Day 12: Florida City to Long Pine Key

February 14, 2015

(We have been buried in the Everglades for a short while, with no internet connection. Here is the story of what to us now is "yesterday". Hopefully, photos soon, and captions, after that.)

We must be getting a little old, because although we enjoy the idea of the hostel, we found last night that we lost just too much personal space for comfort. Of course putting down your sleeping bag on the dining room floor at 7 p.m. and hoping to get some sleep is kind fo pushing it! Later, (much later), all was quiet and deserted. And at 6 a.m. we had the kitchen to ourselves.

The temperature had dipped to 43 F during the night, and Dodie in an easy chair with just a thin blanket had passed an uncomfortable night. The problem was a door to the kitchen bulding that no longer can close. In my ultra fluffy down bag, though, I was happy as can be.

We set off into the surrounds of Florida City/Homestead, heading for the Alligator Farm. Immediately we found that we were in an agricultural area. As far as we could see, no crops are raised on the Keys, so this was something new. We passed fields of beans, corn, and zuchinni, and even got ourselves irrigated a little by powerful rotary water jets.

So we came upon a large produce stand, called "Robert is Here". This featured interesting fruits like giant papayas, stacks of mangos, guanabana, and even bins of Key Limes. Behind the stand was a little zoo, too, with Emus that were very friendly.

All the roads hereabouts have no shoulder, but traffic is relatively light. We passed a major prison, with a big lineup of people waiting to get in. This does not imply that the food or programs are that good, but no doubt this was a visiting day. After the prison, cars were rare.

The Alligator Farm is not really a farm but rather is a small zoo like attraction. This is not to say that it is just a "roadside attraction", but rather it is a rather well done, focussed operation.

We passed upo the air boat tours, since we had done that lasst year. Instead we looked at the exhibits and attended the three "shows" : snakes, alligator wrestling, and alligator feeding.

The first display, simple but fascinating, was of a Florida Panther, which is a Cougar to us. It was the first time we had been so close to one, and were surprised by its rather whiney "roar". It also seemed to purr a lot, but we felt that rather than this signifying that it was happy to see a pair of long time cat people, that it might be a nervous habit.

The site also had displays of some reptiles and birds, with simple but still informative signs. Otherwise the main features of the farm were a large pond containing what we guess to be about 200 full sized alligators, plus concrete tanks with young ones of various ages.

When (as an old chicken and turkey farmer) I asked about the processing facilities, I was informed that in fact this was just a tourist attraction, and that there are at least 70 serious gator farms in Florida, most of which are located north of Lake Oceechobee. Gator farming, by the way, has been instrumental in bringing back the wild alligator populations. Florida is the only place with native crocodiles as well as alligators, but the crocodiles remain endangered.

(The Florida crocodiles are no more harmful than the gators, meaning that they only attack and eat smaller creatures. This is different from the Australian and Nile versions, that like to eat snacks like Zebras.)

The snake show featured three species - red corn snake, king snake, and the now famous in the Everglades python. The focus of the show was to allow people to touchand hold the snakes. This caused some unfair amusement for the crowd, as one lady fled at high speed, arms flapping. The alligator wrestling featured moves that I remembered from seeing this as a kid - the most classic being the holdoing of the gator's mouth closed with the chin. Thisis possible because the jaws are powerful in clamoing down,but not in opening.

For the feeding, it was explained that this was just a "snack" for the benefit of the tourists. The true feeding is of tons of meat and is done once a month. The crowd really enjoyed all of this. We spoke to people from Sweden, and from Austria, and could discern lots of other countries being represented. For all these people, as for us, this was something unique and absolutely nothing that could be seen at home. We believe everyone felt they got their money's worth. We sure did.

Back along the no shoulder roads and through the crops, we passed mainly zuchinni. By one processing plant I photographed a whole truckload of them. When we came to a giant field of yellow ones, that happened to lack a "no trespassing" sign, Dodie had to point out that the sign was irrelevant and that these veggies had not been placed there for me. This if course differes from our approach to grapes in France. On the other hand, the French carelessly often place the grapes closer to the path than do these local zuchinni farmers!

Our next stop was the Everglades National Park, where the plan is to spend four or five days. The problem is, this is a long weekend - Presidents' Day - go figure. The two campgrounds in the park are jammed. However the rangers felt they knew of one or two campers who would be willing to make room for a tent. The sites here are huge, so in principle this is easy. In fact, we did locate Jim, a 79 year old from Indiana, who was more than willing to have us set up near his Truck camper. More than that, Jim offered us very welcome ice cream bars, and later, blueberry pie. So we landed on our feet. The alternative could have involved dragging our tails back to the hostel and passing the weekend in the Golden Corral!

Now we can read the park literature, and plan for which trails and ranger program we can do in the coming days. There is no data link available here, so I am essentially writing this to myself right now. By the time you read this, you should be able to skip ahead and see what tomorrow brought. That's almost like a super power!

Here are just some of the photos, and no captions All will be fixed up pretty soon!