Iguanas playing by the road, trees covered in hanging moss, and palm trees were among the first things I noticed after entering Florida. One of the things I found strange about Florida was that there has been multiple fires, I think mostly brush/grass. I was pretty surprised, given that everything seemed so lush and green. They never were very big though. Those are only the beginning of our surprises…
Daytona Beach
The first place we visited here was Daytona Beach. We were so happy to be in warm, sunny weather that I do not think we missed a single day of going to the beach. It was beautiful weather the entire time we were there. Here we found it very strange to have the sun set opposite the ocean. It felt really weird for the first few days.
Sebastian Inlet
Melbourne Beach was the beginning of our major surprises. We stayed in a nice spot on the very skinny island( at some points the island was so skinny that we could see both the ocean and the bay) right next to the bay. It was surprising to find that the bay was home not only to hundreds of jellyfish but also manatees and dolphins! We took our raft out and paddled to one of the many islands. We hoped that maybe we would be able to see some of the creatures but it was far to muddy. Our stay at Melbourne Beach also brought one of our worst surprises- biting midges. By now all of us are covered in itchy bites, with some of us nearing 100 bites. Hopefully we won’t reach that number though. The ocean here had the biggest waves that we have seen since Maine and also the warmest water(74). One of the fun parts about being here was being able to watch people surfing. Solomon found a coconut here and made us some really yummy coconut chips. It was way better than the stuff that you get in the store. It tasted amazing.
Miami
,When we were in Miami the temperature made it to 80! The only place to go to the beach around there was in the city. It was quite the hassle to get parking there. When we finally made it, we were so excited to go swimming. We found it very strange that even though there were hundreds of people on the beach almost no one went in the water. We couldn’t figure out why because even though the lifeguard’s flags indicated that the rip currents were ranked as medium risk and there was a small chance for “dangerous marine life,” it was the safest overall ocean waters we had seen yet. It was amazing to be able to swim so far out into the clear ocean. The greatest shocker came when we noticed that boats with big huge screens and airplanes with flags kept flying by with advertisements. I could not believe that they would do such a thing at the beach! One the funniest surprises here was when we were in a suburb to Miami and we found a whole bunch of chickens running around in the grass/landscaping outside Walmart! There even was a couple roosters! I’m totally serious.
The Everglades
If I had to pick one word to describe the Everglades it would be alligators. There was alligators all over. When we went for a walk they would be just hanging out right in the middle of the path or wherever they wanted. We saw over 200( NO joke, we got addicted to counting them). Pretty much all we saw in the Everglades was grass, shrubs, swamps, alligators, birds, turtles, and fish. There was definitely no shortage of any of these. We never saw any pythons, crocodiles, or poisonous snakes which are also in the Everglades.
The Florida Keys
The keys were nothing like we expected. They were covered in bushes and trees( not palm trees, there was only a few). It took us a really long time to find anywhere that even had a beach. When we finally found a beach, it was pretty but nothing like we expected. There was pretty much no waves and the water was murky and way colder. It was still pretty to see though. Since it was pretty much like a huge lake we could swim so far out in the ocean which was fun of course. The food picture below is a picture of the alligator meat that we tried. All of us, with the exception of maybe one or two, thought it was amazing. In my opinion it was really good. I would eat it again.