See Ya Later Alligator!

Kathy was not looking forward to a five day stint in the Everglades. When we left she became a fan. She was hesitant about the visit mostly because of her fear an alligator would attack her. She was especially fearful it would happen in our campsite. It didn't happen and during our visit we did see a bunch of alligators and even a couple crocodiles. And, not one of them was hungry enough to take a bite out of either of us.

The first night there we did get severely eaten by mosquitos though. We arrived at our campground at 4:30 PM (primetime mosquito time), and between setting up our campsite and not properly spraying down with insect repellent we did get chow-boned that first night. Kathy probably had 15 bites on her right thigh alone. We learned the hard way and we were better prepared the rest of the visit. We would use a lotion repellent inside the RV and then spray the heavy duty stuff over our clothes when we stepped out. It worked!

The first picture below is the pond across the gravel road from our campsite...about fifteen feet from our Coach. The second pic is out of our bedroom window and the third was out the front windshield of the RV. It was a jungle out there...but a beautiful and splendid jungle it was.

The first day we went to the thriving metropolis (Not!) of Everglade City and took an airboat tour of the Everglades. It was awesome! Ryan, the driver plowed through parts at 50 mph. Whipping around like a Wildman but in control the entire time. Disney had nothing over this ride. Ryan also slowed it down and gave us a blow-by-blow of the surroundings and provided insight on the birds, plants, and yes, the alligators too. The video directly below is a quick twenty second airboat experience. The one below that is over two minutes. If you have the time, it shows you how we're really wipping around in a tight but glorious space. If you want to see an additional video of our driver getting out of the boat and feeding a ten foot alligator a couple cheetos let us know and we'll send it to you directly. That one was over three minutes so we didn't want to take up the space but it was awfully entertaining to us And hopefully to you too.

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/b79b56_19e554d5d2834ca7ac77a8edaf71f790/1080p/mp4/file.mp4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItF0RvTC71A

After the airboat tour we went to Wooten’s down the road a piece for a swamp buggy tour. The swamp buggy went in the water and on land. The one hour ride took us into the prairies, mangroves, and swamps of Big Cyprus National Preserve. It was beautiful and yet a little eerie at the same time. Mitch the buggy driver displayed his gladesmanship with exacting detail, great stories, and even whipped out his phone for more insight and pictures. He was passionate about his work. One time when we got up to talk to us he left the buggy in drive…haha! Brad thinks about doing that all the time when he’s driving the RV. Thankfully, he hasn’t’ done that too. After the buggy ride we went to the Wooten gator farm. It was almost as much as a zoo as it it was a gator farm. When we walked in a barefooted dude was in a cage with a twelve foot gator talking shop. After, he started passing around baby gators like a doobie to the fifteen of us in attendance. They also had lions, tigers and no bears but they did ha have a Siberian tiger too. It was much better than we anticipated.

On day three we made it to Everglades National Park for a boat tour of the 10,000 Islands. It was enjoyable, quite a bit more laid back compared to the previous day but neat nevertheless. Everglades National Park consists of 10.9 million acres but also includes these Islands off of the northeastern part of the park. During our ride we had a handful of dolphin sightings. The captain and tour director (the same guy), pointed out and named all the birds we saw and whenever there was a dolphin sighting he'd slow the boat down for better viewing and coax the dolphins "into getting a free ride". "The free ride" was the dolphin catching the extra power behind the wake created by the motor and followed the boat.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8ztpd0TUXA

The next day we wanted to slow it down so we went to the that thriving metropolis of Everglade City (Not!). We went to the Rod and Gun Club for a drink. This place was very unique, very eccentric, very Everglades City. They only took cash which we didn’t know until the check came. Brad had to leave the place and go to two places before he found a working ATM. Oh yeh, Kathy did beat Brad’s ass in eight ball. Then, we went to Joanie’s for a luncheon crabfest. We ate a dozen hard shell crabs while shooting the breeze with our Server and the manager. It was a lot of fun. The crabs were good but Maryland crabs we have to say are bigger and better.

Our last day in the Everglades, we went to the Shark Valley entrance to Everglades National Park. This was a forty-five minute drive from our campground but boy was it well worth it. We took a 15 mile tram ride while stopping at a lookout tower halfway. We saw a half dozen gators along the ride along with fantastic birds and wonderful vegetation that they called ‘Islands”. The tour guide provided great informative detail and insight. After the tram tour we grabbed our picnic lunch and then took our bikes around the same fifteen miles we just traveled. Except this time we did it on our own time, stopping along the way and checking out gators, birds and wildlife on our own time.

For the eight weeks we‘ve been on tour we haven’t missed an Eagles game yet. This Sunday won’t be any different with the exception to being in the Everglades.we called on “Sports Bar” to make sure they would have the game on.They said, “ sorry, we don’t have tv’s. Ha! We found the Gator’s Crossroads a biker’s bar in Naples about 20 minutes from our campground. We got there with 50 bikers outside listening to a live band as we wandered inside for the game. In order to tend barbthere you had to be female and either have 12 tattoos or three teeth…or both! We had a hoot! Besides the Birds winning we had as much fun talking with the people at the bar. Boy, were they entertaining. Salt of the earth people. Good times!

As a bonus for reading down this far, we included a picture above of the smallest Post Office in America. It was only a five minute ride from our campground and we had to include the pic of the dear head when we made our trip to the campground dumpster. What a trip. Ha! Thank you so much for following our journey. We appreciate you coming along with us for the ride. Have a very-very happy Thanksgiving! Kathy & Brad