Starting backward

My preference when we are travelling is to explore flora, fauna, geography, and history. Being in the center of Florida there is much of that to see and do but mostly we are surrounded by theme parks and a LOT of people on Thanksgiving holidays. I actually don’t know if where we are staying has a name. We aren’t in Orlando, nor Kissimmee, (pronounced Kissimmee by the very few locals, not Kissimmee) rather in a limbo area of resorts and theme parks. Our resort, Marriott Cypress Harbor, is just about perfect; about 2 seconds from SeaWorld, and 5 from Disney.

We have a big and very nice apartment, in a central location, and it’s very quiet. I don’t know how many acres the property covers, many for sure, and there are lovely pools, ponds, and gardens as well as lots of space between the modest sized buildings. There is another Marriott nearby that must be 30 stories high, not my style.

We’ve been to a couple of tourist attractions (I’ll get back to them in another post) and enjoyed them well enough but yesterday we had a brief stint as Swamp People on the edge of Lake Kissimmee, which I know you are now pronouncing correctly. Lake Kissimmee is the 3rd largest body of water in Florida and is at the top of the Everglade water system. What is unique is that it is surrounded by cattle ranches and a nature preserve so there are no houses, high rises, resorts, shops, etc. I found Kissimmee Swamp Tours on the internet and loved their attitude: if you are looking for speed and thrills, don’t call us. Finding the place was an adventure in itself, and it is run by honest-to-goodness locals with real Florida accents, (I hope you can hear that I am writing this with a Florida twang) with a real passion for “old Florida”. 

bathroom art

the boat. seriously

We learned a lot from CW, our captain/guide, including that there are 1.5 million gators in Florida (who counted them?) and that about 70,000 eggs are removed from Lake Kissimmee every year to control the population. (The eggs are sent to farms and gators are raised for leather and meat.) CW was as interested in the birds, maybe more, which I loved because he was showing us there is more to Florida wetlands than alligators, although he did say that any body of water bigger than a bathtub has at least one gator in it. And he hates that Florida has a pest control spray policy.

Btw, if you get a chance to go on an airboat sometime, they are pretty amazing. Nothing protrudes below the boat, so they literally skim across the top of the water and even on dry-ish land. They’re smooth, fast, and fun. Also noisy so we had industrial strength headsets on so we could hear ourselves ask and answer questions.

they always look like they are smiling

apparently vicious predators

Bubba and Bubbette

 

It was a sunny day, in the low 70’sF (the only thing I’m bilingual in is temperature), but windy. On the water, whipping along in the boat, there was a pretty good wind chill. Camo seems to be the style choice in that part of the state so Jim & Barb were decked out in camo jackets, with broken zippers (don’t know if that’s a requirement), and I had a blanket for my bare legs. We had a great time and then stopped in St. Cloud at the Catfish Place, 10% off if you mention my name, for a deep-fried heart-attack-inducing lunch of turtle, gator, shrimp, scallops, and catfish. Yum; except for the catfish, which, of course, I didn’t try. Oh yeah, the in-house hash browns? Fabulous.
For more photos check my Facebook album.