Florida 2010: Part 1 ~ Gator Park

Thanks for the welcome back everyone!  We had a blast on your trip to Florida and on our Bahamas Cruise.  Day 1 was spent napping, shopping and at the Beach, so we officially kicked off our trip with an AIRBOAT RIDE AT GATOR PARK!

We actually used my DROID YELP APP a lot for our trip to find out what people thought were the best places to eat, visit, things to do, grocery stores, etc.  We also lived by our navigator because Florida Freeways are confusing.

The Peeps at YELP gave Gator Park the best reviews out of all the parks.  The price is pretty reasonable as well ~ You get an AIRBOAT ride (where you the alligators come right up to your boat!), animal show and the chance to walk all over their park being tourists taking pictures for $22 (plus $3 off with the tourist book coupon). 

GO BEFORE 10 am and there is a coupon for buy 1 get 1 free admission in one of the FREE tourist books you can grab anywhere:D

I think I need to “learn” to take less pictures or maybe not give The Husband the camera because we have over 1,000 pictures to sort through ~ oops.

We had an hour before the Airboat Tour so we spent a little bit of time in the gift shop.

Think these are real?  Kinda creepy either way!

I tend to lean towards the “cuter” gators…..

I seriously wanted to bring this back to make my dad drive around with it on his dash board 😀 LOL…so funny!

The Husband has a “fear” of all reptiles/amphibians ~ he is actually kinda freaked out in this picture but I couldn’t resist 😉

We met their “pet” rooster that likes to be pet like a cat or dog – lifting it’s tail and turning around to have you pet it again and again.

Random Peacocks where everywhere….

But, we realized they were just trying to keep us away from their babies – they were so cute!

The tour guide didn’t get why I took a picture of this tree, but, I think it’s just funky and fun.

The everglades go for miles and miles….The long grass is called Saw Grass ~ if you slide up on the grass it doesn’t cut you, but, if you slide your hand down, it cuts like a knife (or something like that).

Flowers and lots of BUGS!

This was the cool AIRBOAT we all hopped into for a spin.  They give you ear plugs as well.

Our tour guide – he was very knowledgeable and pretty funny in a Laffy Taffy sort of way too.

This bird was our other “tour guide” ~ it stuck with us the entire ride flying back and forth but always landing right in front of us on the boat.

I don’t know how you all live in the HUMIDITY ~ it was SO HOT in Florida….here is our picture BEFORE our tour even started LOL.

We went on the very first tour because we read you may see more gators before the “airboat tours” scare them away.  Our guide said it will still too early, but, we did see about 5 gators on our 35 minute boat ride.

They just swam down the river right by us…no big deal!

Miles and miles of grass….

With random birds flying around….

This fruit is some type of swamp fruit ~ Apple? (I forgot the name).  You have to wait a month before it ripens and it’s supposed to taste like vanilla custard.

I can totally see how Melissa could spend hours out here when she lived in Florida.  It was SO peaceful.

Our guide did “crank” up the AIRBOAT to go as fast as they go for awhile and makes sure you get a little “swamp” water mist on you….That was sorta fun going all these random directions.  The funny thing about the everglades is that the water doesn’t smell since it is a constant flowing river….that’s what he says, but, I wasn’t really going to jump in to find out.

Especially when the gators swam right up to our boat!

Next up it was time for the animal show where our guide bought out a few “creatures” that roam the Everglades.

Tarantula ~ freaky!

Tortoise (land) and Turtle (water)

I think they look pretty annoyed he is holding them 😀

Do you know the different between the male and female?  The males shell is dented so he can go for a ride easier….Seems so wrong ~ HA!

Skunk!

Then, he brought out his “pet” alligator! I think he is smiling 😀

Alligator wrestling isn’t what I thought…I had visions of them tossing and turning in the sand…..but really this is all it involves.

If you put your hand on an alligators head (because you are crazy like that)….

It calms them and puts them in a “sleep” trance.

This little guy ran right by us after the show ~ I think he might think he is an alligator too.

We all thought it was totally worth the $$ for everything you got.  There are not many places you can go to ride in an airboat, watch alligators swim by, see tons of birds, saw grass and cool animals.  The tour guides keep everything pretty entertaining and it takes about 1 1/2 – 2 hours to do everything so the rest of your day is free!

Stay tuned for tomorrow’s Wordless Wednesday as it includes another fun picture from our trip!

Night all!