So, Key West…..it is without question one of America’s “playgrounds”. If you wander you can find older parts of the town (the island is one town) and you can see what it used to be – nice tropical gardens, clapboard houses and even the odd cobbled street. However, it has been taken over as a party location. Think a.n.other Spanish fishing village that is now a concrete tourist jungle 😔. We did find live music and Key Lime pie though 🙂! The other Keys may well have been a better location for us to stay (?). Some of them remain a lot more forested and other than Key Largo, are not as developed. However, we needed to see the Keys as part of our travelling and we did.

We moved on from the Keys and headed to Naples. On the way we stopped off at a lovely park in the Everglades. We didn’t do another air boat ride (we have done two!) but we did walk and saw various wildlife. Naples was just a stop off so we didn’t see much of it but left the next morning, again via another park. This one is the last remaining ancient Cypres forest in Florida (saved from the loggers). It contains trees that are, apparently, twice as old as the USA 😄. Quite a different experience. We also saw, for the first time, an Alligator hunting fish in a pond. To this point we have seen quite a few alligators “in the wild” whilst walking along paths and such, but they are rarely doing anything and take little notice of humans. The Egrits who were also in the pond, fishing and catching flies, kept a very close eye 😄.

On a more general note, the last week has had a few “hiccups” which have not helped with anxieties, but fingers crossed all will be fine going forward. We are now in Tampa and are off to explore what this city has to hold.