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This is the second of a three-part series. You can also read about the first part of our trip to Florida here.

Day 4:
The main activity this day was the Everglades airboat ride. We told some locals about it and they told us “Due to the recent dry spell of weather, the inland waters got too salty for the alligators, so they moved into fresher water. Once we get a good rain, they’ll come back.” Wildlife 2, us 0.

But we bought our tickets and made the drive down anyway, the airboat ride looked fun with or without gators. And it was. Note: you may get sprayed with dirty water when the driver spins the boat, so don’t wear nice white clothes to an airboat tour.

Most of the tour looked like this, going through channels in the mangroves.

We did get to see a couple of alligators in the wild.

And some birds. But no pythons. I asked about the pythons and he said they come out at night so we would not see them.

I had a hat, but I took it off for the ride. I am glad I had my sunglasses though, not because it was sunny but because it shielded my eyes from all the wind. Like riding in a convertible but without the windshield.

Then after the airboat ride, we walked around their wildlife preserve / mini zoo. There we got to see more gators.

They take mostly rescues, it seems. There were a buch of alligators, but also some crocodiles. And some other animals. I think this white tiger was taken from someone who was keeping a bunch of animals illegally, and it needed somewhere to go.

There were some other animals too, but my favorite was the tortoises. Thy had just brought them some food, and for some reason it was just fun to watch them eat.

I took a video too, much to the disbelief of Some Wife. Who would take time to watch tortoises eat, let alone a video of tortoises eating? I could not explain it, but that was my favorite part of their zoo.

After the airboat tour and zoo tour, it was time for lunch. There’s not much around the Everglades, except for Everglades City. So we went there. There was not much to it, but it did have some restaurants. We ended up choosing The Diving Pelican, but I think just about anything in that area will have fresh fish and seafood available. Most of us got fish sandwiches, either grouper or snapper.

As we left, we noticed free-range chickens walking around outside the building, for what that’s worth. Fresh eggs, at least?

On this vacation, we had breakfast at the house, lunch out at whatever tourist trap area we were, then dinner back at the house. Here is how dinner usually looked.

There was usually some sitting in the hot tub involved after dinner, and taking in the sunset across the lake.

Then it was evening, then morning the next day.

Day 5:
This day was not a touristy day so much as a do-what-the-locals do day. We headed out onto the gulf (I avoided conflict by calling it “the Gulf of Florida”) on a pontoon boat. I was not expecting a pontoon boat to go out onto the open sea, as I normally picture them on calm inland lakes, but apparently they make heavy duty pontoons for that purpose.

We started at Bonita Springs (Wiggins Pass North) and took the boat up along the coast to Fort Myers Beach, stopping at a couple of beaches along the way.

One thing I forgot to mention is that as we were setting out from Wiggins Pass, in the channel before getting to the gulf, we were surprised to see dolphins. On my list of things to see in FL were manatees (zero) and alligators (2), but I did not have dolphins on my list. We saw a pod there, somewhat close to our boat and really close to another boat. And then out in the gulf we saw another pod. I didn’t get any good pictures though.

Our destination was Parrot Key, one of the many restaurants in Fort Myers Beach you can dock at. Along the way, our guides pointed out various areas that hadn’t recovered from the hurricane a couple of years back. Most of the beachfront had recovered though.

The last time we were in Florida, about a decade ago, the kids did not want to try gator nuggets, so we didn’t. But this time, there were enough people willing, so we got them.

They were okay. I’m fine with being able to say I’ve eaten alligator, and I don’t really care to do that again. The rest of the meal was good.

Ok, so this part was kind of a tourist trap. Because right next to the restaurant was a souvenir shop, which we spent a little time at, and a little money. I think someone got playing cards and someone else got something else.

After that, we stopped at a couple different islands to relax and look for shells and whatnot. We found a few mildly interesting shells, but the highlight of the beach was this very docile crab that Delta found.

We also took the opportunity to jump off the back of the pontoon into the gulf waters. I’d been to Florida before and gone in the ocea, but I’m pretty sure it’s always been the Atlantic side and never in the gulf, so now I can say I’ve been in the gulf.

Then we took the pontoon back down the gulf to the dock and headed back to the house. After dinner, we confirmed timing for the next day’s plans, played Phase 10, and went to bed.

Then it was evening, then morning, the next day.

Day 6:
This was mostly a travel day. More of a sleep in and pack up then short travel day, but still a travel day. Our destination was Orlando. But first, we had to get one last bit of non-Orlando Florida in. After packing up, we went down the road a bit and came to the local tourist trap, Sun Harvest. This is a store that’s half souvenirs and half foodstuffs. We grabbed a bag of fresh grapefruit and some hot sauce and something else. We had stopped here earlier in the trip for ice cream (they do have the best soft-serve chocolate ice cream, although you might have to get it in a twist with key lime).

Then it was off to Orlando. The drive there was fine for a while, but we could tell when we were getting close to Orlando by how bad the traffic started getting.

We couldn’t afford to spend a week in Orlando, paying expensive hotel prices and paying expensive admission fees to attractions. And it wouldn’t have been worth it to go down to Orlando for just one day of stuff. Our original plan had been to go visit family in Fort Myers, which is what we did. But in order not to overstay our welcome, we limited that to a few days and then filled out the week in Orlando for two nights. The first night was just getting there. We chose the Universal Studios Cabana Bay Resort, mainly because it was a decent price and had a convenient shuttle to the various Universal attractions. Other hotels may have been cheaper, but I liked not having to deal with Orlando traffic.

The Universal resorts give everyone his own key card. We did not get to pick our characters.

I did like the look and feel of Cabana Bay, in general it did a good job of a throwback to the ’60s. The room was basic, but it worked.

We had dinner at a local restaurant. Then it was evening, then morning, the next day.

To Be Continued…

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