This is the Everglades, and I find it beautiful, but they say that in the summer, it's unbearable here. We stayed for two nights at a ritzy RV Resort so we could be here (but now we see there are places we could have stayed that weren't in our books). We paid $50 a night to stay at a 5-star full-facility camp--I can't call this camping. There are two hot tubs, three pools (one heated), tennis courts, boat docks, trash pickup, movies, cable TV and crafts. You can't have a fire though, and there's noplace to put a hammock. Here are a few pictures:






We took a boat ride into Everglades National Park yesterday. The captain was just the right combination of informative and gently funny. I'd like him to be our guide again. He took us around some of the 15,000 islands off the shore here. They're mangrove hammocks, with no fresh water sources on them, and no wildlife except birds (and one raccoon who has adapted to them). No alligators, which disappointed Katie, no manatee that day, and only one glimpse at a dolphin, but plenty of osprey nests and other birds, and it was really nice just to be out on the water on a pretty day. Here is me on the boat:

Some (insane) folks canoe 99 miles from here through these islands to Flamingo, Florida, which is the southernmost (inland) tip. The trip takes them seven to ten days, and I cannot imagine bringing all the food and water they must need, nevermind sleeping on the little wooden platforms (there is no real dry land to stop at--the mangrove islands are not sandy, just a tangle of mangrove roots supporting the tall trees, so the park service has built low platforms for these canoers) or worrying it might rain on you one night. Well, I guess it would be fun for a day or two.

Katie did real well on the 90 minute boat trip, but I was thankful we didn't choose an airboat ride, which initially sounded good to me and Mark. Turns out they're 3-hours long, they're loud, and (if they would even have let her on) she would have had to stay put the whole time. This was only 90 minutes and had an inside floor we could go to when it got too windy upstairs.

So we got a tip from the park rangers on a spot where we could see some alligators next. It was road 839, heading north from the Tamimami Trail (Hwy 41). It's just a dirt road off the highway, with a 15-foot channel running beside it (all the roads have these; maybe they were dug to create the roads themselves, to elevate the roads enough out of the swamp to make them dry). For some reason, it's like a little wildlife preserve, this little road. We saw dozens of alligators, all but one on the other side of the channel, but one was just ten feet from our car, on our side of the water. He was little, only maybe 5 feet long, but I kept my eye on him and he kept his eye on me while Mark took pictures. Here are the pics:

Katie slept for most of the ride, then Mark woke her up at the end, where there was a wooden walkway and some more gators to see. She enjoyed that, and we also got to see some big turtles and/or tortoises along that road. The map makes it look as though you can reach it from Hwy 75 as well, and I'd recommend it to anyone coming this way.

This last picture is of the smallest post office in the United States. It's about 25 square feet inside, but they do eight feet (high) of mail bags a day!

Today we're driving to Florida City, the jumping off point to the Keys. Supposedly a city park here will have room for us, though they don't take reservations. We'll see in a few minutes, and from here we'll see the Keys and check out for ourselves if there is anyplace there we can stay (no state parks show room, but sometimes they reserve a few for walk-ins). The private parks can be $90 a night, but we've heard there is free dry camping to be had, so we'll investiagate...