Florida in Pictures

This post is a description of my travel in various parts of Florida in December 2008.

We left Atlanta on 25th early morning without having much sleep previous night. Our first stop was Orlando. We hadn't seen sun for a few days in Atlanta as it was always cloudy. But as soon as we entered Florida, sun was shining at it's best. No wonder, they call Florida as "the sunshine state". We reached Orlando at around 2pm and 2 of us decided to go to Disney Land while other 2 (including me) decided to catch some sleep. Moreover, we were not interested in blowing away $80 to see Disney Land. It's not that I don't like Disney Cartoons actually I am a big fan of Aladdin, Duck Tales, Talespin etc. but still $80 for Disney Land is too much for me.




On 26th December, we spent whole day at Kennedy Space Center. It was totally worth it. We took shuttle launch experience where we experienced 3g forces, I think. Basically, if you were an astronaut, you'd feel the same force. We also saw the Apollo I's control room. It was nice to see how it all looked like back then. On a different note, watch out for alligators and black vultures in the Center. Then in the evening, we watched the much-hyped movie - "Slumdog Millionaire" which completely was something we were not expecting although unraveling of the story through Q&A session was quite good.




On 27th afternoon, we reached West Palm Beach City campsite. Our campsite was on the side of a beautiful lake (I forgot the name of the lake). Sweet fresh fragrant smelling breeze was blowing. After setting up the camp, we went to see palm beach. It was awesome and felt great. I was lost in thought. We sat there till the sun went down.




We traveled pretty much all day on 28th and reached Everglades National Park. I have to say that all the while we were traveling, we got to see beautiful landscapes. Sky was as blue as it could be. Sun was shining and giving pleasant warmth. Scattered white clouds forming interesting shapes. It was just amazing. At Everglades, our camp was right there on the sea-shore. I could see some islands on the horizon. Next day, I got up at 7 in the morning and it felt good; I don't remember when I got up that early last time. That day we hiked, completed two trails and did canoeing. Canoeing was so much fun. I was the navigator and took some time to get it right. We spotted a couple of alligators floating quite close while canoeing.



On 30th, we were in Key West. Key West is basically a group of islands connected by bridges. Due to last-minute change in plans, we had to sleep in car only :). On 31st, we relaxed in sunny and sandy beaches of Miami. Here, we also met this guy named Che who was a part-time Scuba-Diving Instructor. He had traveled in more that 70 countries. He had also been to India (some places in Kerala, Delhi and Punjab) in early 90's. He spent around 6 months in Kerala working for an NGO building something recyclable (I have totally forgotten what it was). One interesting guy he was. Anyway after celebrating New Year in Miami, we headed back to Atlanta on 1st Jan 2009. It was a wonderful experience.

Oh and the song: here it goes.