Epic Crocodilian Road Trip Day 7

We got breakfast at the hotel again.  Even Sam ate.  It helped that Bluey was playing in the lobby.

Short 15 minute drive to the Everglades Alligator Farm (it's almost like someone planned this).  We got there just in time for our private airboat ride.  After the Okefenokee debacle, I've had concerns about this, but actually, zero issues.  Auggie even climbed up and drove for a minute!  I asked him if he wanted a pair of headphones he could wear whenever he wanted, but he said no.  Highlight of this trip for the boys was the wild iguanas, but highlight for me, by far, was seeing the nesting gator on her nest.  Super cool.  Lyle has declared the airboat ride as his favorite activity because, wait for it, of the 454 Chevy engine.  You can take the boy out of the garage, but...

In addition to the invasive iguanas the boys were so excited about, we also saw an invasive tegu.

After the airboat ride, we got caught in a famous Florida thunderstorm and DRENCHED while waiting for our alligator encounter.  Auggie decided he was desperate to pet a capybara and the guide there was super awesome and made that happen for him.

The thunderstorms finally gave us enough of a break for our alligator encounter.  I was worried this was going to be a disappointment because we'd already done so much of this type of thing.  I needn't have worried.  We got to hold both the smallest and the largest gators we've been up close with.  It was lots of fun and worth getting soaked for.  (Yes, I had a poncho too, but I was already saturated at this point and decided I wasn't getting any wetter.)

The coolest part of the encounter though was that a mama gator had made her nest up against the glass in the behind the scenes area.  We got to see an egg, and we got to hear gator vocalizations as she hissed at us.  Even the guide jumped when she lunged at us!  I have video and will try to upload that later.

Also, apropos of nothing really, please enjoy this Sinclair [sic] family photo.

After the alligators (and dry clothes) we drove back into the National Park to Flamingo on a hunt for wild crocodiles.  Crocodiles live in brackish or saltwater environments and are only found in south Florida in the US.  We'd been told they might be on the boat ramps or around the marina, but we didn't see any.  The boys were done.  So done.  The mosquitos were bad again, and despite my commentary from yesterday,  both kids look like they have chicken pox on their faces from all the bites.  Again, these aren't the big puffy welts I'm used to, and they're not crazy itchy, but still... so a reasonable parent might have called it a day.  This is me we're talking about though.  Lyle started the car and cranked the AC.  They had sugary snacks and drinks.  I walked over to the visitor center and asked for advice.  We took the boat tour over the boys' strenuous objections and a half meltdown from Augs.  We saw four crocs!  Scavenger hunt, complete!  Totally worth it.  (The boys do not agree, but they're wrong.)  We saw dolphins, but we're jaded on dolphins and weren't impressed.  I've mostly gotten the planning right on this trip (St. Petersburg debacle notwithstanding), but I didn't have the boat trip on my agenda and I am so, so glad we did it.  Auggie napped, which was fine.  Sam actually spotted the first croc.  Have I mentioned he is weirdly good at crocodilian spotting and that I am weirdly bad at it?  He thinks it is absolutely hilarious that I will point at something that is invariably a rock, a log, or floating debris.

Mission accomplished, we made it back to the van just in time to get to Robert Is Here for celebration milkshakes that my best friend Chad (aka ChatGPT) recommended.  Delicious and perfectly timed.  Lyle and I had Key Lime, Auggie had dragonfruit (aka PINK!), and Sam had vanilla (because of course).  And thus ended the crocodilian part of this adventure, with the desired bang, and a few whimpers. 

We've had a really good time, all things considered, learned a lot, seen everything we set out to see, and survived the meltdowns!  I would do any part of this trip again, and I do not in any way regret the crazy roadtrip, but once has been enough and if we do decide to revisit particular destinations, I think we'd fly.

As we've learned on the trip, the easiest way to differentiate alligators and crocodiles is to wave at them.  You can tell this one is a gator because it's clearly saying, "See you later!"

Tomorrow, one last day at their favorite pool and then we start back north. 

Epic Crocodilian Road Trip Day 6

(Full disclosure, Blogger deleted my almost complete draft and what was going to be really great post is now just going to be here.  Disregard the part about no meltdowns today, I got one in under the wire.) 

Into the Everglades...

Y'all - for the second day in a row - NO MELTDOWNS!  Either we're getting better at this, or everyone has just accepted their fate and surrendered to the awfulness (or the last couple of days have just been lower demand, that's also possible.)  Auggie was on the bubble of one and I said, "Keep it up and I'll give you a meltdown tally!"  And he just ... stopped.

We got up in time for hotel breakfast this morning, yay.  Sadly for Sam, not only did we not get room service, this hotel doesn't even offer room service.  Poor Sam, forced to exist in the world of normal hotels like the rest of us.  He did tell us earlier on the trip that he "prefers condo hotels" meaning he likes it when we get a suite and he can sleep on the pullout sofa instead of two queens.  Also, Auggie knows to ask for cranberry juice at breakfast.  #notmychildhood. The hotel had pink waffles, so of course, Auggie had one (with whipped cream, natch).

My research had indicated that we needed to be at Shark Valley by 8am.  I think maybe not so much in mid-summer.  We got there slightly before 8.  The gates did not open until 8:30.  Somehow, I am still married. 

Although I had goofed up our reservation for the tram tour, it was not sold out (see again, mid-summer) and the team there very generously just moved us to the right tour.  The tram tour is about two hours, fifteen miles round trip with a twenty minute stop at the observation tour halfway for photos and potty breaks (they prefer you do these activities separately).  We saw a lot of gators, but at this point, we're harder to impress.  The gators are also hot, and prefer to just kinda lounge in the water, so we didn't get the experience of lots and lots of gators just lined up on the side of the tram road like some of the online photos show.  The guide was good, and did a decent job of explaining the specific Everglades ecosystem, but he did not live up to Nick from the Okefenokee or Sam's beloved Kayla.  I really wanted to bike this, but none of the other three of them was going to be down for that, and the decision to do the tram tour was the right one.  Just before the tower, there is a short hiking trail, we ducked off on that and were immediately swarmed by mosquitos.  I thought I knew mosquitos.  I did not know mosquitos.  Until you have seen your child literally covered in mosquitos, you have not experienced an authentic Everglades trip.  Yes, we sprayed them with DEET (you know me).  Yes, I had headnets on them.  It was still ... something.  Auggie wanted to go down the tower before Sam and Lyle were ready.  He said, "We both have our running shoes on, let's try the trail again."  We tried the trail again.  This was not a good choice.  Although the mosquitos are prolific, they're really not that smart, and you can just kinda brush them off or smash them.  Also, weirdly, none of us have the usual itchy mosquito bite hives.  Sam and Lyle shockingly didn't manage their time well and made the whole tram wait while the guide went back to the tower to retrieve them.  Somehow, Lyle is still married.

We were not the people on the trip with the worst kid today!  There was a very hot, very unhappy child in front of us (estimated age, less than 2) that basically screamed its head off for most of the trip.  We gave it animal crackers and looked like heroic, experienced, prepared parents!  Where were our friends from the Okefenokee boat trip for this moment, huh??

After Shark Valley we began the "not not my parents roadtrip" part of the trip.  Small "scenic stops" where there wasn't much to see.  Excessive heat, ridiculous bugs.  Being forced to unbuckle and climb into the back for snacks for the adults.  In an attempt not to hew TOO closely to the year of our lord nineteen hundred and eighty-seven, we did allow them to use actual toilets (and I washed the blanket - and by washed, I mean in an actual washing machine, not with dishwashing detergent in the hotel sink - and that only had orange juice spilled on it, not pee!); we let them have sugary snacks and bottled drinks; there was no vomiting (possible correlation from not being forced to witness one's siblings using the dreaded potty bucket); and, as previously established, electronic devices exist beyond the level of the calculator.

First stop, Big Cypress Bend.  Pretty cool in that it's a different ecosystem.  Sadly, we did not see any panthers here, but Sam did spot a gator.  The child is weirdly gifted at gator spotting.  Before he saw that one, he was debating methods to attract one and suggested we could try throwing Auggie in.  Auggie had to be reminded that was not an acceptable strategy to go to the hotel sooner.  You can tell we've seen a lot of crocodilians, because the featured fauna today was this weird grasshopper.  It really should have been the mosquito, of which we took approximately 7.8 million with us in the van when we left.

After Big Cypress, we stopped at H.P. Williams.  We saw four gators right off the boardwalk.  They surfaced for Lyle.  Much was made by Sam and Auggie that they were not stomping loud enough for the gators to wake up, but Daddy was.  Presumably, stupid tourists feed these gators often enough that they've come to associate people on the boardwalk with food.  Still, very cool, and maybe the biggest we've seen in the wild.

We stopped at Kirby Storter after that, hoping to see alligator nurseries, but sadly, the boardwalk had been destroyed and that stop was a bust.  From there, we finally caved to demands to take the children to the hotel.  Pizza, pool time, tablets.  Auggie asked me if I had anything pink for him to wear.  Like, buddy, you've been mine for 7 years now, and you've had your pink nightshirt the whole trip, but yeah, obviously I have pink things for you.

Tomorrow is our last crocodilian day!

Epic Crocodilian Road Trip Day 5

Let me lead with the biggest first....  NO MELTDOWNS TODAY!

We got breakfast at the hotel.  (Sam informed us he prefers room service.)  We got to the St. Augustine Alligator Farm Zoological Park just in time to catch most of the 11 o'clock Realm of the Alligator show.  Then we started down the Land of Crocodiles exhibit when Auggie decided that he couldn't survive in his pants, so he and I went back to the van to change into shorts.  Lyle had the van key.  Back to the Land of Crocodiles.  Back to the van.  Shorts, yay!  By now, Sam and Lyle were having dippin' dots and lemonade.  I traded Auggie for Sam and we went to the 12pm feeding.  The difference between this place and Gatorland is stark.  This is an accredited zoo, and it shows in the way the staff talks, the way the exhibits are kept, the enrichment opportunities provided and so on and so on.  This place has the most species of crocodilians at one facility anywhere in the world (they used to have all of them, but 2 new species have been discovered).  We had a 12:30 behind the scenes tour that was great.  Auggie had my phone (remember, NO MELTDOWNS!) but it was fine.  We got to see hatching and we got very close (but behind fences) to some crocodilians that are off exhibit.  After the tour we saw the rest of the exhibits (and Auggie FINALLY saw caimans!).

We realized that we'd left Lyle's ballcap at the restaurant last night, so we made a quick detour to retrieve that and then headed south.

The rest of the day was basically driving.  We got Chick Fil A, we got more ice, Auggie and Lyle got naps, and Sam and I listened to our bad book (the latest installment of The Wandering Inn series).

We got to Miami about 9.  I did hotel laundry (note to future me:  pack rolls of quarters, laundry doesn't cost a dollar a load anymore).

Tomorrow we head into the Everglades finally!

Sam's rankings so far:

Croc Encounters 

Okefenokee

St. Augustine

Gatorworld

Sam's rankings are heavily influenced by his assessment of the guides' knowledge and entertainment value.

Auggie's rankings 

Gatorland - b/c they have a baby albino alligator 

St. Augustine - b/c they had caimans

Okefenokee

Croc Encounters - b/c it smelled terrible and was too hot

Lyle's rankings:

Swimming in the ocean w/ the boys 

[Redacted]

The rainbow over the lazy river in Orlando

Okefenokee 

My rankings:

I refuse to rate them because they've been really different experiences and not comparable apples to apples, but if you forced me to choose then Okefenokee.

Enjoy the photos!