Trip to Tampa

Earlier this year I used my rewards points from work to get myself a new camera. I bought a digital camera a few years back that the family uses. When I say that the family uses it, I mean the entire family. If you ever pick up our camera, there will be dozens of pictures of random things around the house -meaning that one of the kids have found the camera and decided to take pictures of everything that doesn't move. I decided that I wanted a newer camera. One that I could use and no one else. That way, the battery will never be dead when I pick it up, and the memory stick will not be full.

Back at the end of April I took a trip down to Tampa to check on the renters in our house and use the opportunity to brag about winning last year's fantasy baseball league while drafting for this season in person. I decided to take my new camera with me and try it out. Here are some of the pictures I took:

I couldn't go to Tampa in late April and not go to a Spring Training game. I went with some friends to see the Phillies take on the Pirates in Bradenton. It's kind of ironic that I went all the way to Tampa and watched the Pittsburgh Pirates. I did get a couple of foul balls for the boys though.

When we lived in Florida, we used to go down to Apollo Beach and watch the manatees in the winter. The manatees were all gone when I got there, but the fiddler crabs were out in full force.

I was pretty impressed with the zoom on the camera. These things are about the size of a penny and were about five feet down on the ground below the walkway.

Just some leaves floating in the water, but they look pretty cool, and I liked the colors against the green water.

This would be the only animal I saw in the water on the trip. There were many birds on the water, but nothing else in the water.
I could be wrong, but I think that is the sun coming through those clouds. I spent three hours at a baseball game while I was there and got a serious sunburn. We don't get much sun in Pittsburgh during the winter and spring.

Pictures on the beach.

If these pictures don't make you want to visit Florida, then you've never lived there.

That bird in the second picture just picked a fish out of the water. Not bad since it was over 100 yards away.

That's about it. I think the camera worked well, and it looks like the pictures turned out pretty good.