- We love Florida. Love it!
- The habitat throughout the state is much more diverse than we'd have imagined.
- 'Tis better to be in Florida than in New England, in March.
- Armadillos are cute little things.
- Alligators are sweet-natured. You don't want to get too close to a male during mating season, or a female with young ones, but they generally are people-shy, and are smoochy and huggy with each other in the water.
- Every part of this country has been deeply informed by its earliest inhabitants, the Native Americans. The influence is there in road layouts, water travel routes, coping with climate, foods, etc.
- Florida's northeast forests have a sweet smell.
- Disney World is far less "commercial" and kitschy than we expected. They are serious about ecological conservation, and most of the exhibits and rides focused on this.
- Miami and Miami Beach are two separate cities.
- Cuban food isn't spicy, but sweet.
- The Ringling Brothers, circus entrepreneurs, weren't goofballs, but savvy businessmen!
- Conch is pronounced "conk."
- Poisonwood exists.
- ATT beats out Verizon in the Everglades.
- Google Maps on a Blackberry or iPhone is one of the most useful programs you can have when traveling.
- Hammocks are hardwood-tree islands surrounded by sawgrass, or other flora. There are many of these in southern Florida.
- Cubans have been in Florida much longer than we realized, since the mid-1800's, when they established the cigar industry, well before Castro's regime.
- Bates RV is every bit as good as their ads suggest.
- The sand on the Gulf of Mexico is white because of its high proportion of quartz.
- Flamingoes are no longer common in Florida.
- The Everglades are not swamp-land.
- God surely had a hand in the national proliferation of Starbucks.
- When a trailer you are pulling is wildly swinging behind your car, one wants to accelerate, NOT brake.
- We have the capacity to live together in a nineteen-foot tube for a month. Guess the marriage may last another thirty years!
- Again, we love Florida. LOVE.
