Everglades

We had 6 hours to spare on our last day at Miami before we were to go to the airport. This was more of a scouting trip to get a sneak peak of what to do and what not to do if we go back to Florida for a many day vacation centered around Miami instead of driving back and forth to Orlando.

Got up early and went to the Visitor center of the Everglades National Park. The rangers were nice and came to the point quickly..

"Let's see. You are here in the wrong season. You should come here during the dry season which is November to January, instead you are here.. smack dab in the middle of the wet season"

Me : So?

Ranger : With very old people and little kids in your party, it might be a stretch to see anything. Not many birds around in this season and not many alligators close enough. Also way too many mosquitos. That will be a problem for the elderly and the children. I can meet you at a point 20 miles from here and take you for a one hour walk. You will see things and I can point to them"

Me : We have only till 1PM

Ranger : Your best bet is to visit one of the farms around this area and go on a airboat ride!

So we thanked the ranger and drove to the Everglades Alligator Farm. They had just opened for the morning and had a 3 hour agenda with a snake show, an alligator show, a walk around the tanks where they sort the gators (and Nile crocs) by size ...

Here are some pictures from the shows which show the young and old having fun.

We did get to hold the alligators (with the mouth taped shut as a precaution) and the snakes that were not poisonous..

and the grand finale.. an airboat ride into the everglades for almost 20 minutes where we got to see the turtles, birds and alligators up close and personal. 

What is a post on everglades without a video of the airboat ride. It was water sprays everywhere and this is the sum total of all the videos that I was able to take with both the iPhone and the 5D Mark II. No points for guessing which parts of the video were taken with which camera!

We had a great time given the time constraint. It was scary for the oldest adult at places but we made it!

Simply put, awesome entertainment and money's worth!

Islamorada

We were done with Orlando visiting the theme parks and had two days before flying back.

Two half days is more like it because on the first day we drove from Orlando to Miami in rain and by the time we were at the Gateway to the keys area it was almost 1 in the afternoon.

The original plan was to go all the way to Key West and back but with three old people and two kids cooped up in a Van all morning it was going to be a tough sell. 

So we stopped at the visitor center in Key Largo. 

Note: There are multiple boards that say "Visitor Center" as soon as you enter Key Largo, but only the one with the Chamber of Commerce board is the official Visitor center. The rest of them are boards which lure you in and some guy representing some other activity in Key West tells you "there is nothing here really. your only option is to go all the way to Key West". Fortunately we stopped at the real visitor center also and there was a nice lady who asked us all the right questions "how many in your party?", "how much time do you have?", "what are your preferences for activities?" etc. etc., gave us free maps and pretty much planned our afternoon for us!

So off we went to Islamorada, which was 35 minutes away and visited "The Theater of the Sea"

We spent a good three hours there doing the nature walk where we got to see their conservation effort and how they save creatures deemed unfit to release back into the wild, including a turtle that was wearing a life jacket. Seriously, not kidding. This turtle has a buoyancy defect and needs a life jacket so it can float and come up for air. 

The place is apparently family owned for 65 years. So I ask the girl who is feeding the crocs, turtles and sting rays "Are you like the Sea version of We Bought a Zoo?" and she goes "Something like that!"

Here are some pictures from the walk.

 

After the walk we were treated to a Parrot show. The kids and my camera enjoyed the show.

 

This was followed by a Dolphin Show and a Sea Lion show. They really did a great job of teaching the kids about the animals, their behaviors, even asked us to sigh a petition to protect whales from being deafened by the US Navy because of some experiments they were doing on the West Coast!

 

Did I mention how Jr. got to pet the dolphins? Odds of her being picked in Sea World were 1:1000 and here it was 1:5. There were 20 kids in the audience and they picked 4 volunteers. This is my kind of place!

The people in the park were truly sincere about conservation and cared about the creatures deeply. 

Finally we went on a small boat with an open bottom (ring boat?) where the dolphins swam within the boat, rang a bell and did some tricks for us while we went for a 10 minute ride along the mangrove forest.

It was three hours well spent and off we went to a limestone beach at John Pennekamp State park.. More on that in a couple of days!

If you visit the keys in the wrong season, this place is guaranteed to be a hit with young and old...

New pictures of Fauna

Florida has enough native plant and animal vegetation to fill albums..

We got a glimpse of some local and imported animals thanks to the Disney conservation effort at the Animal Kingdom.

Even got to go on a safari through their jungles and plains. It was amazing!

Here are some pictures. 

and my favorite so far..

 

More to come..

Dr. Seuss

The best area in Universal Studios was the Dr. Seuss circle. 

It was thoroughly enjoyed by the kids and adults. Even my parents who have never read any of the Dr. Seuss books became big fans after seeing the amazing world of creatures he created!

Started working on photos mainly because the rest of the family has got a gun to my head to get some samples out!

Will be creating a different folder in the picture gallery for this trip. . . 

Here are the early "samples". 

 

Unlike a Jackie Chan movie trailer where the trailer has the best shots, there are a lot of photographs which are much better than these ones.. 

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A long trip..

The traveling Narayanan's visited Florida between 4th and 10th July. It was a bold and risky move taking three older people with health conditions and two little kids with only two able folks handling the other five through air travel, theme parks and adventures!

The good news is that we had our ups and downs but overall we had a great time and made it back in one piece. It has taken a few days to get back to the old routine and get settled...

There are 1600+ pictures out of which at least 250 hold promise and that means a lot of photo and video editing over the next few weeks whenever time and Sangeetha permit the process!

On tuesday we had got up at 6AM Florida time and reached here at 1 in the morning, which was 4AM florida time. That was one 22 hour day for everyone. So we came in, threw the suitcases in the living room floor and hit the bed and it was lights out for everyone in a few minutes. The next day Sangeetha had told me that she had a very important meeting and had to leave at 8 AM.

I was still getting visions of going in various rides and was a little dizzy and tired. So at 3AM, in the middle of a dream, I wake up thinking we are in a boat and the ride has ended and we have to get out.

The fact that the home exercise machine that used to be at our bedside was sold a day before we left on the trip and yours truly has not yet got used to the empty space and the green light from the smoke alarm on one side and the red light from the TV monitor on the other side made the dream realistic..

Frantically shook Sangeetha and said "we are the only ones left on the ride.. everyone has left. get down"

Sangeetha :We are in our bed. Go back to sleep

Me : We are on a boat. look, it is floating. we have to get out. I can't get out on this side. you have to step down from that side.

Sangeetha : (fully awake and totally pissed off by now) Ok. That's it. This is our bedroom, you are on our bed, that is our bathroom and I am go there right now. So wake up, go to the bathroom and let me sleep!

After following her out of the boat (er.. bed) and realizing that she was indeed right, apologized and went back to sleep.

When driving to work it was so weird. I kept looking to the passenger side and behind the van so frequently to check on non existant passengers! Six days of going everywhere on a 7 seater van loaded with 7 people and suddenly driving an empty van gave me a lonely feeling.

Now the dreams of the rides are not recurring but there are tons of happy memories from the six day trip.

That was just a sample of how wild things were..

More to come!

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