Paddleboarding, Alligators, and In-laws. What a day!

We were lucky enough to have visitors again this weekend. Marc's siblings live all over the country, and so his parents decided to road trip the country to visit everyone. They got here Saturday night and stayed until Tuesday morning. (This worked perfectly since Marc has Sundays and Mondays off.)

Sunday was a crazy day. Our church house is being renovated, so we're in a building with three other wards. This means we are booted to the 3:00-6:00pm time slot. This has some advantages, and some obvious disadvantages. We've only had it for two weeks, and both weeks we've had baptisms afterwards, which is really exciting, but makes for a long day. Marc is the ward mission leader, so he is somewhat in charge of them, making it so we definitely choose to stay. ;) 

Anyway, this meant most of our site-seeing time was Monday, so we made a big day of it. And now I'll get on with it. Also, I should put a disclaimer here: with four camera's we have LOTS of pictures, possibly too many, but they were hard to narrow down.

Bill Baggs State Park on Key Biscayne.

 They open this lighthouse to visitors twice a day. The first time they closed it, because Florida is flat and a mini storm came through and the lighthouse is the #1 lightning target. We went to the beach for some paddleboarding, and then returned for the next opening. The middle picture is looking up the lighthouse, the right picture is looking down as we went up the stairs.

Here are a couple views out the windows as we made our way up the stairs.

At the top of the lighthouse we were able to go outside and walk around the railing.

 The view was beautiful! Here are a couple of the views from around the lighthouse:



My phone has a feature that takes a picture from the front camera and back camera at the same time. We're trying it out to see if we like it. This is us on the lighthouse, and the view that we are looking at.

The Miami skyline super zoomed in.

If you look carefully you can notice the ocean on both sides of the island.

The grounds of the lighthouse included the renovated lighthouse keepers cabin, and outhouse.

 Don't they look right at home, rocking on the front porch?

 It looked so comfy we tried it out. The rocking chairs, not the outhouse of course! Though I thought the outhouse was very cute as far as those go. However, I only assessed the outside.

And then we headed out, pondering and discussing life. (Or so it looks)

Paddleboarding:

We went further down the beach, where we were all alone, and pulled out my paddleboard. Since it's a blow up SUP (stand up paddleboard) we haven't had time and a good place to pull it out yet. This was the perfect place!

Don't we look professional navigating the small ocean waves?

Marc and his dad learned quickly, for their first time standing and paddling. It did take a little practice, even though the water was very smooth for an ocean beach, there was enough movement to make it a bit more challenging. 

 

First there were lots of splashes, but they got back on.

The surest way not to fall off.

Then they got the kneeling down.

Then carefully, they made their way up.

 

And victory!

They are paddling and balancing like pro's! :)

 They say it's easier for women, since we carry our center of gravity closer to the ground. (Namely, our hips!) So I didn't have much splashing, until we started some team work!

Let the splashes begin!

With some prayers, and holding on tight we started with me taxi-ing Marc around.

 And then with a little encouragement, we switched!

But the real challenge came before all the practice. Marc's family all has a matching Fletch shirt that started when they were kids. Marc is the sixth kid, so we get a number six on our shirts, (yes we may have to start our family with twins to avoid family pictures of 666). Marc's dad is taking pictures of everyone in their shirts as they go visit them. We thought it would be fun to first take them on the paddleboard. But as you saw above, our paddleboard teamwork needs a little practice. So it looked like this:

 Let's try sitting down.

Now for standing up... on three..

Go team Fletch!

And we'll settle for the beach!

 Vickie stayed on the beach and took many of these fun pictures for us.

Above: view of Miami from our beach.

Below: view of the lighthouse from our beach.

The Everglades, Anhinga trail:

We went on the Anhinga trail, where the most alligators hang out for visitors to watch. These guys were laying out under the bush, right along the fence. It was fascinating seeing them that close, but also slightly unnerving. The only thing between them and us was a rail that had two 2x4's

 They blend in and hide themselves so well!

I'm pretty sure he was watching us as closely as we watched him!

 There were even some baby gators hanging around in the bushes. (Below)

 The Wildlife:
I just showed you too many pictures of alligators, but wait, there's more! Between the Everglades and the state park with the lighthouse and beach, there was a LOT of wildlife.

These guys also camoflage themselves well. The one on the right has a green body, but a very long brown tail. Is it a branch with a leaf? Maybe.

The state park had a lot of raccoons, that unfortunately didn't seem to scared of humans. And worse, the humans didn't seem to fear the raccoons. This is a view from the lighthouse, as we watched this man try to get the family of the raccoons to come closer.

 A close-up on a raccoon as we walked along the trail.

 And though it's cool looking, the grossest thing we encountered! They were all above us on one trail we took to the lighthouse. This wasn't even the biggest one we saw. I know Jason, you wish I'd taken you here!

Marc's hand behind the spider.

 Above: a vulture, they provide blue tarps to put over your cars, because these guys apparently like the rubber next to the windows on cars. Weird.

Below: The anhinga bird, for whom the Anhinga trail is named.

 

Thanks for reading! If you made it all the way through I should send you cookies, but we know that's not gonna happen. But I hope you were somewhat entertained.