Southern Florida is hot

Especially hot in July, but I barely noticed it because we were in the air conditioning everywhere we went. And because it's hot here too.

We flew into Ft Lauderdale via $10 tickets from Skybus. The flight was delayed a little (both ways, actually) but other than that was really nice. The food was airport-priced ($2 for drinks or snacks, $6 or so for something more substantial) and was an overall good experience. The planes are brand new and really clean. Except where the kid dropped grapes on the floor.

We drove to Naples where Johnny's grandmother lives and visited for a few days. Here's a map, in case you are like me and didn't know that Naples wasn't near St. Augustine. Like djlove, we also got a cream PT cruiser which we affectionately called "the egg." Her gma lives about a 20 minute walk from the beach, so we went there for the sunset:
The next day we went to the beach around 9 am. It was already hot, so we only stayed a little while.

I got a little too much sun, actually, so we didn't get to go parasailing or kayaking or whatever we were going to do. Instead, we hung out with Johnny's relatives, which was probably just as important. And then we did a little shopping. Johnny got some fancy, shiny drawers.


We left Naples and went back toward Ft. Lauderdale, but I really wanted to see some alligators. I didn't know that the Everglades was a gigantic part of the state -- I always thought it was a park, like Old Man's Cave or something. So we drove through there and on the way saw the smallest post office in the US.


It is really small.

We kind of drove through Miami to get back and nearly ran out of gas, in the dark, in the panther crossing zone. But before that, I did get to see some alligators. We were really close, but on a bridge. I don't think they could have jumped up to get us.


The next day we went back to Miami to see the Art Deco area of South Beach. It's super beautiful.


I give south FL a thumbs up, but the real clincher was the mango trees. I wish I had one.