More Swampy Vacation

I'm not on vacation anymore.  I'm still writing about it.  Sure, there are other things going on.  Other people can tell some of those stories right now.  At least until I get the rest of my vacation stuff out of the way.

So, here we go.

Day two of our South Florida adventure started with another drive across the Everglades.  And again, it was peaceful.  Perfect weather, beautiful scenery, and my favorite part...

Very few people.

Our journey eventually landed us on the Big Cypress Reservation.

The last time I'd been there was probably about 11 or 12 years.  Lunchbox and I used to visit there on the regular, spending the night, enjoying the swamp, and soaking up some culture.  It was nice to be back.

Since it was Little Miss Sunshine's first time there, I took her on a swamp buggy ride so she could get a closer look.  Those swamp buggies can go where most other vehicles can't.

After the ride through wetlands and hardwood hammocks, we set out to find some more gators.  We weren't tired of them, and they seemed happy to see us too.

The fella on the bottom there was selected for the gator wrestling show.  We walked over to the pit to see the show, and I recognized a few familiar faces.

Manny (left) from the TV show Swamp Men and Tre from Gator Boys.

Although I didn't know them personally (only from television), the little lady and I struck up a conversation.  Once they found out that I was from Florida and we had a mutual friend (who taught them both how to wrestle gators), they let us help a little bit.

Instant swamp cred.  That was cool.  We spent a little more time on the reservation, then hit some back roads towards my home town a few hours away.  One of my childhood friends put us up for the night, we had some beer, then hit the road the next morning to see my brother.  He gave us the behind the scenes tour at Gatorland.

You know, with moar critters.

Another fun day, but unfortunately that was the end of our time with swamp critters.  We hit the road again and headed for Ocala.  An hour later we checked into our hotel for the weekend so we could work the Santos Fat Tire Festival.  We dropped our shit off and met some of our friends for dinner and beer at this really cool local joint.

It had a musical vibe that I was digging.

Finally, we were gonna stay in one place for a while.  And finally, this blog might get back to bicycle stuff.

See y'all tomorrow.