Wife and I went for a flight today. We flew over a few places to see how populated they were. Things were empty.


This is a local water park that is spring fed next to the Gulf. This is an artisan water flow that was hit when they were mining. Converted to a wonderful park. Completely unoccupied.
https://www.amazon.com/photos/shared/mCaH7buCQim7JMl8XDekCA.66FGQrT-fCTsllLwdmLT3Y


This is called Pine Island. It is a small local beach area in the wetlands. Nobody there.
https://www.amazon.com/photos/shared/gPFs-XptS3ekM1D3aL3Fyw.JVg9Kteo_bWz-iotXjycDR


These two are a big gathering spot for boaters and swimmers. Usually over a hundred boats in the areas around the channel. Very few today.
https://www.amazon.com/photos/shared/9gdpPv8EQVWglYzpRp-yYA.wqus9GHSVUQrryxtb1sehq



https://www.amazon.com/photos/shared/ZO2WDFfBSUqjl2MF5sUmIw.Qrn5kbkhQHE3pBU7W5A2SY



This mining area was dead. Nothing moving. Usually very active.
https://www.amazon.com/photos/shared/wfsvJFbSR8aqYaa2abBdxQ.MQTwGfX4KCkmmNXQ1_WEql





So the flight today showed that people are still being very isolated.

Can`t get any of your photos to work. I keep getting Amazons sign into my account to start using my 5gb of photo storage.

I had the same problem at first, but then I saw a clickable message to skip this process. After that, O.G.'s photos came up, but oddly showing under my account name.

Cheers

Work fine for me and not under my account.

OG have AvGas prices fallen like Mogas?

Odd, they all work now.

Was this up near Spring Hill, FL? I used to live there many years ago.

I just got started using Amazon Photos and I’m not impressed. Can’t seem to get the SimHQ photo embed to work with it. Also linking seems to give smaller low resolution pictures. Anyone familiar with Amazon Photos ?

I much prefer using Photobucket, but they are getting greedy about number of photos and the bandwidth of people looking. Here are two of those with Photobucket.

Killjoy12, yep. Spring Hill area.

When did you live here ?

Nixer, yes aviation gas has come down about $2 a gallon. It is now $2.75 at my home field and as low as $2.60 nearby.

Low gas prices, but can’t really enjoy them. Everything s on lockdown so can’t fly places for lunch.

I went to Springstead HIgh from 83-87 - back when Lake Theresa was an actual lake. I spent many days over at Pine Island beach. Funny how small the strip of land is from the air. I was over there last year, and the area is quite a bit different from 30 years ago.

I thought I would use the better Photobucket image of Pine Island for you.




If you have any requests I’ll take them on my next flight.

Nice picture - Do you fly out of Brooksville airport?

ALL of Florida is quite a bit different from 30 years ago.

I really don't enjoy visiting my old beach (S. Brevard County) like I used to. Too freakin crowded.

Yeah gas prices... I can get a killer deal from a rental car company...I mean cheap.

I can't go anywhere!

Everything I saw today was empty. Things may be different elsewhere, but it isn’t swarms of people here.

Yes, my home field is Brooksville , KBKV.

That is true about Florida in general, but that area over there was quite empty back then - we hardly had any restaurants. It was pretty boring for a high schooler lol.

Killjoy, are you familiar with the Bayport Inn ?

Yup- it's right at the split between Pine Island and Bayport. I used to fish a lot at the Bayport pier. I had a lot of friends who lived in Hernando Beach and we would canoe from Jenkins (??? or Rogers) to Weeki Wachee (back when it was private). It's been a long time. Where in the area do you live?

If and when Florida passes a state income tax you'll see the population explosion to the State drop significantly. People talk about the nice weather but it's not the main driver behind the population explosion. People are fleeing the high tax Northeastern states in droves and are moving to states like Texas, Arizona and Florida because you guessed it, low tax burdens and also significantly lower real estate costs.

Well, I decided to fly down to the beaches at Clearwater. Major beach for Tampa area. Wanted to see if the high population area beaches were seeing a lot of people.

Here is another of the smaller local beaches. Empty.




Now this is getting near the real popular beach area. Empty.





And here is the large most popular beach. Empty. Usually thousands of people. So many I don’t even like going there.




More of nothing.