Davie Monday

Monday was my favorite day yet - and since Tuesday was spent traveling home, this means that Monday was the best day of vacation! =)

We slept in just a bit, then Chad made some great pancakes and we ate breakfast on the lanai. A lovely way to start the morning. We were trying to get some geocaching in before Chad's classes, but it just didn't work out. Angie had just finished work, so we all met at the school. We traded Chad for Angie, and then went back to the house where we left Angie & Abby so Abby could have her nap. From there, Greg & I headed out to see the Everglades.

We stopped en-route for an earth cache (of course there was a cache!) - learned loads about the Everglades and saw another strange vending machine. We don't have branded vending machines here (except maybe soda), so these are interesting to me...

And so you know that wasn't the only interesting thing there, here is some of what I learned about the Everglades: Because of the expansion of humans, the Everglades are shrinking - they're currently only 50% of what they used to be. Five major bodies of water feed the Everglades (can't name them). There are only two seasons: wet and dry. They can absorb trillions of gallons of water in just a year. There are several projects in progress or being planned to help preserve the Everglades and strike a balance between the needs of people, and the survival of the animals that inhabit the Everglades.

Our date with the Everglades was on the Seminole indian reservation, with a company named Billie Swamp Safari. Options were an airboat ride or an eco-tour. The eco-tour is done over land in a monster dune buggy-type rig - looked like it would be fun, but in the interest of time (and seeing alligators), we opted to do the airboat ride.

Monster buggy

Airboat transport

We had a bit of time before our ride, so we wandered around the premises. They had a mini-zoo, with some fun (?!?) exhibits: alligators, lizards, colorful birds (that bite), and turtles.

On the ride, we saw plenty of animals. Because of my seating location, I didn't really get a good photo opportunity until the boat was close to or passing the animals. Which means that I got lots of animal butt shots. =) And I finally got to see a wild pig. After missing out on them yesterday, it was cool to see them today - along with the water buffalo, land buffalo (bison?), alligators (galor!), ostriches (we saw two!), cows, and various birds. It was great!!

Wild pig!

Water buffalo butts

Hungry alligator

Once we were done safari-ing, we headed back to Davie so we could hook up with Chad & Angie again. Plan for the evening: hang out, geocache, eat, have fun... in no particular order. We headed out to one of the local beaches. It wasn't that far away - maybe 10-15 minutes from the house. We wandered the boardwalk (which was really a stonewalk), played in the ocean, watched some people dancing, and had dinner. The moon was bright and full.

Sea Oats are important

All our feet in the Altantic

Dinner by the shore

A lovely moon

After dinner, we cached our way home. Although we tried for several, unfortunately we were only successful in getting one cache. But we're all on the log - Abby & Angie are cachers now too... I suppose I should start logging my finds. =)

The only way the evening could've been more perfect was if we had some famous key lime pie... Oh, right! We did!! And then we stayed up entirely to late, visiting and chatting and enjoying each other's company. All in all, the most perfect day of my little vacation.

On tap for tomorrow: time to go home. =(