I'm baaaack.......

Like a bad penny, I have once again returned!

Photos (along with sundry misspellings) are at:

http://web.mac.com/goodlenora/iWeb/Site/Library%2011.html

or http://web.mac.com/goodlenora then click on Library 11

The last I posted had us heading down to Port Charlotte, Florida by way of I-75. Not as pretty a drive as we’d hoped to see via Hwy 27, but also not flooded.

We arrived in Port Charlotte early afternoon, checked in at my friend’s, Harry and Marilyn, had time to chit chat for a bit, and then Kay, Marilyn, and I went over to the UU Church where Marilyn has some paintings in an art show. (The Unitarian Universalist (UU) Fellowship of Charlotte County sponsors ‘Art on the Wall’ every winter, and possibly during the summer, I don’t remember. Anyhow, Marilyn had some paintings in the show, so we went along for the Artist’s Reception)

It was great fun to sit and behave myself (for once) and have many members of my old Fellowship come in and nod to me, then do a double-take when they recognized me. The next day, Easter Sunday, was even better. A wonderful time of meeting and greeting old friends and new!

While in Port Charlotte, Kay and I spent some time with my sister, Val, and her husband, and then Marilyn, Kay and I spent a day going to Snook Haven on the Myakka River to listen to some ole-time banjo music before leaving for lunch near the beach, after which Marilyn and Kay went beach walking (I sat and watched people). Kay found some shark’s teeth and unbroken shells. The Gulf treats it’s shells gently, with few broken ones – unlike the surf of the Pacific, which more often than not batters the shells. And if the surf doesn’t, the gulls do so they can eat the tidbits contained therein. (The early Tarzan movies were filmed at Snook Haven.)

While at Snook Haven, I looked for alligators, but all I saw were tiny fish, including some Neon Tetras. Lots of mosses and bromiliads on the trees, but, still, I wanted to see the gators. Sigh.

Marilyn and Harry have a condo in Lake Suzy, and their condo is on a decent sized man-made lake, which is home to turtles, alligators, and sundry birds. They have a pair of Sandhill Cranes who have a newly hatched youngster, and the proud parents love to strut, with their baby, up and down in front of the condo.

After several days of resting and visiting, Kay and I headed south, down Hwy 41 with a stop at The Shell Factory in North Fort Myers (or close to). It was fun, but I remembered it with a lot more shells, and a lot less ‘touristy’ stuff. Still, it was a fun stop, and we did see more turtles there than anywhere else, to date.

After The Shell Factory, we again turned south on Hwy 41, stopping at a State Park I remembered from when I lived here before. There is a Micosookee (sp?) village, which is not open to the public, and a board walk out into the Everglades. I remembered it as teeming with wild life – turtles, gators, and birds. Now, the ‘stream’ was nearly dry, and the pond was a slime-covered puddle, with a momma ‘gator and 2 or 3 of her young ones. I knew southern Florida was in a drought, but this was sad. And, when I talked to the Dorothy, in the store, and learned that this particular area was being drained/blocked by a development closer to Naples, and the State (remember, this is a State Park), I admit, I became a bit irritated. My feelings, based on emotion, not fact, is that ‘They’ are draining this area because They can, and it’s one more way to get rid of the Indians!

About half-way across the state, turned onto Loop Road. Loop Road is about 20 miles of narrow, dirt road, and passable only in the dry season. Six weeks ago, it went through the jungle one normally expects the everglades to be – raucous with birds and ‘gators everywhere. When we went through, it was quiet, and we saw no ‘gators. However, we did see many Wood Ibis, and a few other birds. From there, we travelled on to Shark Valley, and had a whole 25 minutes to get out and walk about a wee bit. While there, we saw many ‘gators, anhingas, and a great blue heron.

And two very, very stupid so-called adults. A gator was stretched out next to the walk way, just being a gator and collecting sun, when a guy thought it would be fun to take a photo of the gator, with his mouth open, and the guy’s girl friend (wife?). He kept egging her to get closer and closer and closer. Finally, when she was about 5 feet away from the gator’s tail, and Kay and I were close enough to speak, we told her to back off. Alligators may look like lumbering giants, but they can move very, very fast, and contrary to what many science teachers try to teach, humans are NOT at the top of the food chain! Gators and Polar Bears are much closer to the top than we are. Remember that if you are ever close to them. That’s why cameras have telephoto lenses – and we have thinking brains!

We drove down to Florida City to spend the night before heading into the Everglades National Park the next day. The motel we stayed in had free wi-fi, and when I went out to Suvie to retrieve my computer, which I’d left packed the whole time we were in Port Charlotte, to my horror, I discovered my computer was NOT IN SUVIE! After a moment’s panic, I called the last hotel we stayed in, in Tallahassee...

WARNING: BLATANT UNPAID ADVERTISEMENT FOLLOWS!

... the young man who answered told me he had NO idea if I’d left my computer or not, as all high ticket items like computers are kept locked in the General Manager’s office, and the GM was gone, and he (Sean) did not have a key, and to call back the next morning, between 8 and 12 noon. Needless to say, I did not sleep well! So, Kay and I got up early, and by 8am were at the Visitor’s Center in the Everglade’s. Of course, it was closed, and wouldn’t open until 9am. However, there was decent cell phone reception, and when I called La Quinta (North) in Tallahassee, the young lady, Jarkarta, said that, indeed, I had left it, and that it was safe in the GM’s office waiting for me to pick it up. IF YOU’RE EVER IN TALLAHASSEE, STAY IN LA QUINTA just off I-10. In fact, we’ve stayed in several La Quinta’s, and all of them have been great. Clean rooms, comfy beds, good showers, good breakfasts AND HONEST EMPLOYEES!!!

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Knowing that my computer was safe, Kay and I proceeded through the Everglades Park. Adhering to the ‘rule of right’ we only turned off onto side roads/trips from the right side of the road, figuring we’d get the rest on the way back. All of the trails we were on but one, were board walks, wheel-chair accessible. Many signs were posted all along the walk way explaining what one was looking at. I knew the Everglades is a river, broad, shallow, and flowing about 4 mph from Lake Okeechobee. But the little I’d seen before had been mostly ‘jungle’ and while I knew there were vast prairies of saw grass, it still shocked me a bit to see those prairies. (Saw grass, by the way, will shred the unwary person who wanders through it- there is a reason the Seminole Indians never signed a peace treaty – they knew how to travel through the ‘Glades and leave the white eyes to flounder and either feed the gators or drown!)

The plant life in the Everglades varies with the rise in elevation of as little as one half an inch. The Baldy Cypress and other trees grow where it isn’t quite so wet, forming islands, or hammocks, where the Indians made their homes. The hammocks are surrounded by natural moats, and water, and help protect the hammocks from fire.

As one sign said, there are two seasons in the Everglades (actually, in Florida!) – Wed and Dry, and we are here in the Dry season. In the Wet season, it would be much harder to see alligators, etc., and they would not be congregating in the pools and ponds as they are now.

After driving all the way to the end, to Flamingo Bay (and not, of course, seeing any flamingos) we headed back toward the entrance. The Park Ranger at Flamingo Bay told us that there had been some flamingos spotted at Snake Bight (a ‘bight’ is a bay on a bay), but it was a tad more of a hike than Kay and I were up to, so we went on up to Royal Palm and walked the Anhinga trail. As we started out on the trail (the entire trail was either paved or board walk) a small ‘gator (about 7-8 feet) decided to go from one pond to another, and hissed as he stood and walked across the rock to the next pond. Once we saw him settled in the pond, we wandered on, and saw many anhingas both in the water and on the shore with their wings spread to dry (they have no oil, so after a few dives, they need to dry their feathers before diving for another fish). On this trail, we began to see more alligators – the further we walked, the more we saw – it was a veritable convention of gators! The larger pond held the adults, and the smaller ponds were the domain of the smaller guys.

After spending an hour or so wandering the board walk, and oohing and aahing over the gators, we headed back to the car. ‘Our’ gator who had hissed as he walked from one pond to the next, decided to climb out of the pond and cross our path. Remember what I said about the young couple above? Well, there was another, equally stupid young couple who wanted to get up close and personal with this gator. And, to make life more interesting, this gator had been wounded and was missing a chunk out of his tail. Kay and I again suggested they use their telephoto lenses and photoshop. She backed away from the gator, and he continued across the path and left us gaping and gawking-and shaking our heads at how stupid some people are (Darwin Award time???)

Since the Visitor Center had not yet opened on our way in, we stopped on our way out and I succumbed to temptation and bought a tee shirt with drawings of alligators on it. The tee shirt is white, the drawings black, but when exposed to sunlight, the gators turn green, some heretofore invisible gators appear, and other colors show up. Kay bought one of butterflies.

However, the highlight of the visit was when I introduced Ms. Flat Stanlietta to the Park Ranger, and Ms. Stanlietta was made a Junior Ranger with a badge and a patch to sew on her jacket!

From the Park, Kay drove and we headed into Homestead to see if she could find where she used to live (before Hurricane Andrew) – but it was so built up, and so different, she couldn’t, so we headed up the road.

On checking the map, we realized that we could go up Hwy 997 until it became Hwy 27 at Hialeah, and just stay on 27 until we got to the La Quinta (North) in Tallahassee – well, it didn’t take a Rocket Scientist to figure that one out! And what a marvelous choice it was! Driving on the freeways in this state, we hadn’t seen much but a lot of green – close to the road and dense, like driving through a green tunnel (I think that’s another reason I moved – too claustrophobic). Anyhow, coming up 27 brought us up the middle of Florida, into the ‘high’ country where the citrus groves are, and through some beautiful scenery.

Last night, we stayed at the Sunset Beach Motel, in Sebring. A very nice motel, one of the few ‘mom and pop’ types left. We had the ‘lakeview’ room, ie, on the end, with a view of the lake. The young man at the counter said the beds were less than a week old, and we should have a good sleep. I kept him talking as I enjoyed his accent, and finally said to him, ‘y’all aren’t from around here, are you?’ He laughed and said he was born and raised in Brooklyn, NY, and as soon as he was out of school, he flew the coop! Jose was a lot of fun, and another one who helped make this trip so much fun. Thanks, Jose! They get slightly less than 5 stars - no coffee in the room or the lobby this morning, but otherwise, it was perfect!

This morning, we headed back north on Hwy 27, and arrived at the La Quinta about 3.00 where I retrieved my computer (re-read the BLATANT UNPAID ADVERTISEMENT above so I don’t have to rewrite it) from Sean because the GM was still here and Sean could get into his office, rented a room, and Kay and I are now parked for the evening. She’s reading the paper, I’m updating the blog and downloading the photos. We went next door to Julie’s Restaurant for dinner and had excellent service, and very good food. Tomorrow, we will head down the freeway to Jacksonville, then north to Savannah, GA. From there we head to Charleston, SC, and then up to Travelers Rest to see our friends Jan and Lori before heading on to Virginia.

“Every problem has a gift for you in its hands.”
--Richard Bach