FLORIDA
Everglades Day 1
When my mom suggested a trip to the Everglades, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I started researching and came up pretty barren on things to do. A big emphasis is on airboat tours, bicycle tours and kayaking.
For our first day, we had to drive from near Tampa where we were for Christmas festivities, down to Everglades City. This is for the Gulf Coast side of the Everglades, and for us the first of four possible entrances to the park.
We had lunch quickly at a local pizza place called Hole in the Wall Pizza and Other Delicious Things which turns out to be aptly name. The pizza was perfection and the serving size for the salad and meatball sub was big!
Then, we did an airboat excursion with Captain Jack’s Airboat Tours. This was pretty cool because we had headsets with microphones so we could hear the tour guide talking while in motion. Compared to my previous airboat experience in New Orleans, this was much faster. We were starting to regret the big helpings of greasy pizza we had just finished!
The experience of whipping around mangrove tree islands in what is basically a lunch tray with a fan hooked up to a v8 engine was like riding a roller coaster. And we got a little history lesson and saw our first gator of the trip.
Afterwards, we headed to Chokoloskee Island to watch the sun set and take a break.
For dinner, we headed over to Triad Seafood Market and Cafe for some local Florida seafood. One thing we didn’t really do right the very first day as tourists was take into account the mosquitos. People had warned me about them but we didn’t heed the warnings properly. Finally the waitress asked if we’d like to be seated in the netted area and that was much better. I also found out at this dinner that I’m not a big crab eater!
This night we stayed in Everglades City. There isn’t a ton more to do in this area, so we elected to get another hotel for the next two nights in Homestead. This worked out really well and I recommend this approach since the biomes between the two areas of the Everglades are incredibly different. I also think there’s more to do on the east side of the park.