Eli and Amanda

The drive out of the Keys didn't seem to take as long as going down did and we enjoyed traveling on the small highway that took us to Everglade City. We got to see some of Florida's agricultural area: lots of nurseries growing palm trees, a few orchards, and some fruit stands.

The next morning we headed out to tour the Everglades. We began with the mangrove islands in an area dubbed "The Ten Thousand Islands."

Mangroves are remarkable in that they grow in salt water. They have a filtering system that removes most of the salt and whatever gets through they channel into leaves that are already dying. These leaves then fall off and drop into the water, which is what makes it that murky green color.

We were told that dolphins, manatees, raccoons, and fish of all sorts inhabited the areas that we were exploring. We were also reminded that they are all wild and are free to go wherever they please. Well, they must not have been interested in a boatload of curious tourists because other than one stingray and birds of various kinds, all we saw were lots and lots of islands. It wasn't until the end of the tour that the guide mentioned alligators. After all, we were in the Everglades, isn't that where we're supposed to see them? However, alligators don't like salt water, he said, and if we wanted to see them we'd have to go across the highway to the fresh water side.

A couple of friendly but rather bizarre looking bugs joined us at lunch.

At a small park, there was a pier along a canal where we could gaze at the famous gators to our hearts' content. It was pretty amazing to lean over the edge and see the fearsome creatures drifting only a dozen feet away.

Educating Joshua on alligator etiquette.

The smallest post office in the United States.

After lunch (ours, not the gators') we walked along this lovely boardwalk through a cypress swamp.

Here again, the animal inhabitants were wild and chose to avoid suspicious looking tourists like us.

At the end of the walk though, we did get to see this mama gator and her adorable little baby.
Even alligators can be cute in the miniature!

All in all, we enjoyed ourselves, but we think you'd have to spend more time (read: sit in camo with binoculars for hours waiting to glimpse unsuspecting wildlife) to really experience the Everglades.
But we got to see plenty of alligators, so we were happy!

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