Jan 9-The Everglades

Well, that's a lot better. I just logged on to post and there are lots of fun messages! Thanks, and good to hear from RTC, QT, and Pickles (great name)! Aunt Ann, Mom, and Sue emailed. Good thing or no alligator pictures for you! After a ton of driving...three full days (yuck) we finally made it past Miami and into Florida City. We didn't stop and look at anything all the way so we'll have to head NORTH again after the kids leave. Goofy planning but we're so excited to see the kids that we don't care! The entrance to the Everglades National Park is within 10 miles of our lovely Walmart parking lot. There are LOTS of RVers camping for free with us! We've spent 2 days exploring the glades. Really an odd looking place. It's hot and humid (my hair looks like Phyllis Diller), about 75 degrees. We are both wearing shorts and tee shirts--scaring the natives with our odd white legs. I took almost 200 pictures of birds, fish, alligators, scenery. Lots were awful so they've been deleted but I'll post a few of the good ones. Most of the alligators were sound asleep in the sunshine, but one was swimming around and under the boardwalk while we were walking. Saw one crocodile too. The Everglades is the only place where alligators and crocodiles BOTH live. I thought the Everglades was a swamp--but it is actually a very slow and constant moving river. Southern Florida is totally flat. I think the highest point is 15 feet above sea level. Geologically speaking it's new territory. The whole area was a shallow sea only 100,000 years ago. Between 1,000 and 6,000 years ago the Everglades were formed when the land rose and the bottom half of the state was covered by a huge river (I think they said 50 miles wide and 80 miles long). The river was only a few feet deep. With the influx of people and development the water was diverted in canals and dumped into the ocean. A lot of the Everglades dried up. The park is still pretty big. It's the third largest in the lower 48 states. Please don't ask me the two largest...I suppose they are Yellowstone and Death Valley. *Gene just Googled this and it's right, only Death Valley is bigger than Yellowstone. The birds are beautiful although I haven't bothered to figure out what they are. The alligators are cool. You can get pretty close to them by walking around on boardwalks out into the glades.