Trip to Florida

 About a week ago, I went to Florida in our handicap accessible car. We were going to visit Grandma Evelyn and hopefully go snorkeling in the Keys. About half way there, I threw up, which didn't feel very nice. We had to go around the Appalachian Mountains and the road was cut away so the highway could be flat. There were lots of colors and shapes in the soil, and you could see the layers of dirt, clay, and rock (which I thought were absolutely awesome). When we got to Grandma Evelyn's house, I got in the wheelchair accessible elevator sleepily (boom! crash! zzzz) and went to bed in the kids room, which is located upstairs.

In the morning, we went to the Museum of Science and Industry in Tampa! It cost $60 for us to go there, but I think it was worth it. First, we went snake-searching on a bridge that spanned the length of a swamp. We didn’t see any snakes, but we did find some silver fish and a lot of annoying gnats. Then we went to a kids' exhibit while we waited to go to a planetarium show. The kids' exhibit had all kinds of complex puzzles in it (which I though were amazing) and even some physics experiments.

 The planetarium show wasn’t as interesting as I thought it would be. The thing that bothered me the most was that guy who narrated it didn’t tell the stories behind the constellations. Other than that, it was pretty neat and I loved it!

 On the third day in Florida, we drove to Key West to go snorkeling. I had to get a prescription mask, and the guy we got it from gave it to us for free. I thought he was pretty cool because of that. We took a ferry for 2 1/2 hours to Dry Tortugas. I think we traveled 70 miles to get there. We tried on the mask but every time my face touched water, I automatically blew out my nose, making the water come flooding in bit by bit, which was really annoying. I managed to see some seagrass and soft corals. After a few minutes of getting water in my eyes, I got myself upset and quit swimming. Then I went back to shore with my sister, who wanted to play in the sand. 

When mom and dad came back, we walked part of the moat and went to the other side the island to snorkel some more.

This time the mask stayed on, so I looked at the coral. There were all kinds of  amazing fish (grouper, parrotfish, some cuttlefish, and a lot of needlenose ) and beautiful coral. I though they looked awesome. Afterwards, we walked around the rest of the moat wall and looked around the sides for fish. 

Then, we got back on the ferry so we could go to our car on the shore, and go back to Grandma Evelyn’s house. We stayed there two more days.

During those two days my mom had a birthday party and we had the biggest cake I’ve ever seen, including the giant meatloaf cake I had once! The cake was great and I was happy to see a grin on mom’s face the whole time. The shirts that mom got were cool too. I really liked the shirts that said “Of course I have 100 feet of rope! Doesn’t everyone?” and “Relax. This isn’t my blood.” Both of them made me laugh so hard I almost fell out of my wheelchair! I’m really proud of our trip and hope to have another soon.