Everglades 3

Must be 80 today. We started with a bike to the channel inland. Dusty on leash running beside me. I pushed as hard as I could, but she could always pass me. She runs like a cheetah. Pushing easily, low and fast. 3 miles of that and she may sleep awhile as Sandy and I head out for Snake Bight. The bike ride is 7 miles one way, hot and neither of us has biked in 5 years. We push to make the 1:30 ranger led walk. He talks of the biology of the everglades as the mosquitoes swarm by the thousands. We try to keep or attention on the Button tree and the limbo Gumbo and how great it was for the people that lived here hundreds of years ago. We give up half way through and head back, too many biters. We stop at every lake on the trip home. Telling ourselves it is to see the nature. Really it is to rest at any possible moment. On the edge of a close lake we sit on the grass and watch the grebes and egrets fish and eat in the small lake. I see movement 30 yards away and watch a crocodile float out from the far shore. Another one basks in the muddy shore 20 yards from him. Little brown birds are drawn to the croc and swim closer. The floater starts to move toward us and we laugh and pretend to be nervous. When he is within ten feet of us, we don’t need to pretend anymore. He stops dead on, facing us and stares. I am ready to bolt, but he drifts off for another shore. The next stop a crow makes noises I have never heard from a crow. Puppy is very glad to see us and the three of us fall asleep soon after arriving home.