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Published: July 18th 2006
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Jackie and I were able to go down together to Florida to visit Dad, making it the first time in 2 years that all three of us were together. Jackie could only go for 2 days, but that's better than nothing! We spent the two days hanging out and drinking, basically. We took a few Father-Daughters pictures - and by "a few" I mean "a hundred" because we kept laughing or looking goofy.
Jackie left on the 4th of July, so she missed the fireworks over the Cape Coral bridge that night. They were lovely!
The other highlight of the trip was a trip to the Everglades with Dad. It's just a quick 2 hour drive to Everglade City, so after breakfasting at Waffle House (a requirement on any road-trip with Dad and I), we took off down the interstate. After we had turned off the interstate and were headed down the little highway towards Everglade City, something appeared on the side of the road in the horizon. As we passed it, I couldn't help but turn my head (did I mention I was driving?) and exclaimed, "Was that a crocodile?!?" Dad replied, "No, that was an alligator. And
quite a big one." We didn't check to see if it was alive or dead, but it looked alive, like it was just hanging out on the shoulder. Very odd. It had been raining a lot, and the park ranger later told us that when the water level rises, the gators will go further inland and sometimes end up on the side of the road.
Once we reached Everglades City, we stopped at the Everglades National Park ranger station. I went to use the bathroom, and when I walked into the stall, I saw something scurrying behind the toilet. I thought, "That's the biggest cockroach I've ever seen!" Then I saw 3 more, scurrying back and forth behind the toilet along the baseboard. That's when I realized they weren't roaches - they were little crabs! I knew they were harmless, but they still freaked me out. When I sat down, I lifted my feet off the floor in an effort to protect my sandal-clad toes. Those l ittle crabs were running around everywhere and I asked the gift-shop saleslady about them. She said, "Oh, they're just harmless fiddler crabs." Conversation interrupted by a loud crunch from across the room.
"Look, that man just stepped on one!"
We went upstairs to the actual ranger station area and looked at some info about the Everglades. (Dad and I love tourist pamplets.) While there, the very nice ranger lady told us about how people buy foreign baby pythons as pets, then once they get too big to keep, they release them in the Everglades. Then, somehow, these pythons find each other and now the pythons are breeding in the Everglades. They are a big threat to the natural wildlife (a few months ago, one tried to eat an alligator, but the gator was too big and the snake exploded) and so the Everglades have trained a dog to sniff them out. The dog finds the trail, and then the rangers inject a microchip tag into the snakes, and then they follow the snakes to their nests so they can kill them. This sounds like a horrible job. The dog's name is Python Pete.
After gathering armfuls of pamplets, Dad and I went on an air-boat ride. It was so much fun! They go FAST! And we saw lots of alligators. The boats didn't seem to bother them at all. They'd
just swim up to us and see what was going on. One of them came right up to the boat, and that's when the guide told us, "Alligators have 40 teach on top and bottom. And the can throw 2/3 of their body out of the water." Um, ok, I'm done taking pictures, we can go now...But no, the guide wanted to tell us more so he said, "See, they have 2 eyelids, one that protects from water and one normal one." Then he stuck his hand in the water and splashed it in the alligator's eyes so that they would blink. I add "fan-boat guide" to the list of jobs I don't want, right behind "python finding park ranger."
The rest of my Florida time was spent chilling and relaxing at the house, watching Law & Order and doing Sudoku puzzles. On the last morning, as Dad was driving me to the airport, we came across a huge turtle crossing the road. Dad kindly protected it from the big FedEx truck behind us. I asked "Is it normal to find turtles crossing the road down here?" "Yep," he replied. Cool.
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