Journey to the Kingdom of Florida (Final part)

We stayed in another Holiday Inn in Miami. 

This hotel was not as good as the Orlando one but it was descent for the price that we paid. The Miami that I had imagined from watching all the Miami vices(TV series) was nothing like that. It actually looked quite nice, green with all kind of tropical trees including large mango trees, something that I saw first time since entering Florida. This gave me immense joy as I have very fond memories of my grandparents mango garden from my childhood years.

We went to visit Marco island next day. This was sort of off the way but considering the day was in

the colder side there wasn't much we could do in Miami. It wouldn’t be a great day to be outdoor.

However, in Marco Island, an island city about 200 miles away from Miami was slightly warmer. It had

one of the finest beaches in Florida famous for its shells. My kids had always wanted to collect

shells from a sea beach. This was their opportunity to do so. Even though it was sort of windy and

perhaps a little uncomfortable temperature wise we still spent hours collecting all kind of shells.

It was a gorgeous day with sun shining over our head. We wished the wind was weaker, so that it

wouldn't feel so cold.

 

 The one reason why trip to Marco Island was so memorable is that we happened

to see real and live alligators lying down by the canals that went along the road in some areas.

There were wooden barriers in some parts of the road and many warning signs to warn the visitors not

to go too close. There were several occasion when many visitors had stopped by the road and

photographed those amazingly peaceful looking animals. Honestly, as far as I am concerned, that was

the high point of my Florida trip. 

 

Next day we went to see the coral reef close to the Keys. This is the only continuous coral reef in

the continental USA that is located so close to the main land. We went to Key Largo to take a glass

bottom boat. I had called them up from Canada and reserved our places. Weather is always a concern

for these type of trips. During bad weather the boat authority usually have to cancel such trips.

Fortunately, the weather was great on this day and we were quite eagerly looking forward to this

trip. The boat filled out rather quickly with mostly families with kids. The center of the bottom of

the medium sized boat was built of thick clear glass allowing onlookers a relatively good glimpse at

the bottom below.

It took us about 40 minutes to reach the shallow points where the coral reef ws

located. Even though the wind was slightly stronger than we expected making the water relatively

murky we still had a reasonable view of the reef. In summer people come here for snorkeling (scuba

diving). Whatever we were getting in December was more than one could expect. The best part was the

kids really enjoyed it. They actually took sincere effort to see the corals and the fishes that hung

out there. 

On our way back from there I thought of driving all the way to Key West- the southernmost point of

Florida Key where the famous writer Ernest Hemingway had lived several years. However, the traffic

was horrible and I turned around going only few kilometers. I did not want to waste several hours on

the road, not when the kids were tired and wanted to go back to the hotel.

                                                          Hemingway's House in Key West

On our way back to the hotel we stopped at Crandon beach. This was a wonderful beach with white sand

and coconut trees. There weren’t a whole lot of people but the view was absolutely beautiful. The day

was quite warm and the kids played with the sand for a little while. Mili was feeling a little cold

and stayed mostly in the car while I and the kids spent considerable amount of time playing on the

beach and collecting fallen immature coconuts.

We returned to our hotel in the late afternoon. Washed up and had dinner in the near by Cuban

restaurant. Miami is the home of many Cubans and it seemed like the right thing to do. The dinner was

very good. With it our Florida trip concluded.

Next morning we checked out and started back. We had a long way to go. We stayed overnight in two places including Washington DC before reaching New Haven, Connecticut to see my parents and sister's family.

Overall a great trip! I wanted to do this for a while and it was every bit of what I hoped it would

be.

Next? - Grand Canyon, Las Vegas, San Francisco. When? No clue. Whenever it is I'll keep my readers

posted.


[Read the author's current book - Kicking in Toronto. Get it from Amazon.com] 

Journey to the Kingdom of Florida - Part 7

Among other theme parks in Disney World we enjoyed Epcot the most. The kids seemed to enjoy the rides there though for most of the good ones the wait time were too long in some cases as much as 2 hours or more. I am always scared of any rides that have moving parts, simply afraid of the possibility where something could go wrong and the long wait time was a relief for me as I used this as an excuse to skip some of the serious rides. The only one that I went for was the rocket launch simulation. We were taken into a realistic looking cockpit of a rocket and had to go through the experience of a virtual launch process. It was definitely a great experience and seemed quite real. However, as far as I was concerned nothing really moved in reality, so no worries. Just to give you an idea why this ride can be slightly scary for some people - the rocket accelerates at a very fast pace and can cause serious nausea and even heart attack. To my relief I did just fine through the process but Mili started to feel very nauseous after the experience and had to be rested for several hours. She ended up spending hours lying down on a park bench while we went on to check out some other displays.

We stayed in Epcot pretty late and enjoyed a marvelous fire work show.

The theme park named Hollywood Studios was another good park to visit specially for young kids. The two events we really loved there were – Indiana Jones show and a car stunt show. Both were memorable shows. We also enjoyed some of the 3D-4D shows. The kids were quite occupied though they complained about the lack of rides. The whiners.

Indiana Jones show:

Car stunt show:

Our friends who were visiting Florida with us left on the fifth day. Our plan was to visit the Animal kingdom in the morning and drive to Miami in the afternoon. Considering Miami was only a few hours drive this seemed quite doable. Unfortunately it was a cooler day with a drizzle. I had earlier checked that weather in Miami was slightly warmer as it was further south. All of us were happy to move out of the sudden cold patch in Orlando. Among several things the safari in Animal kingdom was very good. It did give a solid experience of being in an African safari. Not to be missed.

The African Safari: