Beyond Here

There is another thing Everglades is famous for and quite possibly why it is called everglades or sometimes the "river of grass". The sawgrass found in the park is not stuck to the ground but is floating and making its way to the ocean continuously. The water flows slowly from a lake in the north to the Florida bay in the south, covering a distance of close to a 100 miles. Since the water is shallow and flows over limestone, the sawgrass found here is also flowing at a very slow rate (or so they say, because the rate at which it is flowing is so slow, that it was unnoticeable to the human eye). The Skeleton Forest amidst the sawgrass Endless views of this can be seen at the Pahayokee Overlook which is a boardwalk to a bridge that overlooks this "river of grass" A bridge across nowhere - to the Pahayokee Overlook Also interesting is the Mahagony Hammock trail. Its a boardwalk to a small hammock (small groups of trees) which is home to the oldest mahogany tree in US. ...

When we decided to go to Everglades National Park for a day trip from Orlando, there was just one thing I knew about the place - I would see loads of alligators. The first one we spotted The guidebooks or websites warned, though, that while there is a good chance of seeing wildlife in the Park, nothing is guaranteed. So when we started on the Anhinga Trail and saw the first alligator, I remarked to my husband - "Look at this closely, this might be the only one we see today". I could not have been more wrong. For by the time we were done with Anhinga Trail alone, we had seen close to 30-40 alligators, in different sizes, most with their mouths shut but some with their mouths open. They were everywhere. And we saw them throughout the park. Even when we stopped my a small lake just for a quiet, peaceful moment, one of these swam up to the shore to bless us with his sight. The trail also provided lots of opportunities for bird watching - herons, egrets, anhingas were in abundan...

My writings on Epcot are not complete without this - my favorite ride at Epcot was "Soaring". It was a simulator ride which made you feel as if you were gliding or soaring over California. An exhillarating feeling and more so for us since we have been living in California for six and a half years. The ride provided a different view of the all too familiar sights of California to us. While I don't have any picture of the ride itself (we were all buckled up and everything), here is one of a nice exhibit outside the same ride. And a link from Disney's website with more insight into the ride. As a side note, there is a "test track" ride also in Epcot. Its famed as one of the fastest and longest rides in Disney history. And that was enough to scare me out of taking a ride on it. I am yet to hear the end of it from my husband because I wouldn't let him ride it either.

I am still at the airport, my flight is still not here and I continue writing. So as I mentioned in the last post, while in Orlando we visited the Epcot Centre. EPCOT, the word, stands for Experimental Project for Communities of Tomorrow. It was a Disney park, but with a difference - more nature and environment oriented, had some interesting shows and rides highlighting the interactions of humans with Nature, a world pavilion showcasing different cultures of the world etc. True to its name, there were many experimental projects being showcased also. One of these, which really had us interested, was their greenhouse effort, where they were experimenting with different ways of growing plants. For example, these chilli peppers that are being grown in small amounts of soil with just enough nutrient being provided. And you can also see the tomato vines hanging from the top and getting their nutrients from the centre tree trunk. Or these melons/cantaloupes growing from the top too. Notice th...

I am sitting at the Chicago airport, gate L2A, waiting for my connection to Detroit. And loads of time to kill. And since there is no wireless hotspot here, I thought might as well catch up on some of the blogging. I can type up the posts and then post them when I reach Ann Arbor. versus So I searched my computer for recent pictures and found some from our recent trip to Orlando. They were all taken at the Disney's Epcot Centre. (As a side note, I am a big fan of Disney parks, I have been to the LA Disneyland atleast 5-6 times in the last 6 years that I have been in San Diego). versus It being spring time there were flowers in abundance. Now I am a big fan of flowers growing just as they are vs. flowers that are made to look like something else. I remember commenting the same on one of Sigma's post too. In any case, when I found the latter mixed with my all time favorite Disney characters, it became hard to make the same choice. Here are the pictures of both kind. versus

Its a lonely world out there P.S. This is a view of the Florida Bay from Flamingo at the Everglades National Park. Just got back from a trip to Orlando and southern Florida, details to follow soon.