We arrived in Tampa and were fortunate enough to camp on the beach once again. We enjoyed the sun, white sand beaches and many more beautiful sunsets.
This part of our journey ended up being focused on animals, animals and more animals. We started with a tour at Corrie Billie’s Airboat Rides and got to see many alligators, herons, egrets and turtles. Prior to leaving, we were lucky to see two gators fight, which is very uncommon. During the tour we learned about all the different animal species and how the mangroves preserve the wetlands through all the different seasons, including the fierce hurricanes that strike the Florida Gulf region.
Our next animal adventure was at the Big Cat Rescue in Tampa. It was incredible to see these amazing cats, but their stories were very sad. At least they are alive and not in basements, cramped cages or dead from fur farms. It is crazy to us how many exotic animals are allowed to be held in private captivity in the US.
Outside the Tampa Electric Power Plant there is an 86 degree water out flow and a sanctuary for manatees. From November to May they congregate here to stay safe, especially the mommas and babies.
Our next adventure was at Clearwater Marine Aquarium to see Winter, the dolphin from the movie “A Dolphin Tale”. This is the dolphin that has a prosthetic tail. They are making a second movie with Winter and a new dolphin named Hope. This next movie will focus on how Hope came to the facility and ocean conservation efforts. It was very cool to see Winter and how strong animal instincts are to survive and how she is being a swimming model to her tank mate, Hope.
We made it to New Orleans after our first one night stay at a WalMart parking lot. Luckily it was uneventful. Our next rescue stop was at the Villalobos Rescue Facility only 4 miles from our RV park. They have 260 dogs here in New Orleans. We got to meet a couple of staff from the show “Pitbulls and Parolees” and met about 40 adoptable dogs. There was even a puppy named Sally, but we resisted and came home dog-less to our traveling cats… who are still doing really well on the road.
We finished our animal tour by taking a boat on a Cajun swamp tour outside of New Orleans and saw many alligators, birds and raccoons. The swamp, Cypress trees and landscape was beautiful.
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