Day trip to St Petersburg Beach and Clearwater's Pier 60, Florida

We took a day off from exploring Fort De Soto and headed to St Petersburg. We hit the St Pete's Beach first!

 The water was freezing cold still in February but that never ever stops Aayla.

Sierra kept herself occupied with my phone while Aayla swam/played. The water was way too cold for Sierra and I can't say as I blamed her. The sun was warm and it looks deceiving because that water was so chilly!

 Aayla did get cold after about half an hour and then made some sand castles.

 And it was just as much fun crushing her castle like a giant!

Next we headed to the Children's Museum (but I will leave that for a separate post) before we went to Clearwater Pier 60 to meet up with some friends, we met at the Rally, for dinner.

We arrived at the beach a bit early so we headed to Pier 60. I never tire of these beautiful umbrellas that line the pier for the vendors.

While we waited Sierra had a turn on the big blow up slide. Aayla tried but it was a bit too much for her so she went on the bouncy house instead. The guy working let Sierra go in with her too. 

Then our friends arrived!

We headed to the playground. 

While the guys and kids watched the buskers for a bit, Wendy and I went to see the sun set.

 

 Then it was time for some food! We went to Crabby Bills just across the road from the pier.

A bad selfie of us all but a memory of our evening at least! Thanks for coming out to meet us Wendy and Cade! It was great to see you all again!

A fun day at the beach, pier and visiting with friends!

Gulf Pier and Historic Fort de Soto, Florida

The girls and I went out to explore Gulf Pier and Fort just before sunset.

The Fort is mostly all opened up so you can go inside a lot of the rooms. They are however dark so we only explored a couple smaller, lighter rooms. The girls thought it was fun to be "in jail".

There were a couple trees that were begging to be climbed.

There was a nice picnic area here too and large open fields as well. Perfect for a picnic another day.

We saw a walkway behind the fort too which took you to the top of the fort but the sun was starting to set so we opted to go out on the pier instead.

 From the pier the view back to the fort looked like this...

You can see on the top of the tree line there is a platform with people on it (which we didn't walk up to) but otherwise when this was used as a fort it was well hidden.

There were quite a few people out fishing on the pier and the sun setting was pretty to watch.

We saw this poor little guy who was missing some of his toes. Sierra wanted to catch him to help him so we had a big discussion on how this bird was learning to survive with his own abilities as he looked very healthy otherwise; and his toes had healed a long time ago. Her heart always goes out to all the animals in need.

We walked back to the beach area and had a few minutes to explore before the sun set.

Sierra found what she said, and I quote; "the most awesomest shell EVER"!

A beautiful evening all around!

Fort De Soto Park: North Beach

Although the sun is shining here in February and it's warm...the water is still cold...

Well too cold for most of us. Aayla still got in to enjoy the waves.

 After she was ready to get warmed up we headed over to the picnic area for a snack. The sheltered areas are very nice with picnic tables and barbeque pits.

 The playground was very nice too!

Tomorrow we are off to explore the Fort.

Fun at Fort De Soto Campground

First off I must say I LoVed our time at Fort De Soto Park Campground. I was fortunate enough to get a reservation here last minute. Someone's cancellation I surmise as everyone says this park is extremely hard to get a reservation for and I spent all day clicking and re-clicking to get in.

We were in site #88 in the pet friendly side of the park. We have no pets but I took whatever space became available to get in. This site was along the road side but it was still pretty quiet as the only traffic going by was park traffic. Considering the toll to get here with the camper is $3.75 ($1.25 without the camper, people only come here to visit the park which does have a parking fee of $5.

Before Ian and I had the camper set up the girls had already found some lizards.

 Every where we go Sierra catches lizards(or frogs and toads) to observe for an afternoon or two, and then we let them go.

 Once in awhile they surprise her...as this one jumps into her hair.

Aayla likes the lizards too but not nearly as much as Sierra. Sierra is a true animal lover. Aayla carefully holding the lizards before letting them go the next morning.

We couldn't find any food to catch them and we never want to harm any of the creatures they catch to observe. This is a learning activity for us and we always respect the wildlife.

This camp ground was so peaceful. We loved that we had an area behind our site where we could put up the hammocks with our tree hugger straps. Both girls spent a lot of time in the hammocks.

We spent a lot of time bike riding here too. The roads were all gravel but well maintained and easy to ride on.

There were two great playgrounds. This one on the pet side,

And this one on the non pet side.

There were lots of trees to climb and natural beauty everywhere you look.

Some site had water views. I would love to try to get a water view site. They were about $5 more a night but well worth it in my opinion.

Inlet View

Ocean side view

All this and we haven't even left the camp ground yet...there's more to come!