From Geckos to Gators

We now know why East Coasters go to the Caribbean: it takes forever to fly to/from Hawaii from the eastern seaboard! After three flights, fourteen hours in cramped airplane seats, and five time zone changes, we arrived in Miami—exhausted, Circadian-confused, and ready for a shower. Fortunately, a member of the wonderful Warm Showers List came through in spades. Chris Stroup picked us (and our copious luggage) up at the airport, gave us his living room to re-assemble our bicycle and touring kit, drove us to get groceries, provided showers, and even took us out to dinner in Miami Beach. What a guy!

Chris grew up in New Mexico and had spent nearly twenty years working in mountain rescue. His move to Miami came after the state “restructured” his job out of existence, and now he has been in South Florida for “ten long years”. (The shift to flatland living and office-tedium from the mountain west and an adventure of a job has been tough.)

Our transition from Hawaii to South Florida was a bit less jarring. Certain aspects of the Sunshine State were reminiscent of Aloha-land: winter highs in the mid-70’s, a laid-back populace, palm trees tickling the belly of a big blue sky. However, while Hawaii had presented a benign ecosystem (no snakes!) upon a punishing topography (1,000 vertical foot climb from grocery store to home), Florida reversed these: a pool-table-flat topography teeming with menacing fauna. Here, alligators, four varieties of poisonous snakes, bears, and panthers all lurked in the swamps, awaiting slow-moving touring cyclists to devour. (”Meals on Wheels”?) For instance, as we rode west from Miami along the famed Tamiami Trail through the Everglades and Big Cypress National Preserve, we spotted 81 alligators in one day along the roadside! That evening we stayed in a campground in Big Cypress, where the campsites were arranged in a loop around a large pond. The campground hosts showed us a photo of a huge gator devouring a 70 pound German Shepherd whose owners had neglected the leash law. The next day, we rode through twenty miles of panther preserve where twelve-foot, barbed-wire topped fences had been erected to keep the giant cats off the roadways. Wild Florida indeed!

As we rode through the parks, we marveled at the scenery: great cypress trees, boughs draped in Spanish moss, their forks like hands holding airplants with bright red blooms, their trunks flaring wide as they entered the tannin-stained swamp. Innumerable birds patrolled the canal that hugged our side of the road: Snowy Egrets, Great Blue Herons, black Cormorants, towering Great Egrets, hook-billed Ibis, and watchful Osprey in the tops of dead trees. Alligators lounged in the sun alongside the canal, looking deceptively lazy.

Our second night we camped in tiny Sunniland at a park where the first oil well in Florida was drilled. In this part of Florida, you hit fresh water at a depth of ten feet or less, but they had to drill 11,500 feet to hit oil. A good metaphor, perhaps, for how hard our society is willing to work to maintain clean water or obtain abundant energy.

The following day, we rode through Immokalee (ih-MOK-uh-lee, Seminole for “our home”), an agricultural community based around the growing of vegetables and melons. Fourteen produce companies have operations in this town of 18,000 and five are headquartered here. As we rode into town, we passed “Farm Workers Village”, a public housing project constructed by Collier County for farm laborers. The homes were small and simple (hovels compared to the opulence of the coasts), and were connected to the city proper by a wide sidewalk. Repainted school busses stuffed with farm workers rumbled by us, heading out to the fields, while a few people walked or rode creaky bicycles into town. We stopped at a gas station at the south end of town, which boasted a walk-in beer cooler larger than most living rooms. The local paper had a front-page story about Burger King’s refusal to submit (as had Taco Bell and McDonalds) to the request by the Coalition of Immokalee Workers to increase their price per pound on tomatoes by one cent per pound. The story went on to say that workers’ rights organizations had found the living conditions of Immokalee workers to be among the worst in the nation. We bought groceries at a small store with an overflowing bike rack out front; were a tornado to deposit this store in central Mexico a la the Wizard of Oz, I doubt the residents there would find anything unfamiliar about its decor or product selection.

We pedaled through miles of citrus groves that afternoon; vegetables fallen from trucks littered the roadside. Ears of corn were the most common, followed by onions and tomatoes. That night we set our sights on a campground in Fort Meyers Shores, since a hot shower was in order. When we arrived at Seminole Campground, we found dozens of moldy travel trailers arranged in a grid around a central office, pool, and bathroom. Shoeless children played with sticks in the streets, while a goateed and tattooed man in a cut-off tee shirt buzzed around the grounds on a miniature motorcycle. Confederate flags flew at several “homes”; a bumper sticker on a rusty truck asked, “If your country’s so f***in great, why’d you leave it?” It quickly became apparent that this was a “campground” in name only; we were the sole tenters, and most of these “travel trailers” hadn’t moved in years (and likely couldn’t). For one night, we lived in a zoning loophole. Nevertheless, we got the most out of it: a dip in the pool, followed by a hot shower and a round of laundry in the laundromat.