Alright, it has been a couple months since I last updated scott stafford [dot] com.  I will be more active in the next few weeks.  Let’s start by posting some interesting tidbits about our vacation in Florida.  The main focus of our trip was Disney World (note: 5 year old boy and 3 year old girl), but we also took a couple day-trips to the beaches in Pinellas County, just west of Tampa.  It is about an hour drive from where we stayed in Kissimmee to Tampa, and about another 1/2 hour from Tampa to the beaches.  I took a bunch of pictures at Fort de Soto State Park and St. Pete Beach.

I loved our trip to Florida and could totally live in a beach house if the opportunity arose.  I also feel that Florida receives a lot of undeserving criticism.  Yeah, there’s a lot of old people.  Yeah, there’s like 100 different kinds of deadly, man-eating snakes.   Yeah, the mosquitoes are the size of small birds.  Yeah, there’s like a 90 percent chance when you hear about a missing-child-found-dead-at-the-bottom-of-a-lake-after-being-molested-by-his-mother’s-boyfriend that it happened in Florida.  But, c’mon, the beaches are awesome!!

We only explored two beaches, so I can’t say with certainty that Fort de Soto State Park has the best beach in Florida, but I’ll say it anyway.  North Beach at Fort de Soto State Park is the best beach in Florida!!

The main reason I love Fort de Soto so much is because it is an amazing escape.  In an area of 3 million people, you can drive for 20 minutes from St. Petersburg and find yourself on powder-like white sand collecting sea shells, building sand castles, fishing, sunning, and swimming in complete solitude.  No restaurants, no hotels, no broken glass, no cigarette butts, no washed-up band-aids… no people.  Pure awesome.

I swam out to a sandbar and spoke to a local couple who were diving for sand dollars.  I dove down and grabbed some myself.  They told me that the secret to preserving sand dollars is to use a half-water and half-bleach solution and let them soak over night.  We never got around to buying bleach, but it’s supposed to make the sand dollars bright white.

I’m not the only one who loves Fort de Soto.  Both Dr. Beach and Travel Advisor have named it the best beach in America.  Probably for similar reasons.

A few days later we ventured over to St. Pete Beach which — as a pelican flies — is only about 6 miles north of Fort de Soto.  But what a difference!  St. Pete Beach is more like a California beach, but with about 1/3 less people.  That still means that there are a lot of people, but you can easily find a place to lay your towel or blanket with a 30 to 50 foot buffer or so.   The waves were bigger at St. Pete Beach and it was certainly more lively.  There were kids running around, teenagers throwing a football, locals leathering their skin,  a gang of skimboarders, and general beach stuff.  We were in walking distance to restaurants  and hotels, as well.  Alcoholic beverages are not allowed on St. Pete Beach.  From my research, alcohol is only allowed on Treasure Island Beach, which is only a couple miles north.

St. Pete Beach has very easy access and good parking.  It’s a fun place to hang out for a few hours.  The place really fills up around 4:00 pm, when the kids get out of school.  Not a bad way to grow up.  Oh, and there is a great restaurant called Middle Grounds Grill in Treasure Island.  Some of the best fish I have eaten.

Here is the link to the pictures at Fort de Soto State Park and St. Pete Beach in case you missed it.