A show that I watched regularly for a few months, was “CSI Miami”, and in the opening credits the airboat careens through the swamplands with Horatio standing ever so perfect, in his suit and his shades, while the Who is blasting in the background. One of the funnest experiences I had was when I was staying in one of the many luxury hotels Fort Lauderdale offers. I thought that it would be bikini filled days and all night dance parties, something I was not thrilled with, but I was visiting a very good friend who had moved to the city so I was ready to “While in Rome…”. However, he surprised me with a trip just outside of Fort Lauderdale, to the Everglade National Forest, and treated me to a high speed ride through the Everglades, on an airboat.
Not only are these rides exhilarating, but they are nature wonderlands, education mixed with excitement. The Florida Everglades are unspoiled expanses of jungle, and swamplands, filled with creatures that for me, had existed before, only in story books and in the movies. The natural habitat is truly one of the most beautiful and stunning in the world. When I was young I would frequent the Phoenix Zoo, in the city I grew up in…Phoenix, Arizona. The alligator exhibit there at once thrilled me and excited me, they were creatures so prehistoric, so powerful, and yet so still.
To see them in their natural habitat came close to blowing my mind. Add to that the plethora of exotic birds and colorful fish just beneath the surface of the water, and I felt as though I had come to life in one of those story books of my childhood. These animals were not part of my everyday life, I knew that they existed somewhere, and to finally be in that “somewhere” was simple breathtaking. I spent one week in Fort Lauderdale, and I did the requisite bikini beach day, and the all night dance party, but I could not stop thinking about my trip on the airboat, careening through the Florida Everglades wearing my cool shades and being amazed at the natural world that had surrounded me.