I feel like laziness has been setting in and someone had mentioned a bike trail in Tampa recently.  It's called Flatwoods Park, great for hiking, bike riding, rollerblading, or the wildlife.  We heard that there were some very mild off road trails and figured this would be a fun place to check out.   We probably ended up doing a mix of 50/50 pavement/off road and completed just under 17 miles.

We really had no idea where we were going, and this is the routes that we ended up taking.

Throughout the ride we seen, two tortoises, small rattlesnake, armadillo, mother deer with two young, a larger bird, vibrant orange rat snake, and then another young rattlesnake.

Approximately half way we came across this water levy bridge connecting us across to more trails.

SNAKES on the trail!

I love this little bakery 2 miles away from my work. Order an sandwich and you can drool over all of the deserts while you wait. It's worth checking out!

www.fridascafe.com

After leaving work today the sky had some detail and some clouds were moving in, so I did a quick search for a new area for sunset and found Coachman Park.   Downtown Clearwater has been cleaned up and is a beautiful area, with some fun shops and restaurants.

I've been keeping my eye on the moon cycles and just enjoying the view. Tonight's waxing crescent was approximately 7.8% illumination.   Pretty amazing how far away it is, but yet so viewable.

This was one of the last pictures I took tonight.  I'm proud that I was able to catch the moon in this shot.   For those that need help, that is not a UFO light in the blue sky, but the moon.

This took some convincing, but after telling Chris multiple times "oh it'll be fun, lets ride our bikes along the beach!" he finally agreed probably just to get me quiet.   We drove as far up into Clearwater Beach as possible and found somewhere to park.  The camera, snacks and drinks in hand we were off.   First you take off on the bikes and find access to the beach.   

You then proceed to ride your bikes in the sand along the water.  WOW, I forgot that this is difficult.

After riding for 1-2 miles you come to a sign where bikes are no permitted any further.  We locked them to the sign and then was off on foot.

This is the map of the whole hike we took.   It ended up being over 5 miles just on foot.

Our first find was a Horse Conch (Triplofusus Giganeteus). Wikipedia Link

This cute little bird here was eating one of the many small conch's that had washed to shore.

There was one of the floating balls for a trap on the beach, so Chris started pulling it.  Sure enough, a trap eventually showed up filled with shrimp, crabs and one fish.

We didn't plan on our time very well and the sun was setting.   Now it was time to hike back in the dark.

Fortunately our bikes were still at the sign where we left them :)

So try riding 1.5 miles in the wet sand!  It's a bit more exhausting then I remember, or I'm just that out of shape.   When we finally found a beach access, from a wedding earlier in the day,they kindly left out lemonade, tea, and water.   It would have been stealing if we helped our self to a glass of the unattended beverages, so of course we didn't do that...