Everglades

10,000 miles to Maine, and then down to the very end of Florida, the furthest point in the continental U.S. from Bozeman that is possible, in a camper van that once left us stranded in Butte, and now we are finally headed home. Slowly. Florida has been fun and we have immensely enjoyed playing in the warm sunshine. On the way out of the Keys we stopped in the southern portion of the Everglades. We were happy to see that the mosquito level sign (reminiscent of our fire danger signs) at the entrance reported that the level was low. In our Montana brains, we had thought that the Everglades were nothing but swampland covered in gators. We were wrong. Though there are swampy sections, we mostly saw grasslands dotted here and there with stands of small trees. Somehow it reminded us of a miniature-scaled version of African savannah, although having never been there this assessment is probably completely wrong. We took a walk on classic national park style boardwalks on the Anhinga Trail through swampland. The amount of wildlife we viewed on this one walk was amazing. We saw loads of birds, anhingas, great blue herons, white egrets, white ibis, a Florida soft shell turtle laying eggs, red-stripe turtles swimming amongst schools of fish, and at least twenty alligators, including two babies. We were delighted by our deserted, long pine tree campground where we had more space than we had seen in about a month. I hadn't really realized how cramped I must have felt until we got there, nor that I must have missed non-ocean scenery. The following day, we drove to Flamingo over Coral Reef Pass with an elevation of 3 feet (no wonder the air seemed so thin), where we rented double kayaks and paddled up a canal where we saw two crocodiles lounging about and swallow-tailed kites and osprey soaring above. Amongst the docks there, we saw manatees hanging out, occasionally poking their heads out for a breath. We ended the day with a lovely walk to the ocean at sunset.

Photos here.

Key West

Key West turned out to be, not surprisingly I suppose, somewhat tourist-y, although off the beaten track, amongst the rundown, island-mixed-with-Victorian architecture, we found a delicious French creperie that we had to visit twice. We visited a few of the must-sees like Fort Zachary Taylor, a Civil War-era fort, and then the Southernmost point in the U.S., where we drank coconut water from a fresh coconut before having it chopped open so that we could eat the flesh. We also visited Earnest Hemingway's house where the forty-four descendents of his sixty-five, six-toed cats live and where we learned about his accident-prone, can't-believe-he survived-that-many-concussions, plane-wrecks-and-wives life. He was officially a wild and crazy guy. Our final stop within Key West was the butterfly house where butterflies magically flitted, weightlessly through the air and oh-so-adorable Chinese Quails ran around at our feet.

While there, we stayed at the tiny, quiet, Geiger Key campground about ten miles outside of town where we had a campsite that backed up to water dotted with mangrove islands. We spent hours watching tarpon, sargent fish, hound fish, iguanas, and Portuguese men of war swim by, and brown pelicans, white ibis, and egrets at home in the mangroves. One day we took tandem kayaks out to explore the waters. We paddled through the clear aquamarine channels to the brown tannin soaked stillness of the mangroves forests where we ducked our way under branches crawling with crabs and over roots crawling with fish through the tight paths that wound into the islands that so many fish and birds call home.

After spending five nights at Geiger Key, we spent a day on a sailboat sailing in the beautiful waters outside of Marathon. We enjoyed a nice breeze on a twenty-four foot, GPS-free, J-boat where the boys dangled their feet off the side and lounged about in the sun watching the bottom pass by as Jason and I continually tried to figure out where the heck we were.

Photos here.

Middle Keys

After much anticipation we finally made it to the Keys. On the drive down, as we began to catch glimpses of the water, we couldn't believe how much the color looked like the Virgin Islands, until finally we crossed a bridge that revealed the shallow turquoise water in its full brilliance, proving that it truly rivalled our memories of the Carribean. Based out of Marathon in the Middle Keys for a couple of days, we snorkeled and played in the warm, shallow waters of Bahia State Park. One of our campgrounds was located next to the old seven-mile bridge where we took a walk suspended over the water, spotting sea turtles down below. At our next campground, we had a campsite right on the water where I drank my morning tea wading in the warm, knee deep water, and we got a firsthand look at why retirees spend months in their RV's in Florida. It was so cool to watch white-haired folks riding bikes around just for the fun of it, stopping in the road and chatting. I could imagine them as kids doing the exact same thing, running around free, in packs, throughout their neighborhoods. We spent one afternoon on a boat that took us out to a coral reef where we snorkeled in four foot, choppy seas. Submerged in the waves, we would ride them up to the crest and then drop so fast that we could feel it in our stomachs....some of us more than others. I was sea-sick both in the water and on the boat, and, understandably,  Aaron found the conditions entirely too violent for someone his size to be in. In spite of the rough conditions, and the short amount of time that we stayed in the water, we still managed to see a loads of fish, coral reefs, a nurse shark, and a sea turtle.

Photos here.

Pompano Beach

We made a brief stop in Fort Lauderdale where we stayed in a hotel on Pompano Beach for a couple of nights. While we were there, we met with Jason's uncle for a nice dinner in Boca Raton. It was really funny to see Sylvia parked amongst the fanciness of Boca. I am still kicking myself for not taking her picture there. While staying at Pompano the boys played in the warm waves and later talked me into renting boogie boards for the afternoon, despite the ominous army of Portuguese Man of War that had washed up onto shore that morning. We had so much fun riding little waves onto shore in what may be the closest thing that this breakable body may ever see to surfing.

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NASA

It is really quite amazing what humans can accomplish when they put their minds to it. This trip has led us past the birthplace of flight in Kittyhawk where we saw man's first successful attempts at flight in the early 1900's, to Cape Canaveral where just 60 years later man built rockets that took us to the moon. It is astounding to see each firsthand, and to see the evolution that took place over such a short period of time. The boys walked around awestruck, gawking at the huge rockets. Aaron couldn't get enough of Saturn IB and couldn't wait to hop on a bus that would take us over to the even bigger Saturn V, which he sweetly informed me was, "Saturn 5, mom." The bus ride took us past the rocket hangar where the rockets are built, with bay doors that are tall enough for the Statue of Liberty to walk through without having to duck. We saw the giant, tank-like machines that transport the fully-fueled rockets at one mile per hour over perfectly round, Tennessee river rock from the state of Arkansas prized for its ability to rub against each other without sparking. We saw mobile launch towers, control headquarters, and, looming three miles off in the distance, the platform where the Apollo missions were launched from. At the hangar where a Saturn V rocket is kept we saw the control room used during the Apollo missions, including Apollo 13, where we watched a short video of a launch sequence so we could see how mission control managed each stage of ignition before they opened the doors to reveal the real Saturn V. Laying on its side, it was broken into sections so we got a very clear view of the different stages of the launch. In a side room, Jason faced ghosts from his past as he relived childhood trauma of  being chased around by an astronaut suit after he had curiously bent its fingers backwards. We saw Jim Lovell's reference manual used during the Apollo 13 mission, Neil Armstrong's astronaut suit, lunar landers.....really cool stuff. A few days later we watched the movie Apollo 13 with the boys while it was fresh in their brains so they could see what had happened during that ill-fated mission. They thought it was really cool to see hangar doors open, the rocket-mover in action, what happens in the control room, and how this group of people worked through an impossible situation to bring these three guys home safe. Needless to say NASA was a huge hit with all of us.

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Canaveral National Seashore

While we were on Cape Canaveral, we stayed in a rundown, old RV campground beautifully perched on the Intracoastal Waterway. While relaxing next to the water in the evening, we caught a brief glimpse of a manatee so first thing in the morning we went back to check the water. The 50+ year-old, tattoed Harley guy with a relaxed mohawk camping next to the water came out and told us that he usually sees manatees, dolphins, and sting rays in the morning and showed us where to look. Shortly afterwards I found a small stingray swimming around, but no manatees or dolphins were to be seen. Our plan was to get out around 9am and head to the National Seashore. I know it will be a surprise to you all, but as it turns out, we were running late. Jason had a 10am meeting so we stayed in the campground while he sat in the van on the phone leaving the boys and I with time to watch the water for manatees. The evening before, we learned that the manatees leave oval-shaped patterns in the water as they swim by so we kept a sharp eye out for our round-shape making friends. As we sat by the water, long-term RV inhabitants were making their morning rounds chatting with neighbors and some came by to hang out and give us wildlife pointers. It was clear they were excited to have to young folks to hang out with. As we talked, manatees starting swimming by. We saw them in groups of two, three, and four. We saw a momma with, what must have been a new-born, only four feet long, and one of her older kids. They seemed to be swimming laps up and down the banks of the river because we must have seen them twenty times! We would walk side-by-side with them, only ten or fifteen feet away, down the length of the campground and then we would turn around, go back to where we started and walk down with the next family group. One of the long-term residents said they usually see one or two manatees per day, she couldn't believe how many we were seeing. She was convinced that they had come just for us. I had hoped that we may be lucky enough to catch a glimpse of a manatee on this trip. It was way beyond imagination that we would ever see this many! As I made lunch the boys and Jason continued to watch them swim by.

After lunch we headed out to the Canaveral National Seashore, the largest undeveloped stretch of coastal Florida, thanks to NASA needing a huge buffer zone for launching rockets into space. After driving through Florida forest, spotting all kinds of cool birds, we stopped at the beach where the boys quickly immersed themselves into the ocean with much delight. When some storm clouds threatened in the distance, we decided to head further down the shoreline to the lagoon at the end of the road. After parking, as we walked down the boardwalk, we could see very large leathery forms on the beach at which point Jason exclaimed, "hey look manatee....no wait, just man." We had seen lots of signs warning that it was illegal to be nude on the beach (or anywhere really) and now we understand who it was directed towards. We decided that perhaps we should go check out the lagoon....we had seen enough manatees for one day.

On the way out of the park, we made a quick stop at the visitor station before they closed for the night. On the grounds, there is a boardwalk that takes you through some wetlands. As we reached the end, I spotted our very first alligator! The boys were so excited to see the lazy beast snoozing across the pond from us. As we watched him yawn, we pondered the amazing fact that they had to make a law against taunting these large animals with huge teethy mouths.

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St. Augustine, FL

St. Augustine, founded in 1565, boasts the title of oldest continually inhabited city in the US, complete with an amazing castle-y Spanish fort. We stayed in nearby Anastasia State Park where we enjoyed walks through the hammock forest over old dunes. Though parts of town were incredibly touristy (I started worrying a little when I started seeing advertisements for Ripley's theme parks, hauntingly reminiscent of Gatlinburg), there were definately sections off the beaten path where it was cool to see genuinely old Spanish-looking buildings and yummy cafes. Not surprisingly, Aaron wanted to climb 271 steps to the top of the lighthouse for the big view before heading to Castillo San Marcos where we spent the afternoon checking out the nooks, crannies, and, of course, weaponry of the fort finished in 1672.


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