The Everglades

We slept in on the 24th, then had the most delicious breakfast at the hotel before heading out for our Everglades Adventure. While at breakfast, another hotel guest congratulated me on being pregnant and gave my belly a little rub. I again was flattered. She was a young girl, probably a few years younger than me, and she seemed genuinely excited for me. I think it is so nice to meet strangers who feel that excited for me and my baby. It was so dark and rainy at breakfast that Nic and I were glad we spent the morning sleeping in.


After breakfast, we took off for the Everglades. We stopped at the Ernest F. Coe Visitor Center  quickly. Then because of the rain and my doctor's recommendation to not ride on one of the air boats, we decided to drive down to Flamingo. As we got closer to Flamingo the weather got better and better. By the time we parked it was nice and sunny. When I hopped out of the car I was immediately surrounded by mosquitoes! I jumped back in the car and realized I was surrounded by them. I went crazy trying to kill them and realized I was going to have to suck it up and put on bug spray. My doctor had recommended AVON Bug Guard as a 1st choice, but said if the mosquitoes were really bad that I should use Deet. Since I had never seen so many mosquitoes before, I had read pregnant women attract mosquitoes, and I am already a mosquito magnet I decided to use the deet. I wore as much clothing as possible so I could spray as little directly on my skin as possible and sprayed it all over my clothes. 

We went on a boat ride out of Flamingo (don't worry, it was a big, slow, calm boat ride-not my usual style, but perfect for me and the baby).  We got to see mangroves, salt water crocodiles, and birds. After the boat ride, we drove back to the Anhinga Trail with the hopes that the weather would stay nice so we would be more likely to see some alligators. It was nice and hot when we got there and as soon as we started on the trail, I spotted this cool turtle (the Florida softshell turtle) right next to the path. I was pointing it out to Nic and getting my camera ready when I suddenly turned to my right to see an alligator about 6 feet from me! No fence, no ropes, nothing between me and the alligator. It was so cool!! We got pictures with the alligator and I must admit, even though he was small, being so close to a wild alligator with nothing between us was quite thrilling. We then got to check out the turtle right up close. As we continued on the boardwalk, we saw a huge alligator, at least 10 turtles including a little baby one, more than 10 alligators, and another type of turtle (red bellied turtle). We saw a few more alligators right along the path too. For a simple 15 minute loop trail, I couldn't believe how much wildlife we saw! We went on the Gumbo Limbo trail as well, which was right next to the Anhinga trail, but completely different. This trail showed off more of the plants and trees of the Everglades and reminded Nic and I a lot of the rainforest in Northern Australia. 

After that, we left the Everglades. On the way out, Nic spotted a huge alligator right on the side of the road! It was so cool! We had wanted to stop at an Alligator Farm to see an alligator feeding and a few other shows, but we ran out of time. Instead we stopped at a little cafe on the side of the road and tried some alligator bites. 

We also stopped at Robert Was Here fruit stand. I got the most delicious strawberry key lime pie smoothie!! It was AMAZING!! We had a blast checking out all the fruit, animals, and parrots. 

Then we took off on a drive to Biscayne Bay. We checked out the race track on the way. We didn't get there in time to go into the park, so we just checked out a nearby beach club area. Next we decided it was time to grab dinner at a local BBQ place Nic had read about on Tripadvisor. We drove past the Coral Castle on the way to dinner at Shivers. The dinner was SO good!! I got deep fried creamed corn and pickles. They were both so good, but the pickles were absolutely amazing!! Nic got ribs that he could not stop talking about. He also got collard greens and cornbread souffle as sides that were delicious as well. All I really wanted were more pickles for dinner, but my doctor always tells me to make sure I eat protein at every meal. I wanted to order the BBQ pork sandwich but they were out of pork, so I got the BBQ chicken sandwich for round #2 with sides of hush puppies and more cornbread souffle. Man did I get crap for that meal on facebook. It was a small little sandwich, of shredded chicken and BBQ sauce. How bad could it have been for me? Surely it isn't as bad as fried creamed corn and fried pickles in ranch, right? Since I couldn't stop thinking about the pickles and I've only ever had good ones like these one other time (in Pittsburgh) I decided to be a huge pig and get another order of fried pickles for the road. ;) Yum!!! When we got back to the hotel, we somehow managed to squeeze in a cookie each and some hot chocolate for dessert. 

It was not the glamorous, romantic way we usually spend our anniversaries, but we had such a fun, adventurous day!! I can't believe we have already been married for 4 years!! I love that we can be romantic, but I also love that we can get dirty and explore new things together. It was the perfect way to celebrate 4 wonderful years!! (even with the 50 bug bites I got despite the fact that I probably poisoned our poor baby with deet).