Sunday, January 5th

Well this wasn't our best of vacation days!  Started off great with warm weather, I even wore shorts at the start of the day!  We had decided to go to the Everglades National Park to a campground (at someone's recommendation we'd camped next to) at the very tip of Florida.  We left that state park that morning and the drive was great and we were all excited for a great beach---after all we are in Florida!  Well that was our first mistake.  We stopped at the Everglades National Park Visitor Center to ask about camping.  She indicated there were spots where we were going because she hadn't heard differently.  We asked if there was anything we needed to be aware of or do or whatever and she said mosquitoes!  Great I thought-I get more than enough of those at home.  So we get to the campground in Flamigo which was 40 some miles into the park.  We didn't make a reservation figuring it was Sunday and there shouldn't be any problem.  Well there wasn't any problem but our site had no hookups which meant no electric and, oh, did I mention it was 82 degrees!  And who knows what the humidity was!  We do have a generator but you can only run at certain times blah blah blah.  So we're in line for water at the station and the kids and I walk over to our site.  No fire pit JUST in case I cools enough to want it later.  So Audree and I rode back to the pay shak to see if we can move.  He says yes.  I ask about WiFi or even a cell phone signal, he practically laughs in my face.  Then I ask about where the beach is and he does laugh in my face.  There's too much mud, too many crocodiles, and too many sharks.  I said OKAY!  We get moved into our new space and the mosquitoes are definitely out.  Yuck!  We went for a bike ride to the area he said was a public area....HA.  Not our idea of Florida at all.  Rode bikes to the visitor center and learned that this place is the furtherest north that crocodiles go; and that alligators are here too.  The highlight was we saw a crocodile cross the waterway and there were several manatees swimming where we were sitting enjoying some ice cream.   Manatees are cousins to elephants but they look more like a seal.  Soon we headed back to the camper and the bugs were horrible so we sat inside in the heat!  Ugh!  We could only run the generator till 8pm.  We couldn't get out of there fast enough!      **Sara