Glimpses of Southern Florida

Florida – Impressions from our first fortnight.

Here’s a post just to show you some of the things we’ve seen in Florida and what struck us as funny (“Funny – Adjective 1. causing laughter or amusement; humorous. 2. difficult to explain or understand; strange.) Like the fact that here you can apparently rent anything including road signs. So if you’re after a sign depicting where to stop on the red light call this fellow!

Not everything was funny. We were getting hungry on the way home one night (in truth we were lost and hungry) so we pulled into the carpark of what we thought was a bar/grill. Turns out we were one driveway short and was in the carpark of an Italian bakery/pasta shop. We really didn’t care but this was the view from the deck next to the canal where we ate. We should be lucky enough to stop in the wrong carpark more often.

One thing they do here in the States that we’ve noticed. They do things ‘BIG’. Check out the new Seminole Hard Rock Hotel being built here. That’s no 30’ gimmick like the Big Banana in Coff’s Harbour. That’s a multi-storey hotel under construction shaped like a guitar.

Another trip and we found ourselves in a mid-sized shopping mall. First thing to catch my eye was a stall where you can buy tasers, stun guns, mace and other fun things and no-one to be seen watching the stall. I think Shane wanted a taser to keep me in check. We had lunch nearby and ate Colombian. Some sort of mashed chicken and avo in a corn flour pocket bread. OK in a pinch but it was the size that got us. Every meal we’ve bought here has been big enough to feed two regular people. No wonder the USA is rated the most obese country in the world.

Just up from the Colombian feed (or was it another mall?) we spied a shop with a huge range of movie themed gifts. For our kids who are Star Wars fans we grabbed these pictures of some cooking appliances. Personally I liked the combat helmet made into a tank (?) complete with a grenade on it.

“Come to Florida” they said. “It’s always sunny” they said. Right. We haven’t had a day without rain since we got here. Actually the weather here is very similar to Townsville. They, like us, have a short wet season and the rest of the year is sunny and hot. It’s just that we hit here at the start of the hurricane (wet) season. One day we were at the caravan sales yard where we bought our “travel trailer” as they call them here. It was bright, sunny and dry when we pulled up. 45 minutes later these photos show the flooding due to a tropical downpour that came from nowhere.

Flooding like this isn’t unusual here because all of Southern Florida is actually a swamp. The cities and roads are all built on raised, reclaimed land. This whole area is flat as a pancake. For that reason there are lakes and canals throughout the city and these lakes are connected to the Everglades (I’ll post pix of our Everglades trip shortly). As a consequence alligators and crocodiles are common here. Though not considered aggressive one poor woman was taken by a croc a few days ago trying to save one of her dogs just up the road from us.

Next I’ve thrown in a pic of a not uncommon breed of patriot who loves flags. Finally there’s one of the best café/gift shops I’ve ever seen. It was in Florida’s largest shopping mall. We estimate we walked maybe 2kms from one end and still didn’t get to the other end. It is huge. In it was the “Rainforest Café”. The front right section was gifts etc while the front left was a bar. Obviously it is decorated in a jungle theme with robotic animals perched in trees and on walls and pylons throughout making the relevant animal noise. Shane and I have been that close to a leopard over our heads in Africa and we both shivered when the leopard in the 2^nd photo growled and moved. Behind the gift section is a restaurant that you enter by passing between two huge cylindrical fish tanks that are joined by an overhead tank so the fish can swim from one to the other. If you aren’t ready to eat you can sit at the bar on the amazing stools you can see in the photos. There is so much more to this great place but time was our enemy and so we had to leave without a stop here.

Believe me when I say this is just a small sample of what we found here is ‘funny’.

I was going to add dialogue of our trip to Key West on this blog but it is long enough already so I’ll make it the next post, possibly with our Everglades air boat trip. What I will add on to the end are some photos of our new RAM V8 1500 Dual Cab and I-Go 23’ van with slide out.