Everglades National Park

Since the day we found out Michael got the job here in Florida we have been looking forward to our first (and probably only) trip to the everglades. I think what we didn't realize is that we should have gone like the day we got here and not waited til the end of May. It was hot. And humid. And people say there's a difference in dry heat and humid heat, and there is, there definitely is. But to all you people complaining about how hot it is in the dry heat, at least you can breathe! I think humid heat is way way worse than dry heat. And I feel like I can say that with a pretty unbiased, albeit pregnant, opinion since I've visited Arizona in August, Utah all through the summer, and been pregnant in Idaho in the summer. Humidity sucks! Literally. It's sucking the life right out of me. I don't know how I'm gonna last the rest of the summer like this. And it really hasn't reached the super hot months yet either. Oh boy. I'm in for it.

Anyway. I got everything packed for everybody, which is quite a task all by itself, then you add in pregnancy brain. I think I made 2 or 3 lists of things I needed to pack and compared my lists to see what I forgot each time. And I would ask Michael what else we needed, but he usually just says underwear so he's not much help sometimes. Hey, at least we'll never forget underwear! Once we got there I realized the only thing I had forgotten was an undershirt for me. And undershirts are essential in my outfit selections. Thank goodness for Walmart being close by. Once I got the car loaded up all we had to do was wait for Michael to get home. After he got off work we left and started our 4 hour drive south. I had Ivan sitting in the very back so I could sit next to Charlotte and try to keep the two of them entertained for the most easy going drive we could experience. Little did I know Charlotte was just going to cry for 2 hours of the drive. Nothing I did could appease her. Nothing made her happy and nothing made her stop crying. At least not until we got to the hotel. Once we got there we figured out why she was so upset. I had thrown her dinosaur stuffed animal into her seat so she could have her luvvie close by to keep her company. This is her toy that stays in her bed and she uses it to calm herself when she sleeps at night or naptime. I did the same with Ivan's Nemo toy. I strapped Ivan in his car seat and was careful to remove the toy before he sat on it, then handed it back so he could hold it. Michael strapped Charlotte in her seat and we left. I didn't think twice about whether she had her toy with her or not because I knew I put it in her seat before we left. I didn't think at all about the fact that it was probably still in her seat with her on top of it. Poor thing. That had to be pretty uncomfortable. 

Ivan thought this was a fun bed!
No, he didn't actually sleep there. 

The hotel we stayed at was the Floridian in Homestead, FL. It was actually a really nice hotel. We still had an active Marriott friends and family discount paper and had looked at staying in a Marriott but even with the discount it was twice the price of the Floridian. It looked a little sketchy on the outside and I was nervous when we pulled in, but our room was really clean and it was awesome to have 2 beds in there. There was a pool, a playground, and a full continental breakfast. Friday we opted to actually use our hotel room and once we got there, we watched TV (a huge luxury to us), and had a good night's sleep. The kids were up pretty early on Saturday, which was really good cuz then we could have an earlier start on our day. We loaded up on breakfast and grabbed a few things to take with us for snacks. Then we piled in the car and got going. The park was about a half hour away from our hotel, but of course we had to stop at Walmart first and get me a new undershirt. After that excursion, we made our way to the middle of nowhere. 

SATURDAY

It was already starting to heat up outside when we began our first hike. I was definitely glad we had started out early that day. I had done a bit of research online for the best places to visit in the park and I'm really glad I did. We opened our experience with the Anhinga Trail. It was a short walk from the parking lot to a swamp away from the world. I seriously felt like once you were on the trail you were transported to the untamed, unexplored wild swamp land that this whole region had once been. It blew my mind. 

double crested cormorant

And we saw tons of wild life. There's a little pond by the gift shop and it had a couple alligators swimming around in it, as well as turtles, all sorts of fish, and birds everywhere. I know I've talked about the anhinga before, but it is turning out to be one of my favorite birds. It has this super long neck that it likes to curve up like a snake and this spear-like, razor sharp beak it uses to impale fish. The anhinga will dive into and under the water and swim after its prey which it then spears with its beak and swallows whole. Then they surface and sun bath to dry off. These are the birds the trail is named after, and rightfully so. They were all over the place! 

See the baby alligator in the background? And by baby I mean maybe a 2 or 3 year old. 

The path goes farther away from the parking lot and follows a small creek from the pond by the gift shop back to more ponds deeper in the swamp. All along this creek were alligators just floating by. And this is literally just a few feet from the trail. No fence. Just a small railing that supposed to keep you from bothering the alligators. Ha! Like I need help staying away from those creepy things! We saw some soft shell turtles. Have you ever seen one? It's a freshwater turtle that has a soft shell, imagine that. It has this really long pointed head and is fast in the water. They eat fish, big fish. And they're mean! 

We didn't use the zoom to take this picture. 

That's a soft shell turtle under the rail. It's probably at least as big as Charlotte. 

Ivan LOVES using his binoculars. Although I'm pretty sure he didn't need them to see this giant grasshopper. Maybe he's using them backwards so the grasshopper seems smaller?

The trail splits into a boardwalk loop that takes you right over top of the swamp. You look down and just a few feet below you are alligators chilling in the water. And there were cichlids, gar, red slider turtles, and a slough of other kinds of fish and turtles. Ivan had a blast looking down between the boards and seeing all the fish. I think he had a hard time seeing the turtles because he kept asking where they were. 

Of course we saw tons of these little lizards. Michael learned a new trick at work, you can get the lizard to bite you and they'll just hang there, just like this. 

See what I mean? The boardwalk is right over top of the swamp. The kids both took turns pushing the stroller. Who knew that would be the highlight of the trip?

Sunbathing is all the fad these days. 

We saw quite a few great blue herons and great egrets as well as a few green herons. That has to be the highest concentration of green herons I've ever seen. All of the wading birds we saw were probably using the trees around the ponds to nest in. They are nesting now, either building or laying on eggs, and it was cool to see so many in the same area. 

I took this picture! This green heron is so cool! 

Another view of a green heron. Amazing how much they can shrink their necks. 

Here's a great egret. 

There was another trail called the Gumbo Limbo Trail that started back at the gift shop where the Anhinga Trail started. It was really getting hot outside by now and I was kinda looking forward to walking in the canopy of the trees. Nope. That was a bad idea. We made it about 50 feet into the trail and quickly turned around and ran away, with a swarm of hundreds of mosquitoes following behind us. That seemed to be a trend that would follow us throughout the day. The second you're out of the sun, the bugs attack! The cool thing about the Gumbo Limbo trees is that they were used to make all the carousel horses back in the day. 

The entrance to the Gumbo Limbo Trail. That's a GL tree there on the right. 

Later we would go to the Mahogany Hammock, after drenching ourselves with bug spray. That trail was cool just because the trees were so close together and the woods were so thick that I couldn't imagine any wildlife making it through there.  And it was loud in there. If the wind blew a tiny bit you thought for sure a hurricane was coming. Just try and be stealthy walking through there. And again the mosquitoes chased us away. 

Haha! I'm trying to smile for a picture and get all the bugs off me at the same time. We couldn't walk this trail fast
enough!

Look at that stud! I don't know how he carried Ivan in the backpack when it was so stinkin hot. And I don't know why Ivan wanted to be in the backpack when it was that hot. But they had a good time. 

We made it to the visitors center in Flamingo, at the southern tip of Florida. It had boat tours, a marina, the visitors center, and a cafe place to eat at. It was cool to see the ocean since we'd been looking at freshwater all day. And the visitors center was really neat. It had this huge wood cutout of a tree with water under it and all these wooden cutouts of fish and birds to go with it. The cutouts had velcro attached to them and you could peel them off the tree and stick them anywhere you wanted. Ivan and Charlotte played with that for a half hour! Inside the little museum they had shells, fish replicas, and a giant mosquito replica. They also had this chart for how bad the mosquitoes are (from enjoyable to unpleasant to hysterical) and for Saturday it was all the way up to hysterical. Oh goody. 

There are fish on the bottom and birds and leaves to go in the tree. And the turtle painting in the background has all the saltwater turtles painted one on top of another to compare size. 

We walked around there for a while and tried to spot some of the endangered saltwater crocodiles but to no avail. Then we headed out of the park. Ivan fell asleep in the car, so we decided to just let him nap and head back to the hotel. The park didn't really have a whole lot that you could see by driving. It is a swamp after all so some of the places are pretty inaccessible other than by boat. Yea, you're not getting me in a canoe in alligator infested waters. Not happening. I felt like we'd done a fair viewing and we decided we could always come back in the evening if we wanted. 

The reason Ivan fell asleep in the car. It was his turn to ride in the stroller, which he really wanted, til he got in the stroller. Then he realize he couldn't push it if he was riding in it! 

Back at the hotel we went swimming, even though the water was really cold. Michael is a little water bug and while swimming down at the bottom, he ran his hands against the bottom of the pool and scraped his knuckles really bad. It took the skin right off all his knuckles on both hands. Who knew a swimming pool could have such an abrasive bottom! I guess that helps people keep better traction while walking, but it sure hurt Michael's hands. Then we went to play at the playground for a bit, but there was a guy smoking at the tables over there and it was really making me sick. Most of the time I don't mind cigarette smoke. My parents smoke and I think it's not as bad as some people make it out to be. But man that smoke was killing me. I could feel myself turning green, like on cartoons, and I had to get out of there! That made me jump in the pool and try and breath a little pool water so I could smell chlorine instead. I love the smell of pools! Man, I'm weird. It was getting to be dinner time so we headed up to our room, changed and set out to find something to eat. I wanted to eat somewhere that they didn't have anywhere else and couldn't make up my mind, so I though Ruby Tuesdays sounded good. We pulled into the parking lot and Charlotte was asleep. Dang it. The kids are not going to be good a sit down restaurant when they've been cooped up in the car all day, but then you add in waking up a toddler from her nap?! So not happening. We drove around a bit more and I thought it would be cool to go back to the gator place we saw on the way to Everglades NP (that's National Park for those who aren't as cool as me:) 

The Gator Grill offered actual alligator for a meal. So Michael tried that, I got a giant hamburger, and Ivan got chicken fingers. They had a few hammocks set up and an alligator replica. It was a pretty fun little place. Charlotte managed to nap through all of dinner. We rolled the windows down and sat close to the car so we could hear her if she cried. Not a peep out of her. And I did sit in the car to see how it felt to her and it wasn't any hotter there than out on the picnic table where we ate. 

My burger was huge! And amazing. Really really fresh and totally made in the south. Gator actually wasn't that bad. The way they cooked it, it had the texture of chicken and tasted fine. 

Relaxing in a hammock. Ivan thought this was really fun. 

After that delicious meal, we headed back into the park. We wanted one more look at the Anhinga Trail to see what the wildlife would be doing at dusk. That was not the best idea we've ever had. The bugs were out and the alligators weren't. We saw on up close, a little too close, when it jumped out of the woods to our right and walked right across the trail we were on. Just to get to the other side. It was a big one too! The rest of the time I'm freaking out thinking, what if an alligator sees Ivan or Charlotte and thinks, "mmm, dinner," then jumps out of the woods and snatches them?! Scary. I was on edge the rest of the time and we did not stay long. We must have seen over 20 alligators in the big pond at the end of the trail when we hiked it in the morning. But this time? Maybe 4. It creeps me out to no end that alligators can hide just below the surface of the water with stealth like no other animal. 

The monster that crossed the trail. Those people are all much too close!

Freaking me out!

Just a turtle trying to eat what looks like an unripe mango. 

Ivan watching the turtle eat the fruit. He kept saying "Oh cool!" and "Wow!" Remember that group of people taking pictures of the alligator crossing the trail? The group to the left kept taking pictures of Ivan and Charlotte! I guess I have cute kids? And we do look really American, might as well take pictures of all forms of wildlife while visiting another country!

SUNDAY

On Sunday we took the opportunity to explore the Florida Keys. Well, on Key, just Key Largo. It was beautiful, but really, it just looked like the rest of Florida. We stopped at John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park which has the only coral reef in America. Michael did some snorkeling as saw some really cool fish. The "beach" that lead up to the water was not a good beach. It was probably the worst beach I've ever seen on the east coast. It was made of guess what? Coral! Which is not comfy for your feet or your bum. And the water got deep fast. That meant the kids and I found something else to do while Dad snorkeled. We threw rocks into the water, always a fun past time, got a double chocolate brownie Edy's ice cream cone, and terrorized innocent sunbathing bystanders with creepy toddler stares and glares. We also had some healthier snacks and good old fashioned running around. It was really fun, even if we didn't do much and I didn't take a single picture except for the sign on the way out.