Day 60: Oh, the Huge Manatee!

Today has been a really good day. It started off with lots of silliness and smiles in the morning, and this vibe lasted throughout most of the day. The weather here has remained super windy. We haven’t gone in the water, but trying to still get outside.

Before school I took a jog with the boys on their bikes to explore the rest of the campground. Rob later went running too. Exercise seems to play a large part in my sanity and patience on a given day.

Nicholas has taken to building a small city with the rocks in our campsite including a dump station and mountain. Cooper added a bike parking track to finish out the city landscape.

We finished up our before school time with a wagon pull ride through open campsites in search of fall leaves. This collection of 10 leaves is about all the fall we are going to get this year, but it has been worth it. During the hunt we also found a small rubber fishing lure. The boys and I then planned how we were going to try to scare Rob with it when he was back. They were so giggly and excited during the planning process, but the execution flopped.

The boys had their school call and were pretty motivated to get their work done. We had discussed adding 30 minutes of Minecraft to their days, the last 30 minutes before their end of day calls.

For the afternoon activity we went out for a beach walk. I finally remembered to bring a garbage bag to pick up beach trash while we walked. Nicholas got hit with a surprise wave, so he declared he was done and headed home. Cooper and I kept walking. We filled the entire trash bag in a very short amount of time: five flip-flops, three water bottles, two straws, rope and lots of little pieces of plastic.

These winds have washed ashore tons of sea grass along with many sponges and corals. We enjoyed throwing the sponges and corals back in the water.

On our way back we stopped by the marina, where we saw our first manatee! I had seen a little snout above the water, so we went closer to check it out. It swam under the dock we were on, so Cooper picked the second dock and I picked the third. He scored as the manatee came up just feet from him. We were able to see its snout and then full tail as it went back under water.

We headed back to the RV to share the news, and then Nicholas joined us for a bike ride to the marina, but we didn’t find another manatee. We did find crazy amounts of snails in addition to the sea grass, sponges, and corals.

The boys were then able to play Minecraft, did their end of day calls, and then wrap up with dinner and family time.

We also spent much of the day talking about voting. Being in Florida these past couple of weeks has really been eye-opening for them, seeing all the signs and ads in a very divided state.