Today we decided to head off to see some of the real Florida – well sort of. We decided to go with the Caldwells to visit the Florida Everglades Holiday Park and take an airboat tour of the Everglades. The park itself is very home spun but the offer hour long tours on the air boat at a
reasonable price (something like $20 for adults) – the boats are largish (taking about 30 people) but are covered at the front and back to protect your from the elements (not that we needed that on this date). I had looked at some more intimate tours on smaller boats – almost like a personal charter but these seemed to start at about $350 which was a bit too much. Perhaps on another occasion! As it turned out the tour was great – we initially sped out over the water and boy are those engines noisy but it was a wonderful feeling to skip over the water and vegetation. After a few minutes the boat was pulled up in one of the airboat channels so we could get some close-ups of alligators. An did we get close – the boats themselves ride low in the water, the sides are perhaps 18 inches above the water – and the alligators swim right up to the boats. I suspect these particular alligators are quite tame and the boat driver helped us to befriend these particular beasts by chucking them some bread. Having said this it was a fantastic opportunity for some great close ups of these wonderful creatures. As well as alligator spotting we were given an overview of the Everglades – which contrary to my understanding is actually not a swamp but is about the slowest and certainly the widest river in the United State, and is almost completely made up of fresh water. In between the channels of water are vast fields of saw grass, which are homes to an amazing variety of wildlife especially birds.
After the tour we had free tickets to see a show with real live alligators – although they seemed to be pretty sleepy to me. I would not be surprised if they were taking something to calm them down. Anyway our host was partly toothless – more so than the alligators and he was also missing three fingers which was somewhat disconcerting. It seemed a bit inappropriate to ask whether the lost digits were as a result of playing with alligators – so it remains a mystery to me and probably it is better that way.Having fed our need to discover the real Florida it was now time to feed ourselves with food. We headed off back to Hollywood and to Route 1. Desert was already planned – an ice cream store called Jaxson’s, a local institution. When we arrived there were long lines outside so we started to walk back down the road towards an Italian restaurant we had passed – as is often the case the walk back was further than it seemed when driving it. When we did arrive the atmosphere was a bit staid and the food expensive so we walked back and stopped at a burger place called Checkers. Now for the desert! The line was still long but we decided to wait and after about an hour we were in – not before we had been introduced the loudest screaming 3 year old in the world – who tried to bite Karen’s finger off as she tried to calm him. Unfortunately once inside this 3 year old horror was still next to us and indeed it got to the point where the waiting staff were suggesting they leave … and finally they did. Not deterred we ordered our sundaes and what came was humungous. Karen shared with Laura, Jack with Sam and Emily with Jessie. I decided I was up for the full desert but sadly was beaten and could not force down another mouthful … hate leaving anything especially ice cream. Totally bloated we left for our respective dwellings.
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