Home › Travel journal › USA East Coast
USA East Coast
Florida 2
June 2012
Sea, sun and schoolwork for the kids!
The CNED enrollment forms are in the mail.
That's it, we've put the kids to work: spelling drills, book reports, practice telling time (with the time difference, it's even easier).
I found some nice worksheets on the Grandir avec Nathan website, and they're even sorted by grade level.
Until we get our stash of books back in the RV, and then the CNED courses, this lets us do a few exercises.
In the afternoon, recess: off to Sanibel, the island of 400 kinds of shells.
The beaches are gorgeous, the sun is gorgeous, the sea is gorgeous!
Every tide washes huge amounts of shells up onto these beaches.
So Americans come here to relax, fish and do the "Sanibel Stoop". That's what they call bending over to pick up shells and collect them.
The sand, finer than anything we've ever seen and a really, really bright white, looks like "moon dust" to Alice.
That's it, we've put the kids to work: spelling drills, book reports, practice telling time (with the time difference, it's even easier).
I found some nice worksheets on the Grandir avec Nathan website, and they're even sorted by grade level.
Until we get our stash of books back in the RV, and then the CNED courses, this lets us do a few exercises.
In the afternoon, recess: off to Sanibel, the island of 400 kinds of shells.
The beaches are gorgeous, the sun is gorgeous, the sea is gorgeous!
Every tide washes huge amounts of shells up onto these beaches.
So Americans come here to relax, fish and do the "Sanibel Stoop". That's what they call bending over to pick up shells and collect them.
The sand, finer than anything we've ever seen and a really, really bright white, looks like "moon dust" to Alice.
Here, mosquitoes don't bite, they impale...
Watch out, the Crocodile Dundees are coming! Happy Birthday Annie!
We leave the house at 10 a.m. for a 2-hour drive to Big Cypress Preserve, 1 of the 2 nature parks of the Everglades (along with Everglades National Park).
We set our sights on Billie Swamp Safari. When we arrive, an airboat ride lets us discover buffalo, alligators, a mind-boggling number of dragonflies and lots of birds.
The buffalo are in the water up to their snouts and "run" off (they're pretty laid-back) when the boat comes by. Juliette tells the rest: "There was an alligator just waiting for someone to fall in the water so he could eat them up.
I also saw an eagle but we didn't take a picture of it.
I saw swamp buggies, they're like 4x4s but as big as a tractor."
Then a show of Florida animals: anteater, tarantulas, scorpions, alligator snapping turtle (you can recognize it by its single hooked tooth at the bottom), which gets Alexandre talking about "toad lizards" when we meet a funny lizard puffing out a red throat: "If there are alligator turtles, why can't there be toad lizards?!".
Like any self-respecting foreign tourists, we of course held the (ferocious) 2-year-old baby alligator in our (shaking) hands!
The Everglades: the first place on this tour of the Americas where we truly felt that nature ruled over man.
The Keys: heaven on earth.
We leave the house at 8:30 a.m. for a 3-hour drive, a bit rough with the kids...We arrive in Key Largo. What a beauty. Now I understand why the grandparents named their house in Nice after it.
One small catch: the place is suuuuper touristy and the waterfront is completely private (hooray for France's coastal law that keeps beaches public!), so we're wary of having lunch in some tourist-trap joint.
Without missing a beat, we decide to crash the Hilton hotel to enjoy their beach and grab a quick bite for under $55 for the 5 of us!
A pleasant bay where the kids can touch bottom for a long way out, the sea is turquoise, the water very warm.
Oddly enough, you can't see your feet when you walk. The very fine sand mixes with the water, which quickly turns an opaque green.
Watch out for stingrays (photo), flat fish that live in the sand near the shore and that, if you step on them, slice your feet open while trying to get away.
If you get stung, you're supposed to pee on the wound and rush to the ER!
To avoid the hospital and the giggles, you need to know THE technique: don't step down into the sand, slide your feet along it instead.
Result: on every beach in Florida you can hear the GUYOT parents: "Kids, don't forget: SHUFFLE YOUR FEET!!".
We push on to Marathon along the Overseas Highway (U.S. Route 1, which you can "adopt", business is business), and settle down on a gorgeous family beach called Sombrero Beach: we meet a chameleon ("Whoa, it's Rapunzel in here!" say the kids), and families come here to swim and float on American-size air mattresses!
We won't go all the way to Key West, but we do cross the legendary Seven Mile Bridge, built in 1982 and measuring... 7 miles!
On the left, the Atlantic Ocean as far as the eye can see. On the right, the Gulf of Mexico, turquoise water and a few patches of bright green: the other islands on the horizon. Truly magical!
On the way back, totally by chance, we decide to stop at Duck Key, where we discover a little sport-fishing harbor and its locals, and decide to stay for dinner.
The place is mellow, the people are friendly, the setting is lovely. The Guyot family feels right at home!
What a great day!
