Gonna take our stand in this chevy van
Windows open on the rest of the world
Holding hands all the way to dixie land
We’ve been trying to turn our lives around
Since we were little kids
It’s been wearing us down
Don’t turn away now darling
Lets fire it up and wind it out
With the one you love
Come on baby drive south…
The swampy land between Naples, Fl and Ft Lauderdale along I-75 and more so along old highway 41 is know as Alligator Alley Between these two roads and south are the Everglades. Before the Spanish arrived in 1513, the region in south Florida that is now the Everglades National Park was largely inhabited by the Calusa Indians starting around 1000 B.C. By the 1700s most of the Calusa population had been killed off by the incoming disease brought by settlers. Those settlers were called “Gladesmen”.
We’ve always wanted to camp in the Everglades but it wasn’t gonna happen this trip before we had to be in the Keys. There are two national park campgrounds in the forest and all facilities were down temporarily due to the government shut down. We decided to do the next best thing and take our first Airboat ride so we headed to Everglades City and the world famous Captain Jacks. There were two choices for ‘rides’- we choose the Mangrove vs the Grasslands.
Wow! We highly recommend this exhilarating 1 hour ride. There is something about the way the boat effortlessly glides through the mangrove swamps that is so relaxing and peaceful. The Everglades used to be the wild, wild west of the south with smugglers from Cuba and the Caribbean islands.
And for some strange reason we did not see a single alligator!
After the airboat ride, we high-tailed it toward Miami and turned south at dusk and eventually found our way to the Key Palm’s RV park on Key Largo in the dark. And that is where we leave you, gentle reader, until next time.
