The Everglades and Miami

In the morning we got back on the road after staying in a hotel on the mainland but not too far from Sanibel. Our mission was now to see the Everglades. Well it turns out the Everglades are freaking gigantic, so it was a bit difficult to decide how to interact with them. Going to the National Park visitor center is usually a pretty solid move when in doubt, but this time it was pretty disappointing. The actual visitor center was small, and situated above a sketchy gift shop pushing boat rides aggressively. It wasn't really worth the stop, but it did free up time for some fun later on.

Native Americans have several touristy spots along Route 41, which traverses the Everglades. We decided to take a peek at a couple of them.

I feel like there were others, but the tribe that we interacted with was the Miccosukee.

I challenge any tourist to not stop when driving by a giant statue of a man punching an alligator.

We first checked out a gift shop area, and they were having some sort of a cultural festival which felt expensive to us at the time. The fan boat rides, though, now there's some entertainment.

At the mid point of the trip we were fan-boated (blown?) over to an encampment in the middle of the swamp. It's apparently a pretty old spot, and our guide said that the tribe is descended from the Native Americans who evaded government relocation by hiding in the Everglades.

Lydia was worried about wild animals, but I was on the lookout.

The ride was awesome, but it had an unfortunate ending. Despite the fact that we were right next to the dock, our guide wouldn't let us off the boat. I thought we were going to get a "be sure to tip me" talk, but instead the guide treated his captive audience to a weird rambling religious speech featuring a near-death experience. No tip for you, crazy!

Back on shore we ate at a nearby restaurant run by the tribe. We read that they had exceptional pumpkin bread, so had to have that. It was like a dense, crispy pancake sort of thing. It was great but filling. We hardly had any room left for our frog legs!

 The rest of the drive to Miami was uneventful, but rainy. Lydia had found a pretty awesome hotel for us to stay at, the Mayfair Hotel & Spa, which had these unique open air atrium things within it.

In a cruel twist of fate, the hotel's coolest feature ended up being its downfall. All of that rain mixed with the open roofing led to some serious leakage. Now I'm not a scientist, but I'm pretty sure that fan boat captain put some sort of a swampy curse on me for not tipping.

A Swamp Tour and a 32 Foot Alligator

We started off the day back on the road towards Slidell, LA.

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Lake Pontchartrain Causeway is the longest continuous bridge over water in the world.

Our first activity of the day was a Honey Island Swamp Tour. The base of operations was located just on the outskirts of Slidell.

The tour was clearly geared toward alligator watching but in between sightings our guide gave us lots of interesting information about the plant life in the swamp. He said that Spanish Moss didn't come from Spain but was named such by the Native Americans who noticed the similarity between the plant and Spaniards' facial hair.

The swamp people houses were another big highlight for me. Many of them were in disrepair and had been abandoned since Hurricane Katrina.

After another crawfish laden meal in Slidell proper, we took yet another last minute detour before returning to New Orleans. I enjoy the quirky-crafty flavors of Abita Brewing Company, so when I saw Abita Springs on the map I was practically obligated to go and check it out.

Well it turns out that the brewery has since moved to nearby Covington (sellouts!) but the brewpub where the magic began is still in operation. They had even crazier beer flavors than the few you can buy in St. Louis. We had one made for springtime that tasted like strawberries.

Speaking of quirky, most definitely the weirdest place we saw on the whole trip was the Abita Mystery House. It was completely packed full of mysteries.

One room was completely filled with odd little moving dioramas that told the story of Louisiana. 

This one was my favorite. I would have totally got an A in 7th grade history class with this baby.

When the aliens crash landed right next to a giant bassigator, things really got weird.

Why not make a wall by cementing glass bottles together?

"Devil Dog Bar-B-Que Sign. Both barbecued meats and a firm belief in the existence of hell are staples of Southern culture. Hot, spicy foods can't help but get associated with the Lord of the Underworld. With a fine eye for the Southern scene, set artist Dave Kelsey made this sign to appear with Tom Cruise in the film Interview with a Vampire--The Night Shift Historian"

32 feet. Get it?

Back in New Orleans we headed to the Garden District by trolley.

It's a bit hard to tell from this picture but many a tree and power line were completely drenched in beads from the frequent parades.

We saw a really cool cemetery but it was already closed. Womp womp.

The Garden District was so named because there were only a couple of fancy houses on each block surrounded by large gardens. The short version of the district's story is that the existing Creole inhabitants of New Orleans didn't like the influx of rich Americans and resisted them moving into to the established parts of the city such as the French Quarter. So the rich newbies just built their own neighborhoods in order to properly thumb their rich noses. We took a nice little self guided walking tour of the houses, but strangely enough I thought the fences were the best part.

Corn stalk fence. Never has there been a cooler fence.

I noticed some trees that had a lot of these little resurrection ferns hanging out on them. They can tolerate extremely dry conditions by getting all brown and crinkled and then pop up back to life when it rains.

Precursor to the chain link fence.

Run out of places to put fences? Doubtful.

We shopped around quite a bit for our last dinner in New Orleans. The French Quarter is just so crowded with tourists. The places that looked good had long waits and there were lots of places that didn't look very authentic. I recall vetoing at least one Italian restaurant. We finally found this nice place called Olivier's Creole Restaurant In the French Quarter. I had to fight the urge to order the rabbit. I recall the food being good and the waiter was super nice, which came in handy later. Unbeknownst to us there was a massive group upstairs that had the kitchen at an apparent standstill. I like to think I am pretty patient so the hourish-long wait for our food would not have bothered me incredibly. I was on vacation and in a good mood after all. But the waiter felt bad so he brought us free salads. Then a free appetizer. Then said pretty much just order whatever drinks and dessert you want on the house. More than one hurricane was consumed that night. They washed down the bread pudding nicely.

The nightly craziness on Bourbon Street was fun to watch but I wasn't much in the mood to participate. Especially on a Tuesday. Too much adventurin' to do!