Happy 2025 to all! The Viv is hibernating in Florida for the next month to ensure we don’t run into in climate weather. We have enjoyed meeting some Manatees at the Apollo Beach power plant location where the warm waters from the hydro power keeps the water nice and warm for these heat seeking sea cows! Next we visited the Home of Mickey and Minnie or my favorites “Big Al” and “Baloo”! We spent a few days enjoying time with my niece who works at Everest taking care of Betti the Yeti!

We went to Seaworld to continue our sea creature adventures seeing whales, dolphin, seals and sea lions. We enjoyed all the decorations at the parks for Christmas and saw a few shows as well!

Now for the recommendations: We have stayed close to Matlacha which is a small island going from Cape Coral to Pine Island where we have had the best Shrimp and sweet potato fries! The location is ran by locals who have weathered two hurricanes and we love helping locals rebuild! If you can make it out there, it is definitely worth it!

We also enjoyed a Pub in Davenport called Best of British Pub! We had the best laughs enjoying some British Telly with the locals there and the sausage role was the best I have ever had and I lived in England for a year! They had all the best British Sweets in the place along with some teas and much loved British foods. Highly recommend popping in and enjoying some amazing people!

Finally, we toured an amazing animal refuge location in Punta Gorda called Octagon Animal Rescue, 100% volunteer based and some of the best taken care of animals I have ever seen in captivity. They were interactive and the volunteers loved these animals. Stop by and help out a great cause! If I lived here, I would be raking leaves and volunteering to help them out!