On our way back up the Gulf side of Florida, we decided to stop for a few nights right between Tampa and Clearwater. There are several bridges spanning Tampa Bay, but the most impressive is the Sunshine Skyway. (I will say that the Florida traffic is notorious, but it was the worst for us in Tampa so far.)
Clearwater Beach is known as one of Florida's best, so we decided to check it out for ourselves. It was a Thursday afternoon, and we drove just north of Clearwater Beach to a little island state park beach, thinking it wouldn't be too crowded there. Boy, were we wrong - the beach was packed! Surprisingly enough to us, most of the license plates in the parking lot were from New York, and we overhead many New England accents from passersby. It was fairly windy and nobody seemed to care at all. People were laid out on chairs and towels up and down the beach having a great time. The sand looked even whiter and the water even bluer - an amazing beach!
We hadn't really anticipated going for an ocean swim, but the kids weren't afraid to just jump right in to the waves anyways. Just to give everyone a chance to dry before our drive back, we took a little jaunt down the beach walkway and spotted a turtle nibbling on some grass. The kids loved it!
We took a little drive around Clearwater, then headed back to the campground to go for a swim and wash the salty air off.
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