Day #7: Tuesday - January 8, 2002

I don’t even know what time it was, but my words about having the tent taken down around me just about came true!  Although the guys weren’t actually taking the poles out yet (which I have had happen to me before!), I was surprised when I finally opened my eyes to see that I was the only one still in the tent – and I mean there was nothing else left.  It was kind of nice – I actually had room for a change!  I was half-tempted to look out the door just to check and see if anyone was still there or if they’d packed up and gone home without me…

Unfortunately, I just wasn’t that lucky and soon heard voices of “encouragement” asking me to kindly move so they could finish packing the tent and get on the bus!  Reluctantly, I obliged and somehow managed to pull myself out of bed and into the last remaining set of clothes I could find that smelled even remotely like they were supposed to.  After throwing the rest of my gear into my duffle bag, I emerged from the tent to find that there actually was a lot of packing going on outside!  As far as I remember, though, I just shook my head, muttered something about how much I love getting up early in the morning and wandered off to the bathroom.
 

I noticed that camp was very not there when I returned...

By the time I had done my thing in the bathroom and found my way back to camp, it was more or less gone!  I did come across my bags and a few other stragglers, so I knew I was in the right place, but wow – see what you miss when you spend those extra few minutes brushing your teeth???  Assuming that everyone actually wanted to leave that morning, I hurried my gear over to the bus and wearily climbed onboard where I would spend the next several hours sleeping…

Or so I thought!  It had turned out that Kathy had scheduled for us to stop at Robert Is Here again on the way out, so that everyone would have a chance to indulge in their fruit-loving tendencies.  Even if I had wanted to sleep through the stop, I highly doubt that my twenty fruity companions would’ve made that possible, so I got up and figured that I’d at least be able to use the time to stretch my legs a bit before the long haul back home!  Oddly enough, we ended up even beating Robert to his own stand, but needless to say he had quite the smile on his face when he pulled up and saw our mob waiting patiently at the gate!

Maybe if I actually cared for fruit, I would’ve understood what was taking place, but I’m obviously not and thus was quite stumped as I watched bags upon bags of strange and bizarre fruits get loaded on the bus.  Either there was a huge smuggling ring going on that I hadn’t been tipped on to or these people just really loved fruit – and actually the first one made more sense to me at that point!  I’d never even heard of half of the stuff that was being purchased and some of it looked like it had come straight out of some sort of science-fiction movie, but who was I to judge?  I was me, remember – the guy that judges first and asks questions later!  I make no guarantees in regards to fairness, although I will admit that if you catch me while I’m tired, you’ve got a much better chance of getting away unscathed…
 

As Libby approached, these oranges knew they didn't stand a chance...   [Photo by Kathy Germain]

Anyways, after I had been around enough fruit to last me the entire year, I went back to the bus and prepared to finish the nap I had previously started.  Pleasantly enough, however, I found that Amber had gotten one of the famous fruit shakes – those same ones that I had completely forgotten about – and there was simply no way that she was going to finish it by herself!  I did do my part to help dispose of the dessert, but ice cream isn’t exactly a big hit for me in the morning and I had to seek a third source to finish it off.  Fortunately, Suzy was perched and waiting across the aisle and just as she had often offered earlier in the week to help dispose of any Ben & Jerry’s ice cream in the crowd, she was more than willing to lend the use of her bottomless-pit-of-a-stomach to help us out!  For the way she eats, why this girl can’t grow an inch or two taller is beyond me…
 

I scream, you scream, we all scream for, umm, fruit shakes? [Photo by Kathy Germain]

With Amber’s shake finally taken care of and several hours before we would arrive at the Corkscrew Swamp, I knew it was finally time to get some Zzzzz’s in and managed to fall asleep until we arrived at our destination.  It was pretty much mayhem once again, however, once we finally arrived and were given our last glimpse at wildlife in the Everglades.  We’d been told that it was common for Corkscrew to be the most memorable stop during the trip, so we were all excited to see what it had to offer!  There was only a little over an hour to spend over the entire 2.5 mile boardwalk, so we didn’t have a second to lose!
 

Is it weird to take pictures of complete strangers while on vacation?   Only if they notice...

I may have had high expectations at this point, but it still didn’t take much to blow me away.  Although the area may have looked similar to others we had seen in the past, it certainly did have some new aspects to it, with the largest being trees – not just a tree here or there, surrounded by bushes and marshes, but actual forests and everything!  If I had to compare it to something, I’d say it was a mix between the Pinelands and a marsh, but there was a whole lot more wildlife to see here!  I actually did feel a little spoiled, though, after seeing so many birds close-up at Eco-Pond, they almost didn’t feel like such a big deal anymore, but I still knew that after we left I’d never get anywhere near that close again up in Michigan, so I tested out my camera another hundred or so times, just to make sure it was still working…
 

Allowing dozens of people to take his picture, this proved to be one very patient hawk!

There were a lot of small ponds situated throughout the swamp and I was actually a bit surprised that we didn’t see more alligators than we did, but the abundance of plant life more than made up for the difference!  Some of the best images of Air Plants, Spanish Moss and Strangler Figs, along with countless others had I found there and it was getting hard to keep them all straight.  Luckily, I had come to the conclusion a while back that it would be easier to take pictures during the trip and identify everything later, so I didn’t waste nearly as much time flipping through books on the trail.  With only such a short period of time, I wasn’t about to spend it looking for some odd-shaped leaf!
 

This was quite possibly my favorite Air Plant picture of the entire trip... (interpret as "Ahhh, pretty colors...")

Speaking of the time, it’s just amazing how fast it truly did go by and before we knew it, we were informed that we only had fifteen minutes until the bus was leaving!  Although the thought of staying in Florida was still intriguing, it was quite a long walk back to Flamingo and if I were to stay in the Everglades, that’d would definitely be my first choice!  Nevertheless, it was fairly important that we made it back to the bus on-time, so we ended up skipping the last quarter of the trail.  It was hard to believe that we’d taken nearly two hours to walk a little over a mile, but nature does have that tendency with some people…
 

Do you see what I see???

Oddly enough, after running (yes, running) to make it to the bus, we soon discovered that we were the only ones back and not even Kathy was anywhere to be found!  Bill and Ruth Ann were ready and waiting, but we figured that there would be a little explaining to do if we showed up back in Michigan with only four of the original twenty-some, so it was time to hurry up and wait.  Slowly but surely, the crowd started to wander in and within the hour we were back on the highway, rolling closer by the minute back to the winter wonderland we called home.

The afternoon was pretty much spent the same way it had been on the way down, only much mellower than before.  K.C. and I took turns playing his guitar for a while as Amber fell asleep, and then we all congregated near the back of the bus to talk with Kathy about the most memorable parts of the trip.  While attempting to sound anything but profound, I thought it was interesting to hear how nearly all of us had the same general reaction – there had been just too much happening to have any one favorite place or day.  The entire package was well worth it and hopefully, if nothing else, this photo journal will help Kathy realize just how amazing the trip actually was and how much we all loved it.  That and a few laughs wouldn’t hurt, either!

We stopped just across the Florida border for dinner and it was already very apparent that we were on our way home!  Our vacation clothes were replaced by layers and winter jackets and we all knew that this was only the beginning.  The only major thought at that point, though, was whether or not we were going to find ourselves stuck in Georgia for any length of time again.  All we could do was hope for the best as the bus pulled into the parking lot…

There were actually several choices available in the area, any of which were possible selections as long as they offered take-out – we didn’t have much time to stop and eat, so it was just easier to have everyone eat back on the bus.  K.C., Amber and I finally decided to eat at Wendy’s, simply because there just wasn’t a restaurant known for its ham and turkey sandwiches in the area!  Upon entering, we were faced with an odd, yet shocking news story – Dave Thomas, the founder of Wendy’s, had died that day.  Maybe it was particularly different simply because none of us had really heard much as far as how the rest of the world had been functioning since we’d been away.  Needless to say, we all ate a little bit slower that evening…

Upon boarding the bus with our dinners, I started to feel what I had been denying for several days and suddenly accepted the weight of everyone else’s colds and illnesses for myself!  It felt like getting hit by a bullet train, and although I’ve never personally been through something like that, I assume it would feel at least as bad as I was feeling that particular evening.  I could already tell that it was going to be one of those kinds of nights when every single sneeze or cough wakes you up and even trying to move a muscle makes you feel weak and puny, or at least more than normal.

After fighting over which movie to keep the bus awake to, the draw finally came down between Gone in Sixty Seconds and The Bone Collector.  Of course, since I’d never seen The Bone Collector, we instead watched Gone in Sixty Seconds, but I did actually like that movie so everything worked out for the best.  By the time the movie had ended, it was about ready to attempt to sleep for the night, so we pulled into the nearest gas station to fuel the bus and allow us to prepare for slumber.  Looking back, I wish I had been able to get myself a little bit of that slumber, but I already knew that it simply wasn’t going to happen!  Unless the bus had magically gotten comfortable while we had been in the Everglades, I was going to be stuck with cramps for the next day and a half…