Midway Campground, Big Cypress National Park, Everglades FL 2/11/2013 - 2/15/2013

 After spending six months going east and south, we are now headed north and west--to be back in Idaho in June!  We had nine days until we were due in our next campground in Alabama, so we decided to spend four of them in the Everglades.  We heard there were a lot of alligators there, but we couldn't believe it.  About ten miles before we got the the park we started seeing them.  A canal runs along the road and every 50 feet or so there are alligators lying along the bank.

 

I think I must have taken a hundred pictures of them (don't worry--I am only putting a few on the BLOG!)

The campground we picked to stay at was Midway.  It in Big Cypress National Park so we were able to use our "old age card" (America the Beautiful card) for 50% off.  Yeah!

This little park is just beautiful.  It is one of only two in Big Cypress and has only 26 sites.  We got there early on a Monday morning, hoping to get one--which we did.  We only had electricity (50 amp!) but there was a dump station and water available.  The roads and sites were all paved, with cement slabs, and a circled a pretty little lake.

Each campsite has two trees, including a palm tree.  You can see our Dodge Neon parked where we are.

Here is a closer view of where we got to camp for four days.

Apparently, there are four local gaters in the lake.  We only saw one and he was just swimming around in the middle.  The Ranger told us that earlier, one had come calling at a campsite and was waiting at their front door the next morning.  Another time a camper threw some chicken to one of the gators and then set his empty cooler next to their rig.  The next morning his cooler was in lots of pieces.  That is one thing you don't do is feed alligators.  Once you do, they associate people with something to eat.  And then if they continue to be a problem, they are disposed of!  It is against the law to feed them.

There was a unique bird house where the houses looked like large gourds.  It was frequented by quite a few birds.

The Rangers gave programs at this little amphitheater back in the woods.  Were were there only during the week and the programs were presented on the weekends so we didn't get to see any of them.

 

The entrance into and the exit out of the park had these really pretty palm trees.  They were very smoothly trimmed up to the green part, which I assume is new growth?!?  

 

We had a big group of "birders" come through the park one day.  And, our neighbors were "birders" and left each morning with their binoculars and hunted birds all day.  I can understand why--there are tons of birds and some really strange looking ones.  These pretty white ones were always in a large group.  There was another bird that is black, with a brown chest and neck.  He was always sitting in the trees with his wings spread open like he was going to take flight.  We were told by a Ranger that his feathers are not waterproof and he has to dry them after each dip in the water to get food.

At one of the information centers, the banks of the canal are all cleaned off so lots of alligators come in each morning and spend the day there--sunning themselves if it is warm. They are not very aggressive--unless there is a mama and baby.  She keeps her young with her up to two years.  So, sometimes they have little ones two years apart to watch out for.  They make a nest and lay almost 60 eggs, but only 2-3 make it to 4 years old, which is considered an adult.  All kinds of birds, animals, and even other alligators (males) like to eat the tasty little ones.

We went to the alligator lecture by the Ranger and learned so much about them.  They are actually nocturnal--they hunt for their food and are active pretty much at night and sleep a lot in the daytime. They only have to eat every 2-3 weeks.

They are cold-blooded reptiles so they have to work at keeping their body a constant temperature in order to digest their food.  If they are too cold, their food just sits in their stomach and rots, and they may die from this.

We went to another visitors center and got to see a couple of manatees.  This is the nose of one.

Manatees can get very large and are called "sea cows" because they feed on grass.  They have to eat about 10% of their body weight in grass each day to survive and they have to have warm water.

There were several places you could stop and go on nature walks.  This one had a great boardwalk with little picnic areas along the way.  A lot of the land is really swampy and you get really wet and muddy on some of the trails.

Some of the root system of these trees are above ground because a lot of the time the water level is above the roots.  It happened to be dry this day.  But, one day it rained while we were there and all of this area was flooded.  It was amazing to see how fast these areas filled with water.  All of the canals filled way up, also.  They told us that Big Cypress Park recycles its own water.  It evaporates and then it rains the same water right back.  It is the dry season now, but later on, it will rain every day for half the year, getting around 60 inches of rain, along with run-off water from the land above them.

These flowers are really pretty.  Their seeds land on trees and the roots get nourishment through the sap of the tree.  The ten or more varieties of orchids grow this same way.  When they are grown in your home, they grow in wood chips instead of soil.

We saw this friendly little snake.  There are a lot of poisonous snakes in the Everglades.  A tour came by and the guide identified this one as a harmless water snake, but we weren't getting too close to him.

As we were walking back, this little green lizard poked his head up.  His color really made him very visible.

We were still enough that he came up onto the walkway and I got this great pic of him!

As we were sitting at a picnic area in the visitor's center, this man pulled up with his "RV," pulled by a little Ford Ranger.  He is from Oregon and was very interesting to talk to.  He said that he paid $250 for the truck sleeper and then added all of the amenities--patio, sun roof, etc.  He carries a barbecue and a small refrigerator in the back of his pickup, with an inverter hooked to his truck battery.  He says he never camps any place he has to pay for.  I am sure he is enjoying life just as much as all of us in our fancy RVs!

This is what happens to alligators when they try to cross the road!

 

We had a great time at Big Cypress National Park and are so glad we decided to spend some time there.  We tried to get reservations on a 5-hour canoe trip that the Rangers do, but it was full.  We showed up that morning, hoping someone would not show, but they all did, so we didn't get to go.  They only had six canoes.  Oh well, maybe next time.

Fiesta Key RV Park, Long Key, FL 2/4/11 - 2/11/2013

We got off the cruise and headed back to Peace River campground where the Journey was stored for the week.  We stayed there that night and headed for the Florida Keys the next morning.  The word "key" means "island."  We were so excited that we have an ROD park in the keys and were planning on walking on the beach every day!  RIGHT!  The keys have no beaches with sand on them, unless the sand is imported. There are coral reefs about four miles out and this prevents the waves from bringing in sand to the beaches, so most of them are very rocky or have rock sea walls all along them to keep the erosion in control.. The Upper Keys islands are remnants of large coral reefs, which became fossilized and exposed as sea level declined. The Lower Keys are composed of sandy-type accumulations of limestone grains produced by plants and marine organisms (info taken from Wikipedia.)

  

It was amazing to travel on the overseas highway.  Lots of times there is water on both sides of you--on the left is the Atlantic Ocean and on the right is the Gulf of Mexico.  We crossed over a long bridge and there was our park on the Fiesta Key and we could see it on a little island, almost surrounded by the Gulf of Mexico. 

Fiesta Key Campground is in our ROD system, so after paying our yearly dues of $149/year, it is one of almost 100 parks we get to stay at no charge.  We met a couple who were staying there in a "public" status and they thought they got a pretty good deal at $700/week! 

The entrance to the park was really pretty, with all of the palm trees.  It seemed like we were in a foreign country instead of in the States.

 

The colors of the club house and other buildings were pretty wild, but they really blended in with the trees and plants.

The swimming pool was above because the ground is so hard and rocky that it is difficult to dig deep holes.

Again, we got a great site, backed up to the trees, with a palm tree.  It was pretty close to other RVs, but we didn't spend too much time at home.

Our site was very close to the water.  When you stepped out in the road in front of the Journey, this was the scene in front of us--the gulf of Mexico.

 

There was a gazebo at "Sunset Point" just down from us and every night campers would group there with their drinks and snacks and watch the sunset.  It was only about six or seven sites down the road from us and we went there most of the nights we were there.

I got lots of pictures of the sunset.  There was a boat that was out there most evenings--I am sure he went there just so he could make all of our photos more interesting.

 

We had to do laundry one day.  It was an open-air laundry room, right on the marina.  While we were sitting there, we actually saw a stingray in the water.  We were told that there was a local mama and baby manatee and also a couple of large sea turtles, but we never saw them.

I got kind of warm so I sat in a boat slip and put my feet in the water, hoping a stingray or some other sea creature didn't come nibble at my toes!

There were a lot of pelicans along the dock area.  They liked it when the fishermen came in and cleaned their fish at the fish cleaning stations.

 

We took a day trip to Key West, the southern-most key.  Our campground is at mile post 70 and Key West is at mile post 1.  This is a picture of the 7-mile bridge.  It is the longest of the bridges on the overseas highway.  The next longest one is 3 miles.  We were told that there are 42 bridges in the 100 miles of the keys.

This is the marker at the southern most spot of Florida.  We didn't get off of the trolley tour we were on to get a picture of us in front of it because the line was too long, so I didn't get a very good picture of it.  It is only 90 miles to Cuba from the marker and, on a very clear day, you can actually see Cuba.

The cemetery in Key West is all above ground.  We thought it was because of the water table, but we were told that it is because the ground is too hard to dig in, being coral and rock.

Key West is the largest city in the keys, with a population of 32% of the entire keys, which is about 95,500, and is really a tourist city, with lots of museums and shops.  There were two cruise ships that were there on a stop the day we went, which put over 4,000 more tourists on the streets that day.  This is a big stature in front of the Museum of Art and History.

This is a banyan tree.  A lot of its root system is above ground, probably because the soil is not very deep in the keys.

Harry S. Truman spent a lot of time in Key West when he was the President.  He spent some working vacations there, so they dubbed this building the Little White House.  The government owned a big area, with a lot of beautiful homes on it, but has since been sold to private sector and most of them are rented out as time shares or condos to tourists.

This building used to be the military hospital.  There is a law in Key West that no building can be torn down.  If it is damaged in a storm or anything, it has to be restored.  If the building has a gold star on it, it means that it has been totally restored to its original state on the outside.  If there is also a plaque under the star it means that the inside of the building is also original or has been restored to the original condition.  And, there can be no new buildings built in the older part of Key West.

We had a great lunch at the Blue Fish.  Terry didn't expect his hamburger to be quite so big!

 

There was one beach that we found that actually had some white sand on it (imported, of course.)  It was at Anne's Beach and it was a public beach and was free!  The whole beach had a boardwalk along it, mostly in the trees, and every little ways it had these picnic areas.  They filled up fast so one day we got there early enough to claim one for the day.  We brought our lunch and lounge chairs and had a great time.

I found this really cool shell that was about three inches long.  It had a large hermit crab in it.  I gave it to some little boys who were playing on the beach.  They had a great time with it and their dad made them put it back in the water when they left "so the crab would be happy."

The water was very shallow.  You had to walk out a long ways before the water was over your knees, but we had a good time just wading in the warm water.  We didn't get to do any snorkeling while we were in the keys, which we were hoping to do.  Most of the snorkeling is done from boats about four miles out where the Florida reef is located.

 

There is a lot of private land along the road where there is enough land to build houses.  A lot of the homes are build on "stilts" with a garage on the bottom.  At times during the storms, there is water clear across the roads and most everywhere.

 

There was a house that was just down from our campground that was unfinished.  It kind of had it's own little island, except for the driveway from the road.  There was actually a film company filming that area for a couple of days, so maybe we will see it in a movie some day.  It would be a beautiful place to live.  I asked Terry if he would buy it for me and he said, "Sure."  So, some day we may come back to the Florida Keys and invite all of our friends to come visit us in our beautiful home!

Caribbean Cruise 1/27/2013 - 2/3/2013



We decided that since we would be in Florida this year, we would go on a Caribbean Cruise.  I took tons of pictures and ended up with almost 80 on this posting.  So, just to warn you--if you don't have time to go through all of them, just know that I put them in as memories for our journal, which is this blog, when I re-format it and print it. 

 

We have cruised on  the Carnival line before, and found this ship very nice.  It held about 3,000 passengers and around 2,000 crew members.  Our friends from Boring OR, Larry and Elaine, went with us.

These are the high-rise buildings in Miami as we are leaving the port.

We looked down and saw this ferry boat carrying vehicles--some with people in them and some with the people standing on deck.  We thought it a little strange until . . .

. . . we saw Fisher Island with its beautiful buildings and grounds.  The only way to get to it is by boat.

The harbor we were going out of went by the famous Miami Beach.  You can tell the weather was beautiful by the number of people on the beach.

It didn't take Terry and Larry long to find one of their favorite spots on the ship!

Another favorite spot--our little stateroom.  It was on Deck 1--the bottom of the ship.  We climbed a lot of stairs during those 7 days!

This is the middle of the ship, looking down on several decks at a time.

The Lido deck had three swimming pools, plus a kiddie pool, a big water slide (I wanted to slide down it, but there was always too long of a line of kids waiting to go down and I didn't think they would let me cut in front of them), and a really fun outdoor movie screen.  Several nights we went up there after the entertainment and had ice cream, hot chocolate, and popcorn while we watched the movie.

If you have ever gone on a cruise, you know that eating is one of the main activities.  This was dress-up night for dinner.

Elaine and Larry looked very nice!

Food was great, as always.  And, on this special night we had lobster tail!

 

One night we had an especially crazy waiter.  The cook walked by and the waiter grabbed his hat and put it on Terry.

 

Then, he took napkins and made a funny hat for Terry.  He also made something strange that he told Terry to use his imagination to figure out. 

So, Terry decided it would work good as a bib for Larry, along with the crazy hat the waiter made for him.  I think Terry and Larry encouraged this waiter by messing up their silverware so that every time he came by our table, he had to straighten it for them!

 

Most nights, the waiters entertained us by singing and sometimes even dancing on the tables!

 

Each night as we went back to our rooms, we had a new little friend waiting for us. 

I really liked the little frog.  Our steward was very talented.  He also had a very good memory.  Whenever he saw us in the hall (almost daily) he would shake our hands and call us "Mr. Terry and Miss Suzanne."

One night we walked in and didn't see an animal sitting on our bed, but soon noticed hm just "hanging around."

Elaine and I went to a class on making towel animals.  It was lots of fun.  I thought my little dog looked kind of good with my glasses on him.

 



This is the very large theater where they had great shows every night.

Elaine and I even got to perform on it--we attended a line dancing class.  The audience really cheered for us (even though most of the audience was made up of our husbands.)

We would get lost coming and going from our room, at least once a day.  One time we got lost and ended up in the part of the ship where the captain and crew lived.  We almost knocked on the captain's door, but decided we better not!

One day they had an ice carving demonstration.  He started with this big block of ice . . .

. . . and ended up with a head of an Indian Chief.

We are so glad that Larry and Elaine came with us.  It was kind of a birthday celebration for Larry, although his birthday was a few days before the cruise.  We had to surprise him with a birthday cake one day we were at sea all day. 

We enjoyed relaxing one afternoon in these nice, padded lounges.  It is a good thing that we were off in a corner because there was some really loud, gross sounds coming out of Terry while he "just rested his eyes."

Elaine and Larry had one next to us.

As we walked down the hall and saw all of these official looking men, we wondered who was driving the boat!

We found some fun things to bring home to the grandkids.  Our granddaughters' hands will look much nicer than Grandma's old hands, with their new "peek-a-boo"  polish that goes on clear and then turns bright pink in the sunshine.

Hopefully, we got the right sizes of "Jamaica" and "Grand Cayman" t-shirts for the boys. 

Cozumel, Mexico

  

Cozumel was the first port we stopped at.  It is an Island that belongs to Mexico.  It is really pretty, and very flat.  After the ship docked we had quite a little ways to walk to shore, although it looks a long way in this picture.

Here is Larry, Terry, and me leaving the boat for Cozumel, leaving behind our ship and another Carnival ship that docked with us.

Larry, Elaine, and Terry are waiting for our tour to start.

On our excursion in Cozumel, we went on a jeep caravan.  After we took the top down, Terry and Larry got in the front, with Terry driving . . .

. . . and Elaine and I got in back.  Here we go on a tour around Cozumel Island in our Jeep Wrangler!

Our tour guide was great.  He got a kick out of telling us that our first stop would be at the Pee Pee Station.

There was a model of a traditional kitchen area where a lady made us corn tortillas that were cooked on hot rocks and covered with a homemade salsa sauce.  She was wearing a traditional hand-made dress.

We learned all about tequila and had a chance to taste several flavors of it.  Terry and I didn't taste any, but smelled all of the different flavors.  Elaine is here making a toast before she takes a sample.  We learned a lot about tequila.  True tequila is made from the blue agave plant and has no added sugar, alcohol, or anything else.  Because of that, we were told that you will not have a hangover after drinking it.  We were shown how to tell the true tequila by shaking the bottle.  If there are no bubbles, it is true Mexican tequila.  (When we got back to the ship, we went into the shops and shook all of the tequila bottles--they all had bubbles!)

We went to a local Tequila Hacienda where they had all flavors of tequila in really pretty hand-blown bottles.  I really liked the small bottles, so I bought one.  I will use the bottle to put some agave nectar in.  It is a sugar substitute also made from the agave plant is very good for you.

Larry and Elaine had a drink in some hand-made mugs.  I dumped my bottle of tequila in Larry's (it is a good thing Terry was driving the Jeep) and he was feeling pretty good!

There were a couple of iguanas running around the field where the agave were growing.

There were also coconut trees with coconuts almost ready to harvest.

Our next stop was at a beautiful beach.  We waded in the water for a while.

At an outside bar they had these cool hammock swings.  I have always kind of wanted one and now that I sat in one, I definitely need one for our patio in Emmett!

 

 I talked Terry into posing for a picture with this big iguana and the parrot.  The man who had them would charge us $10 for taking and printing the picture, or $5 if we took pictures with our own camera.  So, I took the $5 pictures--just for the grandkids.  I couldn't hold the iguana--I was afraid if he moved I would squeal and drop him!

 

Grand Cayman

 

There are three islands that make up the Cayman Islands.  We went to the largest one--Grand Cayman.  It was also a very flat island, but very pretty.  The water was beautiful, just like the water at Cozumel.

 

The ship anchored out in the Gulf of Mexico and we tendered into Grand Cayman.

I don't know if you noticed, but there are more pictures of me in this posting than usual.  Well, I lost the first several days of pictures from my camera (I later took them to a photo shop in Florida and retrieved them) so Elaine let me copy all of her pictures.  I have used some of hers in this posting.  Thanks so much, Elaine!

I seemed to have found a new friend!

 

The local people had set up a "flea market" where the tender boats let off the tourists.  Elaine and I both got a cute swimming suit cover-up dress.

We again had a great tour guide for this excursion.  Our tour began in the Capital of Grand Cayman, George Town, with lots of historic buildings.  Then we went out into the countryside to Pedro St. James Castle.  It is where their first government met and where their constitution was made. 

It was filled with the original mahogany furniture.  Even the floor was made of mahogany.  It was beautiful.

The government officials met around this table.

This is the way beds were made--metal frames with ropes to lay the mattresses on. 

Their kitchen was in this little hut and was where they cooked the food in an effort to keep the house cooler.

Our next stop was the Tortuga Rum store where we got to sample rum cake and also severl kinds of rum.  Larry and Elaine said the rum didn't taste that good!

Behind the rum store, there were some animals in some cages.  This large iguana was there.  He would be pretty scary to meet up with in the wild!

Our next stop was the town of Hell.  It is a very popular tourist place. 

And, yes, we did send some postcards to family that were postmarked from "Hell."  That seems to be the thing to do!

The town is named what it is because of these coral-like rocks that were deposited on the land by the water.  They are very sharp, although our tour guide said that as a child he would run around on them barefooted!

I thought this was kind of a cute sign.

When we got there, our tour guide assured us that he would be able to get us out of Hell--to not worry.  It was so funny when we went back out to get in the little bus, it had a flat tire!  He went next door and bought some "canned" air and we made it to the service station to finish putting air in.  But at our next stop, Seven Mile Beach, it went flat and he had to go get a new bus!  He said that in seven years that this had never happened to him before.

Seven Mile Beach was very pretty, but it is a public beach and was very crowded.  We got some drinks and ice cream and waded in the water..

Elaine decided to get the top of her hair braided.  It was fun watching her, but I think it would have given me a headache.  It was quite tight, but it looked really cute on her.  She kept the braids in the rest of the cruise.  There was a man on our ship that got his beard braided!

I, Terry, and Larry are taking a little rest before the bus comes to take us back to the ship.

 

Ocho Rios, Jamaica

Jamaica, was our last stop, and probably our favorite Island.  This is the tip of one end of it, where Ocho Rios is located.

There are a lot of mountains and rain forests in Jamaica.  All of the people who worked for the tourist companies had very neat, colorful uniforms on.  Most of the women's uniforms were skirts and blouses.  They all looked very professional.

Our first stop was to an 18th century estate called Prospect Plantation.  We drove to a little refreshment area where we got a complimentary fruit drink (and other drinks if we purchased them.)

Then we got on an open air carriage, pulled by a tractor.  Even the driver of the old Ford tractor had on a nice uniform and dress shoes!

The plants and trees were beautiful.

Sugar cane is a big product in Jamaica.  This is a machine they used years ago to process the cane.

We stopped at a fruit stand and a man climbed a coconut tree--in his bare feet!  He climbed it after a gal in our group tried to climb it (when she was "volunteered" by the tour guide.)

They told us about all of the different kinds of fruit grown on the plantation.  These are "baby" bananas.

The plantation home was beautiful inside and the gardens around it were amazing.  A Jamaican woman in local costume gave us the tour of it.

Also on the plantation grounds they had some ostriches (we had our picture taken with the ostrich egg) . . .

. . . and some camels  Terry and I didn't even get off the wagon to see the camels.  No one in our group were interested in riding one, but Elaine did get a picture with one.  It seemed a little strange to have camels in Jamaica.  Even the tour guide thought so.  But, anything for the tourists, I guess!

Our last stop was Dolphin Cove.  It is where they take tours to in order to swim with the dolphins and the stingrays.  We were there to each lunch and play on the beach.  They fed us a really good lunch of hamburgers and hotdogs (all Jamaican, of course), salads and yummy fruit. 

Their sinks at the restrooms were outside and very pretty. 

There was also a nature trail.  One display was this replica of the homemade bobsleds they used in the movie "Cool Runnings" and there was a write-up about the Jamaican Olympic bobsled team.

There was also a bird aviary.  They put food on our hands and these pretty little birds would land on on us to eat.  I asked if these were native birds and they said, "No.  They are brought in from another country."  Another touristy thing!

They even liked Terry!

I had a couple on my head but they are hard to see in this picture.

We had fun at the beach.  It was pretty rocky, but there was an area that had sand and we enjoyed swimming in the warm water.  Terry said to not take a picture of him in his swimming suit, but I did anyway!

This is as close as you will get to seeing me in my swimming suit--as long as I have the camera in my hand, or have the ability to edit this blog!

 

We had a great cruise.  Thanks to Larry and Elaine for coming with us and for putting up with the excursions we choose.  The tours were nice, but sometimes not too exciting.  If you have gotten to the end of this posting, thanks for hanging in there with the length of it.  "Ya, Mon!"