Clearwater, FL - Day 1

Our first full day in Clearwater was an interesting one. We just completed the 4.5 hour drive the night before from Brianna's cheerleading competition in Fort Lauderdale. This drive took us through the Everglades. NOTE #1: Make sure you get dinner BEFORE you drive across the Everglades. The only food available was Alligator jerky and make your own Ramen noodles! NOTE #2: Don't use Google maps directions in Florida. For whatever reason, they have a peculiar habit of having you "continue straight" on a road other than the one you are on and veer right and left on a road you are already on. So, instead of turn right on X and turn left on Y, you get 8 lines of directions. Makes for a bunch of fun in the middle of the night.

In any case, we arrived late at night and were surprised to find a very nice condo with great views. Turns out the beach was just around the corner and HUGE. Clearwater definitely has a very wide, white sand beach and amazingly not very populated. Could have been the weather. Because it was sooo windy (and still is) the kids were feeling the pain from white sand projectiles flying into their legs.

They still seemed to have a good time looking for shells. I was planning on sharing more, but I have to admit using this blog posting software isn't as simple as it could be. Once you get more than a few images, it gets real difficult to line everything up unless you want to maintain html. :-) Also notice that the font decided to magically change.

I'll end with a picture of the family heading out to the beach later in the day as a cold front approached. You can see the sharp contrast between the white sand and dark clouds. After the front passed through the winds were stronger and much colder (55 degrees) for Florida this time of year. We'll still take it versus the freezing cold back in Cincinnati.