Vacation Part three

Our holiday seemed to have three very distinct parts to it, a holiday sonata if you will.
The first was our week in the Keys, which was very refreshing and relaxing. I felt very much at home in the Key. I could actually imagine living there part of the year. The pace of life is much slower there and the people are very welcoming. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and had it not been for the fact that this was my first trip to Florida and there was so much I hadn't seen, I think I could've quite happily spent the entire time we were gone in Key West.
The second part of the vactation was the Bahama's, which was also quite relaxing. However it was painfully obvious that we were tourists, in a foreign country that relies on tourism. Everywhere you went someone had their hand out trying to to sell you something or expecting a tip. I enjoyed the sun and the sand, and I think I would like to return there one day on a diving holiday, but to be quite honest I'm in no rush to see it again. There are planty of other places on my list I would prefer to go instead.
The third part of the journey started with a brief return to the Keys for a day of diving, which was totally awsome. Then off to explore some new territory that even Darrell hadn't explored. He's been to Florida several times in the past, but had never done an everglades tour, so it was something we both really wanted to do. We had stayed in Florida City after the Bahama's so we could easily get down to Big Pine Key for diving, and discovered that there was an aligator farm right in the city, near the Everglade National park. We headed over there the next day to see all the gators and take an airboat ride. It was a lot of fun. We watched the Gator show, and saw the breeding and grow out pens, then rode the big airboat. You have to wear ear protection on the boat because it is really loud as it whips over the water, and the Driver would spin it 360 degrees almost at full speed. It was a real rush. The driver was an excellent tour guide and he pointed out all the wildlife we encountered and told us about the birds that live in the swamps as well as some of the different kinds of vegitation. I could've rode that boat a few times, but we had places to go and things to see.
Our plan was to travel across to the west coast and up as far as Tampa then across to Orlando. The most popular highway running across from Miami to Naples is a four lane highway nicknamed Alligator alley, and you can supposedly see a lot of wildlife on it. Darrell has been on it before, but was unimpressed by it's claims, luckily we spent some time talking about our plans to various people in Key west when we were there and got some local info that was very helpful. One of the ladies we met inthe bar, Ginger, told us to avoid Aligator alley and take the old highway 41, which is a longer slower drive, on account if it being only two lanes and winding up the coast, but she guaranteed we would see a lot more on it. Man was she right. The ditches on either side of the road basically blended seamlessly into the swamps in most cases and we saw aligators everywhere. We stopped saying "oh there's one" because they were all along the banks every ten or twenty feet. Just about everywhere there was enough land on the side of the road for a parking lot there was a swamp tour operating and there was also a very cool nature center we stopped at, which had a big observation deck over the ditch. There were about a dozen aligators just laying about on the banks along the length of the ditch there as well, and these guys were not all covered in dried mud and laying piled on top of one anoter like the ones at the farm. These guys were sleak and clean and sunning themselves, and perfectly able to leave the ditch any time they wanted too, because they were wild. Of course wild aligators are actually safer for the most part than the farmed ones, because wild aligators, lik emost other wild animals, are naturally afraid of humans. Honestly, can you blame them. People are the most destructive and deplorable animal on the planet, they should be afraid...I am. You are actually in more danger at the aligator farm, because those aligators are fed by people and associate food with people, not a good thing...that's why it is illegal in Florida to feed or approach wild aligators. People are mostly harmed by wild aligators for their own stupidity, but doing things like trying to touch them to see if they are alive, or swimming in water where they could be, or any number of macho things that people are apt to do. That said, I still wouldn't have wanted to break down on the side of highway 41, even though there were people all along the sides of the road fishing in the ditches, it's not a place I would get out and walk about. I certainly wouldn't stop to let the dogs out either.
All in all our aligator portion of the trip was a blast, with one glaring exception that only bothered me. Everywhere we went, the Farm, the nature center, you name it, they had all kinds of information about the wildlife, and in their information they all mentioned the various kinds of poisonous snakes in the Florida Everglades, and that really grated on my nerves. There is no such thing as a poisonous snake! I think if you are setting up information to educate people then you have aresponsibility to provide accurate and correct information. Snakes are Venomous, they are not poisonous. It seems like a small thing but it is not. Ignorance begets ignorance. Snakes, and spiders, and other little fanged or stingered beasties are venomous. Berries, and toad slime, and arsenic are poisonous. The easy way top remember - If it bites you and you die, it's venomous. If you bite it and you die, it's poisonous. It bugs the hell out of me to see it wrong in a public information setting where people go to learn about things. End rant
We drove across to Naples, then up to Tampa and over towards Orlando. We stopped at a Ramada about halfway between for the night. The next day we headed into Orlando to see about park tickets. Oh My God, what a total rip off, tickets for those parks are. I can't imagine how families can afford to take their kids to them. The prices are insane. Disney has five different parks, and tickets to one of the for the day are $90 at the gate. That ticket doesn't get you in to all of Disney, just the one park. Want to hop between parks, add another $50 for a second park. Rip off - but for some reason people are paying it. I'm guessing with the state of the American economy, people won't be paying it for long.
I have already been to Disneyland in California and Darrell has been to Disney World, so neither of us felt the need to see the Magic Kingdom. Darrell does enjoy Epcott, but the $90 price tag kind of made us cringe a little. We then discovered we could go to Universal Studios for $69 and get access to both parks, Universal Studios & Islands of Adventure. We didn't have the full day since we were meeting our neighbours, who were also in Florida for dinner at the place they were renting from our other neighbours. For some reason, that I`m still not sure of, we bought two day passes to Universal. I think the plan was to go and see what we wanted to see then give the second day to Mike and Cathy (our neighbours) as a thank you for letting us stay with them that night. Turns out that wouldn`t have been possible anyway, since they have these little fingerprint readers at the gate, that reads your pass and your fingerprint together, so that only you can use your pass. You can`t give away the second day of your pass to someone else, or sell it or whatever. You are stuck with it once you`ve bought it. To top it off...Universal Sucked!
The time it took to park, get into the park, see three things, and get out again.....Five Hours. We waited for 40 minutes in line to see Shrek 4D. It was okay. We waited 30 minutes for the Mummy. Great roller coaster style ride, lots of fire and very fast.....also very short. We waited almost 40 minutes for Jaws...It was awful. We didn`t choose to use our second day. I was really disapointed. I had hoped for something cool, especially when you consider the kind of thing was do for a living...Unversal Studios seemed to be the sensible place to go. (I guess DisneyMGM studios is the one to go to)
After the park we went to visit Mike and Cathy and had dinner and some drinks. We spent the night at the house with them, and then got up to do our second park day. We decided not to do our second day at Unversal and chose instead to splurge and buy ticket to Epcott. We really should have done that the first time, because Epcott, although very pricey, was excellent. We did most of the attractions right at Epcott, with the exceptionof Soar in which had a two hour line and no fast passes. We had a blast doing the mission to Mars simulator, and liked it so much we did it a few times. The Canada Pavilion had the 360 degree movie, which I remember from Expo 86. The movie has changed since then...lol, although the Maritimes was not well represented in the presentation. In fact what they showed were the same sort of stereotypical fishing village sort of images I had in my brain when I lived on the west coast. aside fromthat the presentation was really good. We stayed the entire day and watched illuminations that night as the park closed. It was a great fireworks/laser light show. Then we headed back to the Ramada we had found a couple nights before and stayed there for a our last night. At this point I was past ready to go home.
The next morning we got all our stuff packed back up and arranged, then hit a few of the aquarium stores on our way to the airport. Considering our love for the aquarium hobby we should've skipped Universal and gone to Seaworld. Next time.
Our flight was ontime and went well. We got to New York with no trouble, and our connection all went smoothly. We landed in Bangour and picked up the car, then started the cold late drive home. Of course we stopped at the duty free for a couple big bottles of booze and some inexpensive cologne, and then made our way up the highway to Saint John. We got home around 5am and hit the sack.
Bright and early that morning, Brian Dropped by on his way to work and dropped the dogs off. They were very excited to be home again, as were we. In the week that has followed since our return God has been trying to punish us for enjoying ourselves by burying us with snow. I wish I could return to Key West until spring.