Breathing Room

1-1-11.

5 hours after my lips brought in the new year by shouting salutations on a cobblestone street and kissing a lion who hugs like a bear, my eye-lids struggled to open so I could shut off the alarm that was incessantly beeping me awake.

I was never really a morning person. I've been told I growled like a distressed woodland squirrel defending her winter nuts while simultaneously burying deeper into my blanket cave. If further prompted flailing limbs, and teeth doth protest. When I was in high school I discovered coffee, (mana from heaven) and I truthfully believe my neighborhood has been spared from a family of captain hook's. Since then, I've mellowed out. Everyone has their fingers, everyone is happy. I enjoy sunrises with unabashed glee. The hardest part is getting out of bed.

On this morning, though. I had a really, really good reason to start moving and shakin, no black elixir of life required. 3 days of camping in paradise.

Cayo Costa.

It's hard to hold back all the pictures I took; I could gush forever. But for brevity's sake, and my hatred of flooding the internet with too much crap, let's just say Cayo Costa is Florida in her purest form.

It's a national park on an island and it's flooded with wildlife. We saw osprey, pelicans, ruddy turnstones, sanderlings, plovers and gulls, herons, egrets, all 5 types of mangrove, sea urchins, 2 kinds of starfish, crabs, horseshoe crabs, sting rays, an octopus, dolphins, more fish than you could shake a stick at, sand dollars, lightning whelks, conk, moon shells, you name it. We stumbled upon a dead shark in the lagoon below; and then discovered that it wasn't the real lagoon. (A return visit is guaranteed.)

Did I mention the cactus with purple flowers? Or the campsites in sea grape forests? Meadows of sea oats? Drift wood quarries that line a large amount of the coast? I accidentally brought the wrong battery so I'm missing picture proof of a lot of these things, but trust me, among the 9 miles of beach and countless trails cris-crossing the island, you can find it all.

\

The first 3 days of the New Year bore consecutive sunrises and sunsets, more stars fill the night sky than I have ever witnessed, and endless amounts of peace. 2011, bring it on.