In this picture you can see the waiting lines... nobody was there, perfect. So we were able to go on every ride, some of them twice or 3 times.
The most popular and newest ride is the cheetah hunt.
Cheetah hunt is a triple launch coaster, that means you are accelerated 3 times during the ride.
It goes left and right, through a canyon, just another acceleration sprint, next curves... crazy ride.
It is made like a cheetah hunts its prey, with smooth curves and intense sprints, very nice.
We moved on to our couchsurfing hosts house afterwards, just 5 minutes later it started to rain, thats timing!
21st of April
After sleeping in till about 10 we had breakfast and moved to the adventure island park, a aquapark which is included in the Busch Gardens ticket. The weather was not so good so there were almost no people in the park, which was good for us, because there were absolutely no waiting times.
It started raining at about 2:30pm and didn't really stop till 4... and if it rains in Florida it really rains hard.
We just took some pictures and left the park, we already tried every ride so it was quite ok.
Back at our hosts house we started washing our clothes, packing our suitcases, the flight to Las Vegas is in 2 days...
In the evening we went out for a dance concert at the Tampa university campus, where we met with our host and some of his friends.
Some students were dancing and performing, it was a nice show.
That's another very good point for couchsurfing: the people you meet will take you to places and / or shows you would have never found otherwise.
Back home we had a small party, and I took some pictures with Maxima, a bearded dragon.
Our hosts found it about 2 years ago and now it is their pet.
22nd of April
We slept till 10, had breakfast and drove to Busch Gardens afterwards.
Again? yes, again, we have a 14 day ticket so we wanted to visit it again.
Today there were some more people but the maximum waiting time was about 30 minutes so everything was fine.
We went out to a greek restaurant for dinner.
Just one more night in Tampa, after that east coast is done.
23rd of April
We got up at abou 11. After having breakfast we cleaned our car, packed all our stuff, waved good bye to Josh and his friends, our hosts for the last 3 nights, thank you for hosting us :)
We just wanted to visit Lettuce Lake Park, a park nearby.
So we drove to the park, took a short hike and some pictures.
The park is cool, everything is green, a lot of birds, there are alligators too but we haven't seen one.
We drove to the airport after visitig the park, dropped off our rental car and went to the terminal.
Lets do some statistics:
We expected to drive about 3200 miles (5150km) and use about 136 gallons of gas (515 L)
All in all we drove 4101 miles ( 6600 km) and used 124,5 gallons of gas (472 L) on the eastcoast.
In this last eastcoast picture you can see our real route (blue) compared to our planned route (red).
Good Bye east coast, it was an amazing time :)
We are at the airport right now, just waiting for boarding.
Roy already arrived in Las Vegas yesterday, so... West Coast, here we come !
Comming up: Las Vegas, Grand Canyon, Death Valley...
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