Florida Day #2: Key Largo and the trip to Key West

We woke up in Florida City on Monday and hit the road early to make it to Key Largo for our 10:30 snorkel trip. After gathering up our equipment, we boarded a boat for the 30 minute trip out to Grecian Reef where we had an hour to snorkel:

On the boat

The phone case made everything look a little hazier than it actually was

Barracuda

This fish was actually green and pink

These purple-y coral were Kevin's favorite

After snorkeling, we started our drive down the keys, stopping for lunch and then key lime pie at the Blond Giraffe, which we were told had the best pie on the keys (it was really good):

Our next stop was rain barrel village, which was a collection of eclectic stores and this giant lobster sculpture:

From there, we drove to Bahia Honda where we took a short walk to an old railroad bridge and enjoyed the views and the beach:

Kevin needed the restroom, so Benji let me snap some pictures while we were waiting

We made it to our hotel at Key West just before sunset and made our way to its little beach to take it in:

After a late dinner we hit the sack so we could make the most of our next day in Key West!

Florida Day 1: Everglades

We decided to do something a little different with our spring break this year, spending the whole time in Florida, but splitting between seeing Grandpa Steve and seeing some other parts of the state. We flew into Fort Lauderdale Saturday night and drove to Florida City, right next to the Everglades so we could spend all of Sunday exploring the park. We stuck to the Southern edge of the park as we had already seen parts of the Northern Shark Valley. Our first stop was the Anhinga Trail, where we took a guided walk with a park ranger and saw a lot of alligators:

We were very excited to spot this first alligator across the lake, not realizing quite how many gators they would be, or how close to the trail

A wider view of the Everglades

Spotting gator #2

Oh, there he is

Gator #3

Double breasted cormorant were all over the park

Florida gar

I love a good fish under water picture

Mama and baby turtle

Gator #4

Didn't even bat an eye at this lizard crawling on him

From Anhinga, we made our way to the Nike Missile Historic Site. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, the US scrambled to put missiles in the Everglades (pointed sat Cuba) as soon as possible. After a year of having them in the open, they built four hangers to house them and a railroad system to launch them. One of the barns was reconstructed as an historic site in 2012:

Nike missile

There were very interesting displays about the "missile mania" of the 1960s. Featured on Cheerios boxes!

Checking out the electronics in the nose

You could touch the controls and flip the switches and dials. The volunteer ranger told us this is everyone's favorite part (it was very satisfying)

Benji spotted this door in a hill - no idea what it was for!

From the missile site, we headed to Flamingo Visitor Center, which had a very pretty view of the bay:

We were hoping to spot a manatee, but we only found this model (Benji's D&D character is a manatee, so he has a particular fondness for them)

We decided against a boat ride as we were all tired, but we rallied to make one last stop at Pa-hay-okee Overlook, where we spotted yet more gators:

Gator #5

Gator #6 was swimming

Some non-gator wildlife

This part of the Everglades is known as the river of grass and it is full of water birds

We saw one more gator as we left the park, but I declined to take a picture. Once we left the park, we made a short stop at the Robert Is Here fruit stand/store:

None of us had ever seen a jackfruit tree before. They're huge!

Easter Basket 2024

Since we would be out of town for Easter, I asked Benji whether he wanted his basket before or after our trip. He decided on before so it would be spaced out from his birthday :)

Varsity Pin

Since Benji got his Varsity letter last year, going forward he receives a pin for each additional varsity sport or year he completes. He received his swim pin at the Winter Sports Banquet just before break: