My trip to Florida, in Instagrams - Day 8

We packed up the vans and started on our loooooong trip back North....

Here's the van I was driving:

and from the inside: 

(good thing I'm adept at just using mirrors!)

Just north of Miami, our rear-right tire completely delaminated, which in turn blew off part of our back bumper. Totally not cool. Luckily, it was a rental van and we were able to just call Enterprise and trade it in for another one. Still, this set us back about 3 hours.

Unloading the van on the side of the highway...

Road snacks! 

Found at a gas station somewhere in....North Carolina maybe?? 

We stopped at the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel outside of Norfolk, VA. It was cool to see the tunnel from above - the road just disappears into the water! 

My trip to Florida, in Instagrams - Fish!

My trip to Florida, in Instagrams - Day 7

On our last day in the Keys, we left super-early to go to John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park (which is one of my very most favorite places, by the way). I have tons of pictures of fish, but I'm saving them up for their very own post ;)

After a few hours of snorkeling (did I mention that we did a lot of snorkeling?), we cleaned up and stopped at a few souvenier shops...

I finally found an airplant!

We decided at the last minute to stop at Robbie's Marina to see people hand-feed the tarpon.

In the evening, back at the KML, we had the pleasure of meeting this guy...

and just a side note, no, Sean did not touch the manatee...that's illegal.

 

My trip to Florida, in Instagrams - Day 6

Day 6 was spent on the RV Diodon, with snorkeling stops at 4 different reefs.

We docked for lunch at Indian Key, which was a settlement in the 1800s and is now a state historic site. My favorite part was the "mystery feature"...

The Century Plants were pretty cool.... they grow a huge stalk and only bloom once every ~100 years, and then die.

When we returned to the KML, the students had a quiz on algae and coral identification, so I walked around the classroom taking pictures of the specimen cases.