Hi its Grace again. Today I'll be write about some of the previous days of our trip. On our way north from the Keys, we were suppose to stay in this campground in the city, but it was scary looking. Mom made some calls and arranged for us to go to Gator Park instead. When we arrived and set up, we talked to a very friendly gator park resident. He told us about the park, the gators and the pythons; yes, pythons! Apparently, there is a big problem because they're invading Florida. We also learned there are three very poisonous spiders within Florida. A brown recluse (my mother found one in the camper and smushed it), a black widow, and some other spider I can't remember.
So after thoroughly being scared, we decided to go to Shark Valley for a nice walk. We talked to a ranger man who showed us several pictures of the pythons. We saw one that swallowed a 75 pound deer! So even more freaked than ever, we walked down a paved trail. We were very scared of the gators even though we were told several times they weren't aggressive. Crocodiles are aggressive and in the southern part of the Everglades. Of course, there aren't any crocodile in that area; how reassuring.
We walked a short way and came across our first gator. We backed up trying to obey the rule of staying 10-15 feet away from any wildlife, yet realizing we were on a five foot wide path. I turned around to the wilderness on the other side and there was a gator on the other side! I managed to squeak this fact out to my dad and we hurried down the path. We saw several other gators and we were scared of all of them. My dad had this brilliant idea, (apply sarcasm thickly) to walk along an unpaved side trail known as the Otter Hammock. It would have been neat if we weren't worried about finding a python in the trees, gators under the bridge, or panthers in the brush; how fun. We then decided to walk back along the paved trail and spent the rest of the day locked in the camper.
The next day, we decided to take a drive around the area. We checked out several air boat tours and then we returned to Shark Valley. This time we took our bikes. There was only one new rule to follow. You were only allowed to ride the path counterclockwise so you could see the tram tour coming and stop. At the beginning of the ride, we were still scared of the gators, but pretty soon we realized they didn't care about us. It might be more interesting if you wrestled them, as I told my dad several times. At one point, we stood five feet away from one.
By that point we were getting tired, but we couldn't turn around or we would be going clockwise. Finally we reached the... halfway point! We had come seven miles and had eight more to go!!! Uughhh. Dad told us to get our second wind, then our third, then our fourth! I'm pretty sure I was only given two. It was pretty weird though, now that I think back on it. On the first leg of the trip it was mostly swamp, but it deteriorated into my image of Africa. Tall half dead grass, random clumps of trees, sickly looking pines, and random pools of water. I'm guessing it floods there but at that point it just looked really weird. When we finally get home I did something unexpected. I went to bed!
The last day in Gator Park was really fun! Not just because of the air boat ride (more on that later), but we were also getting to know what was in the park. There were peacocks, an extremely friendly gator who would come when you called, and several ducks? The air boat ride was awesome too. We saw a couple gators, but they almost felt staged after our day at Shark Valley. No, what was really cool was the air boat. The way you would go through the marsh it was like a roller coaster. You would twist from side to side almost as if the boat would tip. So cool! We then sadly had to leave of for a new place. I would have preferred to sleep; I was exhausted from all the fun!
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