Everglades

SO while hubs and I with 2 friends are in Ft. Lauderdale waiting to board a cruise to Caribbean - we go to Everglades Holiday Park - home of "The Gator Boys" - on Animal Planet. 

It was raining pretty good and we really felt a little "Murican" with the entire setting. Honey Boo Boo lives near here I am sure - or at least a bit of her culture is here. I heard a lot of " I seen this"

The beauty was breath taking - nature in pristine-ness but with Air Boats buzzing all around. Gaters everywhere. This picture made me smile - trying to get the beauty of the lily flower buds with the rain ripples..

Our Air Boat tour was one hour. There are nearly 5,000 square miles of this massive water ecosystem. What a massive display of aquatic hyperactivity. These are the facts:

The Everglades are wetlands in southern Florida. The measure about 100 miles by 60 miles, and range from Lake Okeechobee south, almost to the tip of Florida. They run from the Atlantic Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico. They include a variety of ecosystems from grassy marshes to cypress swamps and mangrove forests. They were long regarded as impenetrable by human beings, and remained largely unexplored.
Their original name in English was River Glades. This was changed to Everglades by cartographers in the 1820's.

Very beautiful - even in the rain, thunder, and lightening. 

REAL HUGE VULTURES - there were tons of these guys living there.