The woke on Wednesday morning unsure of where the day would take us, though we were sure of the direction... north. We had a similar feeling when leaving Fairbanks Alaska, having reached the summit of our trip, there was no place for us to go but down. Now once again we had reached a turning point and the only place for us to head this time was back north. When we left Alaska, we had the excitement and unexplored territory of the West Coast to look forward to, but leaving Key West had a different feeling. It felt to us like the end. With every mile that ticked on CJ's odometer we were one step closer to home; closer to the end of our journey. Though there were still several weeks of amazing times before us, we couldn't shake the underlying feeling that it was nearing the end. Nonetheless, we washed these feelings from our minds simultaneously as we washed our faces in Walmart's fine facilities that morning. We agreed to continue to live in the now and not worry about the future more than a day or two in front of us. With that we began to make our way to Florida's East coast with the intention of searching for shark teeth. I had done this with my Mom and Russ as a kid and my obsession for collecting being what it is, couldn't pass up the opportunity to do it again. As we left the outskirts of Miami, we headed one final time through the Everglades where and stopped off at the
Shark Valley Visitor Center, officially making it to every stop in the park. Here we had planned to do a 2 hour Tram Tour through the uplands known as the River of Grass. This part of the park is known for its abundant wildlife and is the most likely part of the park that you will spot a genuine Florida Panther. Unfortunately, we underestimated the weekend draw of this particular section of the park and the Tram Tour was sold out for the next 2 hours. We decided that we didn't want to waste 4 hours of our day and also $40 of our money, so we chose to skip the tram ride and decided to go on a 3 mile hike down the bike path, which goes along a portion of the Tram Tour as well. The trail was of course teeming with alligators, anhinga's, and herons of every color and size, all of which was common place to us by now. Even an alligator that was blocking our path entirely, sunbathing himself, didn't even inspire us to take a photo at this point. We merely walked around, continuing our conversation as other guest to the park gawked, stared, and mockingly tempted fate, edging closer and closer to the alligator. Katie and I got a thrill of our own about 1.5 miles down the trail. Here there was not nearly as many tourists as there was closer to the visitor center as most were waiting for the next tram to board and didn't want to be left behind and thus didn't journey far. But away from the crowds, we spotted our first baby alligator! The first one we saw was more of an adolescent maybe about a foot and a half in length but as we kept getting farther down the trail and strained our eyes toward the opposite river bank, more and more baby alligators became apparent to us. We literally saw hundreds of baby alligators no more than 6 inches long, all huddled around one another looking as though black tar had been thrown on the green foliage. There were even a few adventurous ones that had swam out to their very own lily pad, soaking up the sun. Not surprisingly, nearby we also saw many heron's in the areas, sneaking around looking for an easy lunch. We agreed with the heron and decided we were due for a meal ourselves. We headed back to the car and ate our staple of peanut butter and granola bars while we drove through the rest of the everglades. We drove for hours until we reached the town of Punta Gorda... thats right... Punta Gorda. By this time the sun had almost set and Katie and I were still worn out from our all day adventure the day before. The van was hot and the sun was menacing and all I could think about was escaping to a quiet cool hotel room for the night, which is exactly what we did. We ordered pizza for dinner, the last one we would have for 40 days as Lent was about to begin and Katie and I had both decided to give up cheese, and relaxed the night away contented to be indulging in such luxuries.
The woke on Wednesday morning unsure of where the day would take us, though we were sure of the direction... north. We had a similar feeling when leaving Fairbanks Alaska, having reached the summit of our trip, there was no place for us to go but down. Now once again we had reached a turning point and the only place for us to head this time was back north. When we left Alaska, we had the excitement and unexplored territory of the West Coast to look forward to, but leaving Key West had a different feeling. It felt to us like the end. With every mile that ticked on CJ's odometer we were one step closer to home; closer to the end of our journey. Though there were still several weeks of amazing times before us, we couldn't shake the underlying feeling that it was nearing the end. Nonetheless, we washed these feelings from our minds simultaneously as we washed our faces in Walmart's fine facilities that morning. We agreed to continue to live in the now and not worry about the future more than a day or two in front of us. With that we began to make our way to Florida's East coast with the intention of searching for shark teeth. I had done this with my Mom and Russ as a kid and my obsession for collecting being what it is, couldn't pass up the opportunity to do it again. As we left the outskirts of Miami, we headed one final time through the Everglades where and stopped off at the Shark Valley Visitor Center, officially making it to every stop in the park. Here we had planned to do a 2 hour Tram Tour through the uplands known as the River of Grass. This part of the park is known for its abundant wildlife and is the most likely part of the park that you will spot a genuine Florida Panther. Unfortunately, we underestimated the weekend draw of this particular section of the park and the Tram Tour was sold out for the next 2 hours. We decided that we didn't want to waste 4 hours of our day and also $40 of our money, so we chose to skip the tram ride and decided to go on a 3 mile hike down the bike path, which goes along a portion of the Tram Tour as well. The trail was of course teeming with alligators, anhinga's, and herons of every color and size, all of which was common place to us by now. Even an alligator that was blocking our path entirely, sunbathing himself, didn't even inspire us to take a photo at this point. We merely walked around, continuing our conversation as other guest to the park gawked, stared, and mockingly tempted fate, edging closer and closer to the alligator. Katie and I got a thrill of our own about 1.5 miles down the trail. Here there was not nearly as many tourists as there was closer to the visitor center as most were waiting for the next tram to board and didn't want to be left behind and thus didn't journey far. But away from the crowds, we spotted our first baby alligator! The first one we saw was more of an adolescent maybe about a foot and a half in length but as we kept getting farther down the trail and strained our eyes toward the opposite river bank, more and more baby alligators became apparent to us. We literally saw hundreds of baby alligators no more than 6 inches long, all huddled around one another looking as though black tar had been thrown on the green foliage. There were even a few adventurous ones that had swam out to their very own lily pad, soaking up the sun. Not surprisingly, nearby we also saw many heron's in the areas, sneaking around looking for an easy lunch. We agreed with the heron and decided we were due for a meal ourselves. We headed back to the car and ate our staple of peanut butter and granola bars while we drove through the rest of the everglades. We drove for hours until we reached the town of Punta Gorda... thats right... Punta Gorda. By this time the sun had almost set and Katie and I were still worn out from our all day adventure the day before. The van was hot and the sun was menacing and all I could think about was escaping to a quiet cool hotel room for the night, which is exactly what we did. We ordered pizza for dinner, the last one we would have for 40 days as Lent was about to begin and Katie and I had both decided to give up cheese, and relaxed the night away contented to be indulging in such luxuries. 
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