Naples, Big Cypress National Preserve and the Everglades

We got to stay a couple of nights in Naples, and it truly is a lovely city. The beaches are gorgeous and it was warm enough to get out there and enjoy them for a bit. These are our sunset shots.

The next few pics are from the next morning.

One thing that I had to check was my calendar and make sure it wasn't Christmas, because there was traffic everywhere, in every parking lot and going down every street. Three lanes each way, and it was constant. There were as many out of state/Canadian tags as there were Florida tags. But I don't blame everyone for being there, I was enjoying soaking up some warmth like the next fella. 

We also enjoyed the YMCA here where they gave us a few days membership to enjoy their facility and Anthony found this lovely adventurous friend.

One of the days was pretty rainy, so we took advantage of it and decided to go to a movie, and it looked like everyone else decided to go to the 1:00 feature. The line was very long to get in and we waited about 20 minutes to purchase our tickets. We were complaining between ourselves that the tickets were $10/each but were looking forward to the movie. Does it need to be said that we were about the youngest people there? Well, we were. But we didn't complain when the lady charged us a "senior" price on our tickets, $8.50, and it gave us a bit of a chuckle.

On Friday morning we got up as usual and tried to find us a nice city park to cook our breakfast and ended up at a pickle ball tournament in one of the parks. Almost every parking place was taken but we could squeeze beside a picnic table. We got to enjoy our breakfast with the sound of pickle ball all around us. I hope the smell of bacon didn't distract the players. But it seemed like there were 100's of people there either playing or watching. It was the place to be on that Friday morning,

We then drove through Big Cypress National Preserve and the Everglades. It mainly was a lot of grass, vast amounts of it, at least that's what we saw the most. We decided to pull in to the visitors center of the Everglades and got to ride our bikes around the 15 mile loop, which we were able to get a closer look in the grass and saw our fair share of alligators and beautiful birds. It was fascinating, and wondered how many people who first explored the area came out with their limbs intact or alive at all. 

Just call Anthony The Alligator Hunter.

Looking forward to Key West next.