Hi everybody
I am so happy to be back - I can't even tell you.
I'd never had much desire to go to Florida, but since I'd been hanging out here, I was looking forward to the Everglades.
Our Florida trip was a visit to condo-land, where every inch of earth has been groomed and tamed. I made myself very unpopular with my comments and was told to zip my mouth, which really set me off (i can get very pissy).
For those of you in Europe who haven't seen this: this is a place where you cannot get the least thing without a car. There are endless miles of bedroom communities - miles away from any kind of shopping. There are no sidewalks.
Fuel efficiency is just a band-aid. Give those people grocery stores and you'll cut fuel consumption and emissions.
That's the inflammatory comment that got me in trouble.
I never got a chance to get going on habitat destruction and a number of other subjects I can get pissy about.

We did go to a nature park and a gator farm.
I did take some pics.

Here's a lizard we saw upon arrival at the hotel. It made me feel hopeful and excited.



these are pictures from the nature center:





and this is from the gator farm:



I did get a ton more gator pics, but most of them of juvie basins or through double layers of chain link fence. There are a few more pics in my drachenkram album, including a nice shot of a couple of Sebastopol Geese.

I really liked the young woman who did the alligator show and told her I'd love to have her job.
They also had some large, wild caught, non-native snakes there.

So that was it for Florida.
So, if there are areas in Florida, that are not completely paved, gardened, or golf coursed over - I didn't get to see much of them.

And I missed you guys