New Year’s Day found us visiting The Alligator Farm to meet plenty of gators, take an air boat ride and walking around Everglades National Park. I was amazed at how full of life Everglades NP was. I have never seen so many beautiful birds, plants and fish so close together in such shallow, clear water. I could have spent much more time there but the children were happy to go back to the townhouse to enjoy the pool and tv and Hubby & N finally caught what I caught from D. The heat and humidity certainly feel good, especially with the coughing, but doesn’t cure it. The next day we took it easy playing tennis and building a magnificent sand castle and walking to the souvenir shop across the street.
On Friday we spent most of the day at Theater of the Sea in Islamorada and loved it. We liked how there was a schedule that you could go from one thing to another but you could also opt out to take a break. We loved wading with and feeding the parrot fish and feeding them, the sea lion show with Jet and her son Cole, the parrot show, taking a tour of the sea turtle and tropical fish pools and meeting an alligator and crocodile and the dolphin show with Sherman and Kimbit was so great we watched it twice. Theater of the Sea was like a miniature Sea World without the rides and crowds and high prices. We would totally go back if we visited the Florida Keys again.
Saturday we left the Keys to head closer to the airport and spent hours at Monkey Jungle, where the humans are caged and most of the monkeys get to run around wild. It was so much fun to place sunflower seeds in little steel bowls and then the monkeys would pull up the bowls by a chain. Out of the three shows we liked the one with King the lowland Gorilla because he’s such a picky old man. He was rescued from a circus four decades ago and likes things just right. After checking into our hotel we found a great Cuban restaurant to eat at even though D really wanted to eat Little Ceasar’s. I was so glad when all was said and done he agreed that Cuban food was better than $5 pizza. Lol.
Our last day we visited the Fort Lauderdale Temple grounds, a Porsche and Lamborghini dealership, the Museum of Discovery and Science gift shop, live music at Esplanade Park and headed to the airport. It was crazy to land in below freezing weather — made us want to go back right away but we were happy at the idea to see our puppies and be home with my parents and our friends again. And it turns out we can visit Florida without visiting Disney World and no one perished (but there were tears).
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