Fort Lauderdale - Feb 10-12

We drove back up to Fort Lauderdale for a couple of days while we wait to get into our campground at the Everglades National Park. We decided to enjoy a couple of old Florida tourist activities; a gator farm and a dinner cruise on the canals of Fort Lauderdale. The weather, while cool in the evening, has been nice during the day.  Mid-70s and bright sunny skies.

The gator farm was basically an airboat ride in the Everglades and a gator show. The airboat we took was not the typical small boat that I have seen on TV, rather it was bus sized and had a canopy to protect you from the hot sun. That wasn’t an issue for us, but I could see where it would be nice to have in the warmer months. The tour was about an hour and included a mix of fast rides through some channels and a slow ride while the guide explained the environmental issues surrounding the Everglades.  We didn’t see any gators, but did get some close-up views of birds I haven’t seen before.

The gator show did provide some education on alligators and American crocodiles while the young man cracked silly jokes and acted like he was a swamp boy. I was glad it didn’t last too long, the jokes were really stupid.

One evening we drove to the modern, expensive part of Fort Lauderdale along the beach and took a dinner cruise on the Jungle Queen. A variation of this boat has been around since the 1930s, offering day cruises through the canals and a dinner cruise to their privately owned “isle” where they have a buffet dinner and show. As we headed toward the dinner place, we passed by many mansions and mega yachts, as well as the places where mega boats are built. The guide gave a funny and interesting commentary on the famous people who owned the mansions. Dinner was surprisingly good with ribs, chicken and shrimp along with cole slaw and beans. The campy show was about two notches below a poor cruise show and included a singer, ventriloquist and juggler. The highlight was when the singer went out into the audience and told us that there was a special guest on the cruise. He then pulled up a gentleman who turned out to be one of the current Temptations on vacation with family members (I looked on Google and found him in a group picture of the Temptations.) Along with two other (random) audience members, they sang “That Girl” and did a reasonable job for something done on the fly. Russ and I saw the Temptations, along with the Four Tops at an AARP conference in Las Vegas a couple of years ago and really enjoyed them.  I think they are on the third generation of both groups.

We got some errands done and are ready for the Everglades.  We are leaving the Atlantic coast of Florida – we had a great time and can't wait to see what the Gulf coast has to offer.

We took our tour on one of these king-sized airboats.  They had two 500 hp engines and were incredibly loud when fully powered up.

 

 

Pussy willows were all over in this part of the Everglades. The guide said this was because pussy willows were very tolerant of the insecticide and fertilizer runoffs from the cities. The lily ponds are indicative of improving water conditions.

This is one of the bazillion channels dug out by the Army Corps of Engineers during the 1940s to drain the land and prepare it for farming and development.  Unfortunately, this resulted in the dying off of the vast Everglades sawgrass river.  There is now a plan in place to restore more of the Everglades and attract back the wildlife that used to migrate to south Florida.

This crowd of vultures make their home on this island.  The ones nested in the trees reminded me of those pictures you see at Halloween of ominous vultures hanging over the cemetery.



These flowers bloom in the early morning and provide food to local fish and birds.



Another airboat taking the tour.



This is a Purple Gallinule. This particular one has learned to hang out in this particular area and get very close to the boat because the guides feed him as well as others.



The passenger in this helicopter was hanging outside his door taking pictures of us. I initially thought we would see copies of the pics that we could buy back at the dock, but I guess he was just out for a ride.

 



Carrying a 200 pound gater over for the show.  There were about 11 gaters in the enclosure.  All of them are "rescue" gators; having been caught in someone's hot tub or backyards.



One of the several tricks the young man showed us. The farm is run by a group that was involved in the reality show, Gator Boys. This guy was in a few episodes. I have never seen the show but will keep an eye out now.

 

This is the fourth iteration of the original boat that started giving tours in the mid 1930s.

Just one of the many yachts we saw on the boat ride.

This was part of a 17 million dollar estate.

The building where we had our cruise dinner. The whole evening was well organized and, even though the entertainment was rather kitschy, I enjoyed our outing.