day 10, Sunday, 2/6/11: Miami

Ship arrived in Miami at 5:30 am, right on time.   Capt. Knorring did a great job.  We disembarked about 9am, shuffling off as a large group to our tour buses.  Our luggage conveniently stashed on our bus, we left for a trip through Miami to the Everglades. 

We arrived at 'Everglades Safari' and took an airboat tour of the Everglades.  Learned it was a huge river, not a swamp, and saw lots of interesting birds, alligators, turtles and fish.  One of the guides put on a little 'alligator show' at the end, feeding a group of six 'gators in a large cage and talked about their biology and psychology a little while he fed them.  Then he brought out 'Snappy', the cutest little baby alligator.  We didn't pay for pics with him, but he was SO adorable...

Then it was off to the airport to wait and wait and wait for our 7:30pm plane.  The flight was uneventful, we read and slept and read a little more and touched down in LA about 11pm.  Took a very brief cab ride to our car at Janet's house.  It was far too late for them, so we snuck in and got our keys and left a little note of thanks behind.  Hopefully get to actually see Janet on Saturday when we go to the theatre with her mom.

Finally, we reached home around 1am or so... started the first load of laundry and fell gratefully into deep and comfortable sleep in our own bed.  That felt so great, even though it was almost 4am for us when we finally got to sleep.  Slept til 6am - that's 9am Miami time, so it still felt like enough even though  it was only 5 hours sleep.  After all the sleeping on the plane, I guess it was enough. 

I still feel like I'm on a moving boat... everything feels like it's rocking and rolling...  And now it's back to the same old routine.  Mah Jong at 10am today, gaming at 6pm.  Somewhere in there, I've got to make it to the market for a little shopping - no one is just gonna magically bring food out of the ship's kitchens for me anymore *sigh*.   It was a wonderful vacation, but it's good to be home.