Everglades-Air Boat Rides-Village

On February 9, we decided to head out to Gator Park (part of the Florida Everglades), Everglades National Park - Shark Valley, and Miccosukee Indian Village...The ride to these places is about 45 minutes north of the Miami Everglades Campground off of Route 997 & Route 41 (Tamiami Trail)...

The weather for this day was wonderful...

Arriving at Gator Park about 9:30am was a good time...
We had a coupon for Buy One Get One Free ride...The store was

filled with all kinds of souveniors...The only thing that we would be interested in would be a nice magnet...

While waiting for 10am to be our time to get on to an airboat, we watched other airboats to come in with them filled with people...

The seats were bench like seats and were flushed to the floor of the airboats...

There was an airboat with raised seats that we were hoping that we would be able to ride in...and when 10am got there, we among 16 others were lead to the raised seats on the airboat...Yeah! What was neat was that we both were able to have our own seats instead of being crowded

next to one another cause the raised seats were for 2 people per seat...

After being told about the airboat, what to do and not to do on the airboat, we took off slowly through the upper Everglades...While cruising slowly to open areas, we saw a few alligators and some egrets...After going down the main stream of the Everglades, the airboat driver put the boat in drive and off we went...It was really cool...The driver took us through the sawgrasses and stopped at certain spots and pointed out areas along the sawgrasses...There were egrets and great blue herons...There was another type of egret with white/black wings but I do not know what kind of egret it was and I couldn't find it in my book...

Our airboat ride was about 30 minutes long, which just wasn't long enough but it a way to see how it felt to ride in an airboat...We got off of the airboat and went in to the store to buy our magnet (the one on the left side with the gator who has the open mouth) for ourselves as a keepsake...We got our magnet and then got a bite to eat there before heading to Everglades National Park - Shark Valley...

Florida Everglades National Park - Shark Valley is off of Rte. 41, Tamiami Trail in Miami, Florida...We arrived at the gate of the park and paid our $10 to get in to the park and park...

Shark Valley has a loop that is for bikers and walkers along with a few other little paths/bridges to see the wildlife/plants/trees...The wild thing about this part of the park is that as you bike/walk along the asphalt path alligators are resting...sleeping...just looking at you...Nothing to fear the Park Ranger says...During the day the alligators are dormant and do not want to be bothered...All they want to do is sleep so that they can be refreshed when they wake up around dusk and go searching for their dinner...

Besides walking or renting a bike or bringing your own bike, you can also pay to ride a Shark Valley tram for about $18 per person and this tram tour takes you around a loop and points out all the trees/plants/alligators...We thought about taking this tram tour but at the time the tour was all filled and the next tour wasn't for another 2 hours later...so we decided to take a little walk down the asphalt path, in the hot sun...To rent a bike was $7/hour, I think...

So we took our little walk down the path and alligators are everywhere...They were on the banks just sunning and letting their body temperature get to where it needs to be for night time...Some alligators were even laying next to the path...At one point, I was about 5 feet away from one not even realizing that there was an alligator in front of me...Scarey!!! So I took my picture and backed up...There are signs that say to stay away from them about 15 feet...After that close encounter, I made sure I was 15 feet away...There were gators in the water just swimming...Now the egrets and the great blue herons were giving the alligators a fit...It seems that the birds like to antongonize the alligators...We saw green herons and anhingas and cormorants...
The loop at Shark Valley we didn't even begin to go on cause it was too hot, no shaded areas, and we wanted to move on to something else...We did go on the Bobcat Path before heading to the truck but there wasn't much to see on this path...Lots of reeds, grasses and trees...There was a sitting area with benches that we stopped at and rested for a little bit...

After the walk here at Shark Valley, we headed to the Miccosukee Indian Village...

We pulled in to the parking lot at Miccosukee Indian Village and could park anywhere...There was hardly anyone there but we decided to go in anyways...The admission fee was $8/person...We walked around in the store a little bit and saw all the souveniors and the blouses, jackets, skirts, and shirts that the Miccosukee Indian women make...The prices for these items were very high...We paid our fee and walked through the doors to the "village"...

As you walk through the doors out to the outside and in to the village all we saw were empty booths where there should be vendors and I am sure that at times there are lots of vendors who fill these stands...We saw carved out canoes, a mock set up of a bed, baby swing bed and how their clothes were hung up...As you walk the path, we came across 2 indian ladies sewing...They were making the skirts or shirts or jackets that we saw in the store...There is a path to a covered area but all you see are reeds...The path leads back to the middle of the village or to the museum...Richard and I walked in to the museum and saw a mock up of how the Miccosukee Village use to look like and an area made up of how wild life would be around them...The walls had all kinds of pictures and a movie room...It really wasn't much, at least it wasn't for me...

About 3pm, there was going to be Alligator Wrestling...So we headed to the stands where this was going to take place...But on the way, there was a solid wall pen and in this pen were little alligators...As we got close to the grandstand there were already people seated and a Miccosukee Indian already in the pit with the alligators...There were 3 alligators and I'm sure they ranged in age...The show was beginning to start earlier than what we were told...

The indian wrestler did his thing with the gator and after the show we finished our picture taking and left the village...We will not go back there again...To us it was a rip off...

Bayside Marketplace in Miami, FL

On February 6 Richard and I decided to head to a new exploring sight called Bayside...Bayside is an outside strip mall with all kinds of ethnic shops, music and restaurants...Also there are boat slips where people with yacht type boats, small and large, can come in to Miami and park their boat at a dock...

Do you think this is a small boat or a large boat? This was something to see coming in from the Atlantic Ocean in to the Port of Miami...

If only CSI: Miami was filmed in Miami...The beginning shots of all the shows are shot on Miami but the rest of the show is filmed in California...I thought of getting a CSI tee but I couldn't rationalize me needing another tee...Buy one, get rid of one...That's how it is in an RV...

On our walk around the shops, I came across several tees for kids...I saw this one and thought it was so cute...and true! *L*

You've heard of Crocs, right! Well, have you heard of Geckos...In this Bayside Marketplace, there is a kiosk where you can buy Geckos and the little jibbitzes...and the best part is that the jibbitzes are only $1 each so I bought 6 of them for future use...

Among all the kiosks, there were tee shirts, knick knacks of all sorts, shoes, mp3 accessories, fedora hats...along with magnets, cups, mugs, keychains, postcards, pens and other stuff...There was an Oriental kiosk, food kiosks, even a beauty parlor to get your hair done...The shops in the Bayside Marketplace had ugly clothes, or none that I liked...More like the rich would wear...

While at Bayside Richard and I were deciding on where we were going to eat...We already knew that we wanted to eat at Bubba Gump Shrimp Company but we wanted to eat at the Hard Rock Cafe too...So we ate lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe and a little bit of an appetizer at Bubba Gump...We were not impressed with the Miami version of the Hard Rock Cafe (HRC) like we have at other HRC's that we have been at...Richard got his normal buffalo wings with his hot sauce and french fries and I got chicken tenders and got to eat a few of his french fries...The inside of the HRC wasn't all that either, at least not to us...but the food was good...After we were done eating, we had to go in the Merchandise Shop...I needed to buy a pin with 2009 on it for our collection so I picked out a guitar...It was a good choice cause I have a few other HRC pins that are guitars too...Bubba Gump was awesome...We got the appetizers of popcorn shrimp which is breaded differently than any other type of popcorn shrimp...and the steamed shrimp was delicious...We really enjoyed all of it...It was the end of a great day...The other thing that we saw was a huge Banyan tree that was about 100 years old...

Getting to Downtown Miami wasn't to bad...We left the campground and headed towards Dolphin Expressway, north...then we took Palmetto Expressway and it turned in to

I-395...After passing over I-95, we took the exit for Downtown Miami...Whew! Talk about crowded...It was just like Downtown Baltimore, around the Inner Harbor...We were able to find a parking lot where we could take 2 spaces for our truck and the fee was $10 which we thought wasn't that bad...However, leaving Downtown Miami was a different story...At first we didn't realize why Downtown Miami didn't look so busy...Then we got on to Palmetto Expressway and found out why...Traffic back up...Plus it didn't help that we had to go by Miami International Airport, once again...Miami International Airport is a HUGE airport...Richard tried to get pictures and I hope that they turned out...After almost 2 hours, we arrived safely home...We had a great day at Bayside Marketplace, Downtown Miami...