Little Manatee River SP, Ruskin, FL

We are at the end of our week here. It has been a busy one and a good one. This is where we learned of the birth of our beautiful new grandson, Cooper Wyatt; we met up with camper friends from Tenn. who are camp hosts here; we viewed manatees; paddled the river; stopped at the shrimp docks in Tampa; and visited a historic cigar district.
Above is a picture of the beautiful river here to paddle. Nice flat water with mirroring of the canopy that just takes your breath away. We were able to get in 2 runs on this river. Just north of the park is a power plant were you can view manatees. Seems the heated water that is discharged provides the manatees with a safe haven from the cold winter water. This plant has built boardwalks and facilities to make view these amazing creatures comfortable. The manatees are sometimes called the elephants of the sea. I can understand why. They are very docile and very large. Their movements are more floating than swimming. What a treat to see so many in one place. Our friends, Gerri and Leon, took us to a Tampa shrimp dock where you can buy truly jumbo shrimp right from the folks who harvest them from the Gulf. They are suppose to have a crisper texture and better flavor than the farm raised shrimp. We are planning a shrimp dinner tonight to test that theroy. Yum. Actually, we bought 15 lbs so they had better taste good! At $8.60 a pound it is a real deal for us and better price for the shrimpers. While there we saw the boat our shrimp came in on and watched some crew cleaning the last of a load, de-heading them. Close to the docks was a historic district, Ybor City, where around the turn of the 20^th century there were many cigar manufacturing business. We toured the museum and a sample of a worker's home. It was very interesting and the historic district which has many shops and restaurants was great to walk around. In the slide show you will see some of the beautiful hand painted tile that still decorates some of the building. Many of the shops had a person hand-rolling cigars. What a labor intensive task. We are still seeing new butterflies and enjoying this beautiful season here. We move back to the Sarasota area tomorrow to Oscar Shearer SP and the close beaches there. During that 2 week stay I will fly to Balt to help out with my grandsons! What a joy. Les will stay with the camper and looks forward to hugging on the boys when we return early April.