Day 6 - April 3rd

We woke up at 6 AM just before the alarm.  By 6:45 Scott and I were ready to roll.  The sun was due to come up around 7:15 and we wanted to be on the Overseas Highway when that happened.  It was a beautiful sunrise.  Since our drive down was mostly done in the dark, we were excited to see the pretty drive that everyone says it is.  My expectations for the drive were that most of it would be done over long expanses of road that had water on both sides.  Parts of it were definitely like that but the majority of it is spent on the different Keys with maybe one side of the water visible but often there are trees on both sides.  It is a pretty drive but sometimes like driving through small beach towns in North Carolina.  I would like to camp on some of the upper keys just because they aren't as commercialized and carnival like as Key West.  Either way, the drive was a little sad because we really enjoyed this part of the trip and heading north means we are making our way towards home and reality.

After three hours, we were back on mainland Florida and heading into the Everglades.  We stopped at the East side Visitor Center but didn't have time to venture in to that side of the park.  We drove on across Florida 41 through Big Cypress National Preserve, which is a wetlands area that helps to make up the entire Everglades eco-system.  When fresh water started being rerouted for the people living along the coast, it actually hurt the Everglades because the fresh water is needed to help feed the plant and animal life.  Big Cypress is part of preserving that fresh water.  It's also where there have been sightings of Florida's skunk ape (bigfoot).  So we were all wearing our Bigfoot tees and watching for creatures.  Mostly we saw alligators, over 200, which were casually lying in the waterway beside the road.  Every time you looked over, there was a gator.  We told the kids we would give them a penny a gator and they had fun counting until they got bored. 

We stopped at the overlook and got some pictures of the gators up close.  Next, we went to the Big Cypress Visitor center so we could finish our junior ranger park badges.  They have an overlook where there are occasionally manatees swimming and we were lucky enough to see them.  Obviously not up close but it was still very cool.  Next we headed down into the Gulf Coast Visitor Center for the Everglades for a Mangrove tour.  I guess I didn't do enough research because I was expecting a more swampy experience but this was more coastal and while beautiful and great for birding, we all agreed we were sick of Mangrove trees afterward. 

Having seen all that we could see, we headed over to the campground.  Now this particular campground that Scott wanted to stay at also happened to be the Skunk Ape headquarters.  Go here if you want a laugh - www.skunkape.info  A gentleman named Dave is the head of the research center and also part owner of the campground.  Unfortunately we got here too late to see the museum so we would have to wait until the morning.  We went into the campground to get setup and I can say that this is probably the second creepiest place we have ever stayed.  It's close to the one in North Dakota that we thought might have been a meth lab in disguise.  I didn't even get out of the camper at that place.  I decided to brave the bathroom because I needed a shower desperately, drawing inspiration from a friends recent travels to India.  On the floor, there were probably 5 different coats of paint that were cracked and chipped and showing through.  As I was shampooing, I looked up and there was a lizard.  I laughed out loud at myself for being so creeped out and finished quickly.  Most of the people here look like longtime residents and I can't help but wonder what they are hiding from down here.  But I felt cleaner and Scott cooked burgers for dinner and everyone was content.  We spent the rest of the evening reading The Old Man and the Sea and went to bed.